group notes

Here are some notes we made when first brainstorming our ideas

Characters:
Hero(hitman): takes a job from boss to kill his ex-girlfriend, he arrives at her location and finds her dead (or dying), he realises he has been set up and runs out. a voice over will be added on the action.

Feme fetal: unknown cause of death, signs of a struggle and a bit of blood. Not revealing her face until the end makes her identity an enigma. We will make it clear that she is a feme fetal with her costume and make up

Boss/hitman employer: we wont show his whole face, just the lower half of his head while he’s on the phone to give him a sense of mystery.

Props
- feme fetal : red dress, fur coat (maybe), shoes, lipstick, blood
- hitman : gun, black coat/jacket, phone
- boss : phone


we changed alot of our first ideas, like the feme fetal's relationship with the hero and anonymous boss. We decided that the set up of the hero’s previous meetings and feelings for his ex-girlfriend (the feme fetal) would take a lot of time and over complicate the hero’s motives and felt a mysterious identity would be more in keeping with the conventional film noir narrative. We decided to reveal the boss as we needed to show more of the set up of the hit and more exterior shots.

Art director’s treatment

The locations we used were chosen to fulfil film noir style conventions The interior location (film studio) has curtains lining the walls, they created a really interesting visual effect when the spot-light was turned on with a stripy light and dark pattern not unlike the venetian blind effect used in classic noirs. The empty, vacant spaces of the room are filled with darkness so it’s difficult to tell how big the room is and the function of the room is unknown to the audience, the only clue is the table and chair but it still doesn’t tell the audience exactly where they are, this sets up an enigma. The exterior location of Grimwade Street was chosen because of the boarded up building and graffiti, the rough down-and-out looking street Matt walks down matches the conventional noir settings of dodgy back alleys and drab streets.

The small spot light we used was the only source of light in the interior location, this use of key light made deep long shadows contrast with bright (almost) overexposed pools of light, the overall result made average shots look moody and interesting. The exterior location had no artificial lighting, all natural, this made the outdoor shots look bland and flat compared to the indoor shots.

The props we decided to use changed a bit from our original plans, in our brainstorm sessions before shooting we wanted to use a toy gun but later agreed that it was not an appropriate prop to bring in to college and was not as realistic as a garrotte wire. The cord we used turned out to be a much better choice in the end as it gave the actor a good chance to interact with it and perform through it, like winding it around his hands and fingers to build suspense, it was more flexible and safer than a plastic gun. The blood was Burger King ketchup, we wanted to get enough on his hand to be dramatic and shock the audience but not so much that it would effect the classification, I think we achieved a good amount as it is not over the top but enough to be disgusting.

The costumes of the feme fetal and hitman are very different from each other, this was done to highlight the two extremes of film noir, the classical old-school noir and the modern neo-noir. The dead feme fetal has a fur coat and red dress, this stereotypical conventional attire puts her into an easily recognisable role so the audience understands who she is. Matt the hitman is wearing more modern normal clothes that don’t reveal much about him, he needed to be more of an enigma than the dead woman so we thought he should be more neutral and unassuming.

Story Board for Hitman Production (Pg 1)

Story Board (Pg 2)

The Exchange

In this exercise our group had to organise a short sequence to show an item being passed from one person to another using techniques and shots a film noir would have.

My Film Noir Idea

Noir film idea: themes of paranoia, lust and jealousy
Hero: paranoid OCD student age 14 Ben

Others: -
-older sister age 16 Sara

- Twin sister

-teacher smith

Opening: small dark room, only source of light a computer screen. Ben sits at computer and wipes keyboard and mouse with disinfectant wipe. Inner monologue explains he believes a teacher is a paedophile and is responsible for his older sister’s suicide (v. quick flashbacks: Sarah’s face talking then Sarah’s face dead). He is trying to hack into smith’s browser history to see if he has visited any child porn sites

Key action:
- smith puts Sara into summer school because she failed her end of year exams (which he marked)

-Sarah has a fit at home Ben overhears, she claimed to work hard and take revision classes during lunch (smith teaches them) she tells her parents that she thinks smith is picking on her and she wants to move schools to get away from him

-she actually fails because she cheated

End: he finds out that she was actually murdered by his twin sister because she has a crush on smith, the film ends with a tense confrontation between ben and his twin as she shoots up the school, the scene involves twin saying she loves smith and sarah was prettier and was stealing him from her (basically going mental).
this is all interrupted as smith intervenes, he tries to talk twin down but his condescending tone and over confident speech enrages twin and she shoots him dead. As she turns to ben again to kill him (she plans to kill herself after him) the dad comes in from behind her and knocks her unconscious.

To conclude, a montage of the following events: Ben’s parents split up, twin is declared criminally insane and put in an asylum, Sara and smith’s funeral, all with an inner monologue from sara (about how she doesn’t feel like shes crazy, she just does crazy things) the father (who to blame?, himself, TV? the internet?) and finally Ben (extends from the previous soliloquy about insanity and perspective)

Good Film Opening (Star Trek)

The scene begins with a wide establishing shot of the U.S.S Kelvin approaching a disturbance in space beside a sun, the camera angles and movements give a disorientated feel as it pans across the ship without giving a clear indication of up or down. In this establishing shot there are very few sound effects as this is set in space but there are beeping signals and voices over a radio. There is no uncertainty of who the baddies are in this story. The first introduction to them is a huge frightening looking ship coming through the storm, it’s a dark metallic colour and seems to be made of jagged spikes and blades and light does not reflect or shine off it while the Kelvin does. Inside it is dark and smoky everything about this Romulan ship screams “evil!” The Romulan villains invite the captain of the Kelvin to their ship after a brief but devastating attack on the Kelvin then kill him on board after interrogating him, leaving Kirk in charge, we are momentarily fooled into thinking this is our main hero James T Kirk but it’s in fact his father George Kirk. The Romulan ship attacks using spiky missiles and one particularly effective shot shows the scene from the missile’s point of view, from the Romulan ship through space and exploding on the hull of the Kelvin, accentuating the destruction. George must stay on the bridge to protect the evacuating crew and plot a collision course into the Romulan ship. Meanwhile his wife is giving birth to his son in an evacuation shuttle, there is an emotional exchange as George explains to his wife in labour that “he can’t be there” and for about 30 seconds there are sounds except for a few muted explosions and a stirring sound track. A lot of enigmas are created in this opening sequence what and who are the aggressive aliens, why are they looking for Ambassador Spock and why were they so upset when the captain of the Kelvin tell them the year? In the end it gives the audience an emotional start to the rest of the movie and there is a sense of emotional ambivalence as the audience is distraught that Kirk’s father dies but elation as baby Jim and his mother escape.

The villains of the movie are the alien Romulans, they are darkly dressed, have tattoos on their faces, no hair and sinister voices and there seems to be no females. This representation of the Romulan characters is not complicated, the producers and directors want to make it obvious that these are the baddies and their space ship is just as bold, it’s huge and threatening next to the Kelvin, it looks dirty and it arrives through a lightning storm in space and storms and lightning are often associated with doom and danger. George Kirk is a typical Hollywood hero, he is young hansom and strong looking and clearly very brave to go down with the ship to protect his crew mates, he sits in captain’s chair all alone on a burning ship, facing death and lives for just long enough to name his baby boy

The contrast in the villain’s and the human language is very apparent although both sides are speaking English, the Romulans are cool and calm while the suffering crew of the Kelvin are shown giving panicked orders and tearful goodbyes. Throughout the scene the camera jostles and shakes as if it’s reacting to the scene like a news reporter and light from the explosions and nearby sun flares in the camera lenses.