Main Task - Evaluation

Main Task - Above The Law

Preliminary Task - The Treatment

Film Noir - Film Research

Film Noir Research

Year 12 Film Noir Storyboard

Year 12 Film Noir Screenplay

Above the Law d2

Year 12 - Research Conclusion

Results and Conclusion

Year 12 - Props and Costumes

This is a list of what we basically need to film our shoot:

A trench coat (for main character)

A trilby hat (for main character)

A dress (for femme fatale)

Cigarettes

Whiskey

Whisky glasses

A handgun

All of these props and costumes are stereotypical of the genre and therefore makes it seem a lot more real. These are not essential for the film but it certainly improves it.

Year 12 Film Noir Risk Assessment

BBC Risk Assessment Form

Year 12 Main Task - Film Noir

Film Noir - Main Task - First Edit

Film Noir pre production - Actor Information

Tony Ray - Jordan Forshaw

Age: 16

Physical Description:

•  Average height around 5"9.  
• Ginger hair
• Athletic build

Experience:
Amateur actor, member of Sawtry drama group.

Detective Montana - Emily Read

Age: 17

Phyisical Description:

• Around 5"11
• Blonde hair
• Good figure

Experience:
Amateur Actor

Film Noir pre production - Character Bio's

Tony Ray

Film Noir pre production - Production Schedule

Production Schedule Above the Law

FILM NOIR- PRE PRODUCTION - SHOT LIST

SHOT LIST Above the Law

Film Noir - Production Log

I'm working with Toby Hall for my film noir project. We have written our first draft of the script, last lesson we read it out to the rest of the class and recieved some positive feedback. We didn't really need to make any serious changes and the ones we did make were rather minor. 

We have also produced a questionnaire to evaluate our target audience, this is important as it gives us a basis to work from and we are now able to meet our audiences expectations.

'ABOVE THE LAW' - FIRST DRAFT SCRIPT

Above the Law

TARGET AUDIENCE RESEARCH

Questionnaire

Film Noir Poster Analysis

Typical design elements of film noir movie posters are steamy images of gorgeous femme fatales and guys with fedoras and hand guns. Omnipresent were images of men and women smoking. In fact, one might say (running contrary to the folks who protest the images of actors smoking in films) that some of the best film noir movie posters have images of cigarettes dangling from mouths or nestled in the actors hands.

A lot of the time there is some indication of the plot in the poster, like having a dead body for example, this attracts the attention to the film as it puts questions into the audiences mind.

Film Noir Openings

This opening, from Touch of Evil is a great example of the peculiar shot angles used in the film noire genre. It is actually one very long shot that has no editing in to speak of. It uses the conventional lighting techniques to create a silhouette of a man which implies suspicion. Again no non-diegetic sound is being used and the music is actually diegetic from the car radio. 

Film Noir Openings

Again this opening shows a lot of the credits at the start which is conventional for this genre. However it is quite different as it doesn't actually have music or any non-diegetic sound, in fact it is all diegetic which is very strange for this genre. However it still uses minimal lighting in the shots and shows a city scene. It is also partially filmed during the night.

Film Noir - Similar Products

Double Indemnity:

Late one night, successful insurance salesman Walter Neff breaks into his office building in Los Angeles.  Bleeding and in pain, he begins to recite his story into a Dictaphone for his colleague Barton Keyes to find the next morning. We learn how Walter began an affair with the captivating Phyllis Dietrichson and it isn’t long before she convinces him to help her murder her husband, Mr. Dietrichson, in order to collect his life insurance money.  The trouble is, the murder must look like an accident in order for them to collect on his insurance’s double indemnity clause.  The murder is done sloppily and it isn’t long before the authorities are on his trail.  Is it possible that he was betrayed?  As more details come to light, it becomes evident that Phyllis isn’t who she claims she is.

Sunset Boulevade:

The story, set in '50s Hollywood, focuses on Norma Desmond, a silent-screen goddess whose pathetic belief in her own indestructibility has turned her into a demented recluse. The crumbling Sunset Boulevard mansion where she lives with only her butler, Max who was once her director and husband has become her self-contained world. Norma dreams of a comeback to pictures and she begins a relationship with Joe Gillis, a small-time writer who becomes her lover, that will soon end with murder and total madness.

Sweet Smell of Success:

The film transforms New York City into a dystopia soaked with jazz, smoke, and criminals.  We follow Sidney Falco, a press agent without the burdens of morality.  He is hired by J.J. Hunsecker, New York’s premier newspaper columnist, to stop his sister from marrying Steve Dallas, a fresh, young jazz guitarist.  So, Sidney plants some reefer on him and spreads rumors that he is a Communist.  Things work at first and the relationship is destroyed.

But that isn’t the end for Sidney- he is summoned to Hunsecker’s penthouse only to find the sister attempting suicide. Hunsecker walks in on Sidney saving her and accuses him of rape.  From there, fates are decided and lives are destroyed as the truth comes out.  In this powerful film, nobody is innocent.

Similar Products - Film Noir Openings

This film opening is very stereotypical of the genre in the way that it shows a lot of the credits at the very start of the film. The music is quite epic and loud but has a sense of drama in as well which also fits into the genre well. However the actual start of the footage is a little unconventional as it is shot in the daytime but still has the same strange camera angles.

Similar Products - Film Noir Conventions

• Odd camera angles 
• Night Shoot
• Minimal Lighting
• Old, orchestral music
• Hats
• Detective/Journalist
• Credits at start
• Femme Fatale
• Black and White
• Hero/Villain
• Alcohol 
• Voice-overs
• Dramatic

Similar Products - Film Noir Definitions

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography. Many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic Noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression. - Wikipedia

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), and Laura (1944). - Filmsite