Friday, 30 April 2010
Thursday, 25 March 2010
What Have You Learnt About Technologies From The Process Of Constructing This Product?
During the process of creating and constructing our media product, (A film noir opening), the group and myself learnt of how easy it could be to actually film your own media product and edit it into its final stage. We find it to be easy as there are programs out there that are easy to get and are very simple to use for beginners but have technical aspects to them as well to make you media product all the more better. The two main programs that the group used to make our product where Garageband and iMovie. We used Garageband to make the music for our media product, (Our film noir opening), it was easy to use at it had the different genres of music and it had the correct genres that would fit our media product. Making it easier to make a track. We used iMovie to edit our film and put it together, it was rather easy to use as the placement of the tracks only involved dragging them onto a certain area on the screen. After placing all of the pieces of the film that we wanted, we had to the scenes turn black and white. Then we had to drag the music that we had created over certain scenes that we wanted to have music. After this it was easy to put the titles in and to crop certain shots. Before finishing our film, we used Photoshop to create our production logo. It was easy to use the program to get what we wanted to use for our final logo. Overall we found out that it is rather easy to create a short film without using a big budget using simple programs that are available for home use.
Monday, 22 March 2010
Who would the audience be for our media product?
We intend our film noir opening to be fit for viewing for the ages of 15 and above meaning that anyone below the ages of 15 should not see this if it was a real Noir as the content in it may be unsuitable for them and they try to imitate the film. We think this because if it were to be a full film it would have all of the conventions of a classic film noir, which usually appeal to older audiences. Such conventions are; Drug references, violence, drinking, smoking and sexual references.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Wednesday, 10 March 2010
What Kind of film institution would distribute our media production of a Film Noir opening?
Adam, Robert and I feel that our film opening if made into a full film would be distributed by a British company. We think this as our opening is of low budget and there are many British institutions out there that produce low budget films for TV. The institute that we would want to produce our opening would be Film4.
We want Film4 to produce our opening as they have there own production line named Film4 productions and they have produced a few low budget films. Films they have produce include Borat: Cultural Learning’s of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan, Bruno, Four Weddings and a Funeral, This is England, Train spotting and two well known films, The last King of Scotland and Slumdog Millionaire.
We think that a Hollywood production company wouldn’t be best for our opening. This is because they produce big budget films and the films they produce are always widely released in cinemas and with our opening being an independent film and low budget we believe that it wouldn’t give out a big profit if mass released. So if Film4 Produce our film opening it would be released to a select few cinemas in the UK, from this point if the film was received well and we made a profit from the release it would then be massed released by the production company, if no profit is made by the release then the production company would pull the film from the cinemas and would then either be released on DVD or shown on the production company’s TV channel Film4.
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Prop and costume ideas
Wednesday, 10 February 2010
Plot synopsis
As the logo and all the titles (barring the actual film title) appear and slowly fade away, we are introduced to the first scene of a man hiding in the shadows watching another man. This then cuts to another shot of the man hiding behind a street corner as the other man slowly walks out of the shot. It then changes to a close up of the man walking away and the mystery man begins walking behind him. As the mystery man approaches the man in the foreground notices the man trailing him. A chase is then set in motion as the mystery man follows his “prey. Part of the scene is then filmed in the reflection of a car mirror, the chase continues until the “prey” reaches a dead end street. The mystery man pulls out a gun and a close up of the gun is shown as well as the gun shot is heard at the same time as the close-up. The camera then cuts to a shot of the “prey” laid on the floor, dead. This cuts to a low angle medium shot of the mystery man. The scene starts to fade away and eventually fades to black. This is then the cue for the film title to appear, which then disappears to show the dead body still lying there. It cuts to a shot of a mans feet and the camera begins to pan up his body. The camera passes up over his body until it reaches his face and shows he is looking at the body. The man then reaches into his jacket pocket, and pulls out his glasses and proceeds top put them on.
List
Actors
Murderer: Nathan Stead
Victim: Calum Beach
Locations
Beachfield Drive unless better location is found.
Gun
Trench coat(s)
Suits, i.e. trouser shirt and tie
Fedora hat(s)
Fake blood or other blood substitute
Sunglasses
Script
Shadow of a doubt Script
EXT, back streets at night.
Mysterious man Hiding behind a corner in shadows, watching the victim waiting for a good time to follow.
Victim Walks down the street.
Mysterious man Walking out of the shadows beginning to follow the victim.
Victim Turns to see the mysterious man, then he begins to run.
Mysterious man Begins to pursue the victim.
Victim Runs into a dead end.
Victim Turns around to face mysterious man.
Victim
Of all the people I wasn’t expecting it to be you.
Mysterious man reaches into his coat and slowly pulls out his gun, and loads it, and slowly points at the victim. He then pulls the trigger.
Victim then falls to the ground fatally wounded. Looking up at his killer, with his vision slowly fading.
Fades to black.
Cut to title in the victim’s blood.
Slowly zoom out to reveal the victim’s corpse.
Slowly pan to the detective’s feat. Camera tilts upwards to reveal the rest of the detective.
Detective
Sighs
Not another one. Get forensics.
Detective reaches into his pocket and pulls out his sunglasses and puts them on.
Detective
We have to catch this guy before he kills again. I think it’s about time we cracked this case.
Monday, 1 February 2010
Film Noir camera shots
Audiences of Film Noir
Film Noirs are generally adult oriented movies as they sometimes contain violence, sexual references, adult themes, drug references and drinking, smoking and foul language.
Classic Noirs when first released normally classed as PG as they couldn’t show many of the characteristics from above, for example they didn’t show much violence, had no foul language in them and showed hardly any drug references.
Neo-Noirs i.e. new Noirs are usually released as 18’s as they do sometimes contain violence, drug references, drinking and smoking and foul language, for example L.A. confidential is an 18 as it does contain these characteristics. This of course doesn’t mean that all New Noirs that are released are rated 18, as The Dark Knight released in 2008 is classed as a Neo Noir and was rated as 12 A in the UK.
Our opening
We intend our film noir opening to be fit for viewing for the ages of 15 and above meaning that anyone below the ages of 15 should not see this if it was a real Noir as the content in it may be unsuitable for them and they try to imitate the film.
BBFC
BBFC stands for British Board of Film Classification and it is a rating system that chooses what age rating film will be when they are released. They look at all key points of a film to see have any criteria’s that fit the definition of an age range. The criteria’s that fit the age ranges of 15 and 18 movies.
15 Films
Discrimination
In the whole of the film there must not be a single reference or phrase that can be related back to a racist or racially derogative term. Should a film incorporate this it need to be given a higher rating or remain unclassified.
Drugs
In the film if there is a particular scene that incorporates drugs it must not fully endorse drug use. It must not make the idea of taking drugs appeal to audiences of the film.
Horror
Scenes of strong threatening behaviour are allowed unless the scene becomes sadistic or even sexualised.
Imitable behaviour
In the film, there should be no scenes that glamorise easily accessible weaponry. There should also be no scenes in which suicide or grievous bodily harm to oneself should not be shown so as to allow these acts to be imitated.
Language
Certain words such as “fuck” can be used but must not be used in an excess. However the stronger words must only be used if they can be justified by the context of the scene.
Nudity
There are no constraints on the acts of sex in a 15 film. However the acts performed must not be in great detail or be too explicit.
Sex
Sexual activity must not be in strong detail and loose references to sexual acts are allowed. However the strongest of these references are not permitted unless the context justifies them. A sexual act with the sole purpose to arouse will not be permitted.
Theme
No themes are not permitted as long as the content is suited for persons of age 15 or higher.
Violence
Strong violence is allowed but it must not dwell on the actual infliction of the damage and the scene. The strongest of these gory images are unlikely to be accepted. Strong sexual or sadistic acts of violence are not permitted. Verbal references to sexualised violence must be discreet and have strong justification to the context.
18 Films
Material that breaches a law or is an offence of the law.
Where the explicit images from sexual acts that cannot be justified by context. Such images may be confined to R 18 only but some are in ordinary 18 films.
Where there are images that risk harm to individuals through behaviour. Such as violence or dangerous acts and harm to public health morals.
Sex scenes I 18’s can be used as education purposes and are permitted.
Sex material containing certain only normal sex can be passed as 18. However films, which have strong fetish material or incredibly explicit animated images, are also confirmed to R18 films. Material which is unacceptable for R18 films are also acceptable for ordinary 18 films.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
The History of Film Noir
Film Noir (literally 'black film or cinema') was coined by French film critics (first by Nino Frank in 1946) who noticed the trend of how 'dark', downbeat and black the looks and themes were of many American crime and detective films released in France to theatres following the war, such as The Maltese Falcon (1941) Murder, My Sweet (1944), Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1944).
Key Noirs are; the Maltese Falcon, a Touch of Evil, Double Indemnity, the first ‘true’ noir film is ‘stranger on the third floor’, with the last film noir being ‘touch of evil’. ‘Stranger on the Third Floor’ was released on August 16th 1940; whereas ‘Touch of Evil’ was released may 21st 1958. Films made after this period, like ‘Se7en’ (1995),’ L.A. Confidential’ (1997) or even ‘Bladerunner’ (i982).
Classic film noir is inspired by German expressionism, many of the stories and a lot of the attitude of film noir is derived from the hard boiled school of crime drama, this emerged during the United States during the depression.
The film noir genre and noir films are deeply inspired by German expressionism; it is a cinematic movement of the 1910s and 1920s, closely related to developments in theatre, photography, architecture, painting, etc. German expressionism moved to American film noirs when important film artists that had been working in Germany moved over to the U.S., they moved over to the U.S. due to offers from the ‘booming’ Hollywood film industry and the growing threat of the Nazi power.
The first Film Noir could have been a pre-world war 2 crime drama called Fury which was released in 1936 and was directed by Fritz Lang as it was categorized as a Film Noir even though it came out before the big period of Film Noir in America, but another movie is commonly stated as the first Film Noir and a true Film Noir, it was called Stranger on the Third Floor (1940) which was directed by Boris Ingster, this could be because it falls into the time period of Film Noirs or that crime melodramas were no really seen as Film Noir before this period as well.
When looking at Film Noirs we can see there are a many different types of characters in any one Film Noir. Thematically, film noirs were most exceptional for the relative frequency with which they centered on women of questionable virtue—a focus that had become rare in Hollywood films after the mid-1930s and the end of the pre-Code era. The signal movie in this vein was Double Indemnity (1944), directed by Billy Wilder, these characters are referred to as, femme fatales. A hardboiled detective or some form, however, the prevalence of the private eye as a lead character declined in film noir of the 1950s, a period during which several critics describe the form as becoming more focused on extreme psychologies and more exaggerated in general. A prime example is Kiss Me Deadly (1955) here the protagonist is a private eye, Mike Hammer. Hammer overturns the underworld in search of the 'great whatsit'... [Which] turns out to be—joke of jokes—an exploding atomic bomb.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Analysis of similar text: Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a 1950 American Noir film directed by Billy Wilder. I will be talking about the opening of this movie.
The film has an opening shot of a kerb which has the name of the movie written on it. It then pans across the road whilst the names of the actors, the director and so on appear on the road. The opening just like we would expect from film noirs is set outside as film noirs were well known for being set outside. Throughout the opening a tense music track is played over the top and this gives the viewer an insight into what they can expect from the movie.
Once the titles have finished a voice over begins and it starts to introduce the story and what is happening in the opening scene. As the voice over begins asynchronous sirens can be heard, then the police cars come into the shot and elliptical editing is used to show us the journey of the police cars, towards the scene of a murder where a body floating in a pool has been found. During this scene both the shots used and the voice over notify us of the backdrop of the movie, L.A as we recognise the big palm trees that are seen in L.A.
The movie has one clear narrative that we can see from the 3 minute opening and that we recognize as a narrative that is used in many film noirs and that is flashbacks. The whole movie is basically an entire flashback as it starts with the finding of the dead body and then the rest of the film goes back 6 months and tells us of how the murder came to happen. From the shot of the dead body in the pool a transition is used as the shot fades away from the body and brings in a shot of an L.A street. The shot then pans across to a small apartment block where one of the apartments has an open window which just like the narrative that we have seen fits with the typical settings of some film noirs as in many, film noirs small apartments or hotel rooms are seen a lot, take for example L.A confidential a neo noir, a small rundown hotel room is used as one of the settings of the movie, it is used as a place to take criminals and beat answers out of them. From the pan we are taken into the open window and there we see the narrator of the movie. Once introduced to him we recognise him from near the beginning of the movie as he was the body found floating in the pool, because of this we know what is going to happen to him but we don’t know how so this keeps the viewer guessing and make them keep watching as they will want to see if they guess right about why he gets killed and most of all who kills him.