An image of me and Lewis editing our ots;

In this image me and Lewis are placing the clips backwards then cutting and speeding them up for the ending of our ots as there is a quick reverse through all of the clips.

Pictures of the cast in our ots and the inspired characters;

Daniel Osborne;The character of Leon is inspired by screams 'Stu'.

Ethan Rundle; Ethan's character is inspired by the character Eddie from 'The Red Riding Hood Trilogy'

 


Lewis Watson; Lewis's character is inspired by screams 'Billy'.

Lucy Easton;

The comparison of my character is the femme fatal, Rita from Mulholland Drive as they both believe they are powerful and in control but is turns out that they are not at all.

Film Certificates;

The film certificates in the UK are decided by the British Board of Film Classification this has been running since 1912, for cinema releases as it falls to councils to decide who should be admitted to a certain film, effectively making them legally-binding. The classifications are as follows: 

15 suitable for those aged 15 or older 
(this may include content involving strong language, strong violence or sex references)

U (Universal) which is classed as suitable for all people all ages 

18 suitable for those aged 18 or older
(this may include content with very strong language, 

sex, racism, bloody violence)

PG (Parental Guidance) which is classed as general viewing but some scenes may be unsuitable for children 

12 which is classed as for those the age of 12 and older but in cinemas children under 12 may enter if joined by an adult
(this may include content involving strong language, sex references and mild violence)

Final story board;

First story board idea;

These images are of our first story board idea;

We changed the story line slightly from these images to make the story line better and more interesting.

First draft of shots for film noir opening sequence;

Shot 1; Lucy is laying dead on the floor looking very roughed up after being slit in the neck by Daniel, wearing a black dress with red lipstick and high heels with a puddle of blood next to her neck.

Shot 2; Close of up of Daniels face with a focus pull outwards to show his whole body as he is looking down at Lucy then he takes a picture of her dead with an old fashioned camera.

Shot 3; Lewis and Daniel casually walking away from the scene going down to the cabin to print the picture and stick it on their wall of victims.

Shot 4; Eathan the detective is waiting in the cabin looking at the wall of victims as Daniel and Lewis walk through the door laughing and there is a quiet pause when they have eye contact.

Popular film noir movies;

1) The 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.  His story is one of deception and betrayal.  So begins Billy Wilder’s gritty masterpiece, based on the book by James M Cain.  As we sit and watch, we learn how Walter began an affair with the captivating Phyllis Dietrichson, played by the ultimate femme fatale actress, Barbara Stanwyck.  It isn’t long before she convinces him to help her murder her husband, Mr. Dietrichson, in order to collect his life insurance money.  


                             2) The Big Sleep

This has what could very well be the most complicated plot in film noir history.  Even Raymond Chandler, the author of the book that it was based on, once famously admitted that he didn’t know the answer to all of the plot twists and holes.  But despite the nearly incomprehensible plot, The Big Sleep is universally regarded as one of the definitive masterpieces of the genre.  This time Humphrey Bogart plays the famous hardboiled detective character (this time the famous Philip Marlowe). He finds himself in the employ of the sick and dying General Sternwood, who asks him to keep an eye on his daughter Carmen who has fallen in with a bad group of people.  


                           3) The Maltese Falcon

Considered by many to be the very first film noir, John Huston’s directorial debut would go down in history as one of the great detective movies.  The film is based on Dashiell Hammett’s book (also called The Maltese Falcon) and star Humphrey Bogart in one of his best roles as private eye Sam Spade. The story starts with the murder of Spade’s partner Miles Archer. Although he never really liked him, Spade is honor bound by his personal code of ethics to track down his killers.  Along the way he will get involved with the sultry Miss Wanderly and a group of criminals who seek a gold-encrusted falcon sculpture known as the Maltese Falcon. 

                                 4) Sweet Smell of Success

In the city of New York, your reputation is everything.  If you are not careful, it could easily be destroyed overnight.  Or it could be protected, for the right price.  Such is the world of Sweet Smell of Success, the gritty, grimy noir from famous screenwriter Ernest Lehman (he also wrote the screenplays for Sound of Music and North by Northwest).  Director Alexander Mackendrick, who had made his name doing comedies for England’s Ealing Studios, transforms New York City into a dystopia soaked with jazz, smoke, and criminals.  We follow Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis), 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.

                      5) Out Of The Past;

A perennial favorite by film critics and directors alike, Out of the Past is universally regarded as one of the definitive examples of film noir.  It has all of the bells and whistles of great noir: stunning chiaroscuro cinematography, a beautiful femme fatale, and an intricate storyline.  But key to its charm is the lead, Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum), who like the title indicates, is running from a past that he cannot escape from.  At the start of the film, we find Bailey as the operator of a small town gas station.  But one day, he is forced to meet with a gambler named Whit Sterling.  On the way to the meeting, he confesses his past to his girlfriend.  It turns out that he was once a private eye who was hired by Sterling to find his mistress Kathie after she shot him and stole $40,000 from him.  Bailey managed to track her down to Acapulco.  Too bad he ended up falling in love with her.  But one murder and terrible discovery later, he decided to leave her.  Now, his past has caught up with him as he travels to meet the man that he betrayed.

Muholland Drive;

 The beginning of the opening title sequence is a clip of a bight purple background with men and women dancing together and their black figures  appearing on the background, the 'girl next door' character is among these people and appears at the end of the dance in a bright spotlight showing she is a happy, friendly and cheerful character. The femme fatal is first shown in a smart car with her own drivers and she is blunt and in control like a typical femme fatal by saying 'we don't stop here' as the drivers stop the car. She only then backs down and gets scared when she can see that there is a gun pointed at her, then the car has a head on car crash which stops her from being shot. The smoke created in this clip is not from smoking a cigarette which is usually used in film noir, instead it is smoke coming from a cars in the crash and also a fire is started in one of the cars.

Opening title sequence for Muholland drive;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2cb5XpIBqQA

The red riding trilogy;

Throughout the opening title sequence of the red riding trilogy it is a hazy atmosphere due to smoking, the character of the anti-hero is very typical of film noir, he is a journalist and he has his problems such as his dad is dead and he is under pressure to be as good as he was. He has been away to London and messed up what he was doing there then came back to Yorkshire and when he arrives back he is treated like an outsider who no ones really bothered about apart from his family. The storyline started at the end with a clip of the anti-hero looking rugged and muddy with blood all over his face and he is holding a gun. There is a voice over in the first minute with the anti-hero talking about the missing girl, the lighting is a sepia and dark effect. The camera is usually on close ups of the anti-hero for the audience to know who he is and what he looks like. 

A link to the trailer of the red riding trilogy;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nx5rqw9tXB8

Typical images of film noir;

Preliminary Exercise;

Filming a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.

My group decided to make the preliminary exercise more interesting and complicated with a dramatic story line which is unrealistic. We had to make sure match on action, shot/reverse shot and the 180 degree rule was used in our clip.

Lewis is a mental patient, Daniel is his care worker trying to get Lewis back to the mental home as Lewis ran away to hide from the apparent 'Aliens'. Daniel finds Lewis in a office block and try's to help get him back to the mental home but Lewis doesn't want help and saves Daniel's life from the apparent Aliens by chucking him out of the window.

For the Movie click here!!

Shot reverse shot;

Match on action;

180 degree;

We used short shots to keep the audience interested and wondering what is going to happen next as the story-line is very unusual so there is a sense of mystery within it. The mise-en-scene is a school block which we have chosen to be an office block that Lewis had strolled in to trying to hide from the 'aliens' as he believes it is safe because it is a large building. The characters are very different people, Daniel is a normal caring man who is trying to save Lewis because he is his carer and doesn't want anything bad to happen as he has known him for years, he is similar to a 'hero' in a film. Lewis has mental problems and is not really sure what is going on as he thinks aliens are invading the earth and he is scared and lonely. The dialogue choice wasn't very planned, we decided a story line and most of the dialogue was just created on the spot whilst filming which ended up working very well, Daniel and Lewis were the actors in this clip as they are more comfortable on camera which makes it look more real and serious, i filmed as i know how to use all of the camera correctly. 

After filming we uploaded the clips on to Imovie and chose which clips worked better to create the scene, we cropped certain bits out as some areas were longer than they needed to be. We then edited all of the clips so they were black and white to create a more mysterious effect making it look like there's no brightness in Lewis's life, after this we added noises such as a creaky door to make it all seem more creepy, also we added a wind sound so the weather comes across worse than it was and we smashed glass to create the sound of Daniel smashing through the window. The music was added in afterwards, we chose this song because to us it came across as a very strange tone and sounded like it was what Lewis could be hearing in his head, it also sets the mood of the type of clip it is going to be. 

Story board for preliminary exercise;

The audience for our Preliminary Exercise would most likely be men between 16-20 as it would appeal to them more than women. They would most likely enjoy it because the sense of mystery and there is action such as the fight and murder clip. 
The set task was; Filming a character opening a door, crossing a room and sitting down on a chair opposite another character, with whom he/she then exchanges a couple of lines of dialogue.
Our clip includes the rules of the 180 degree rule, match on action and shot reverse shot. We added more than a couple of lines of dialogue to make it all more interesting and to explain the scene. We created our clip this way because we wanted it to be different and more appealing to a younger audience.

Definition of film noir:

The term film noir describes a type of film that is very dark in its outlook. The word noir is French for 'black', and it was during the 1940s that film noir came into its own. The term was coined by film critics just after World War II. 
Film noir is the flip side of life. Doomed heroes, manipulative people and hidden personal and political agendas are around every corner. The lighting used in film noir is very dark, creating long shadows and claustrophobic atmospheres that pervade the films. The characters in film noir of the 1940s always seemed to be set in dark, smoke filled rooms, like flies trapped in spider webs.
Important Note: Strictly speaking, film noir is not a genre, but rather the mood, style, point-of-view, or tone of a film. It is also helpful to realize that 'film noir' usually refers to a distinct historical period of film history - the decade of film-making after World War II, similar to the German Expressionism or the French New Wave periods. However, it was labeled as such only after the classic period - early noir film-makers didn't even use the film designation (as they would the labels "western" or "musical"), and were not conscious that their films would be labeled noirs

The lighting in film noir is very different to other films from any genre, it is very dark and figures of people are usually seen by candle light, lamp posts, torches and other lights which only show areas of the scene instead of a full on view of the whole scene and what is happening. Often the light will be shining through a layer of smoke witch is often from the actors smoking cigarettes to create the hazy, smokey look which is expected by the audience watching a film noir movie.  

The typical characters in a film noir movie are;
- The anti-hero; the character that is trying to help the situation and people the other characters but he has a flaw which could be personal or could be a bad past. The anti-hero usually gets involved with the femme-fatal who will get him into trouble then he will realise he should have been with the girl next door instead and had a happy life with her. In the ending he will die or end up locked away in prison.
- The femme-fatal; the character that is medelling in the situation having the anti-hero wrapped around her finger. She is usually a 'sexy' women who always wears high heels and red lipstick to get men to do what she likes. She often has money with a blunt attitude and is in a high position with control.
- The girl next door; the character that is very innocent compared to all of the other characters in film noir. She is usually a pretty and plain women who has a normal background and life with her nice family around her. She is what the anti-hero really wants to help sort his life out but he does not realize until after experienced the femme-fatal's games. 
- The villan; the character that is the cause of all of the bad situations happening in the film and the character the anti-hero is trying to catch or kill. He is usually shown as a man who is mysterious and distant with no friends or family around to care about him, he will usually end up dead or in prison.

The plot for film noir is always a Crime, usually murder. greed and jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation by a private eye, a police detective or a journalist is the most common way of gaining justice in film noir. In other common plots the protagonists are usually in heists or con games, or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs. False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements, as are betrayals and double-crosses.

Setting; Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular which are the location of many of the classic films. In the eyes of many critics, the city is presented in noir as a "labyrinth" or "maze".Bars, lounges, nightclubs, and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action. The climaxes of a substantial number of films noir take place in visually complex, often industrial settings, such as refineries, factories, trainyards, power plants—most famously the explosive conclusion of White Heat, set at a chemical plant.

Prezi about me:

Presentation - Lucy Easton on Prezi

Conventions:

Iconography 
Narrative
Mise-en-scene
Themes
Representation.

Definition of a Genre:

A genre is a different category of conventions in a movie or t.v programme.

A link to a definition of Genre:
http://mchsfilmandmedia.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/genre-definition-and-key-points.html

The thriller Genre is full of tension and excitement which are the main elements, Thriller films tend to be adrenaline-rushing, gritty and fast-paced.

A thriller is a villain-driven plot, whereby he or she

presents obstacles that the hero must overcome.

Thriller Sub-Genre's: 

Psychological Thriller

Period Thriller

Mystery Thriller

Political Thriller

Conspiricy Thriller

Religious Thriller

Supernatural Thriller

Techno Thriller

Crime Thriller.