Film noir

For this project we aimed to complete a short sequence that accurately represented the conventions of a film noir. Typical conventions include, low key lighting, some sort of case to solve, a femme fatale and almost every character smokes. When making this short sequence we decided to employ the aspect of having a murder in the story line and so made our protagonist detective/hit man type character. We also decided to give the protagonist a hat which made it easier for him to hide his face and give off the impression that he is a mysterious and shady character. We started off by filming the detective in a grave yard as he mourned over a grave stone (unfortunately this footage was lost) as this is being shown, the voice over of this character narrates a reflection of the events that have recently played out. We then filmed the events he is narrating in the form of a flashback, this included our character being asked to take on a risky case that he accepts. As he is asked this, we use high angles and got him to look up directly into the camera as we felt like this would make him feel very intimidating but still mysterious. We set up an office for the detective which was very simplistic and included a typewriter on his desk which gave the era of the sequence more depth and made the authenticity of our interpretation of film noir better. In editing we also made the film black and white to mimic the conventions of film noir.