Script

We decided to make a list of shot types we wanted to film and what what going to happen or be said in each scene. This was to ensure that filming runs quickly and efficiently. 

Planning Charlie's Confession

Today Beth and I started to write the voice over for our film. We are writing it as if Charlie is writing to her diary as later on, the diary is used as Charlie's confession.
We wrote the voice over that goes at the start to set the scene and introduce the characters and then we went on to write the second voice over which happens after Charlie has a meeting with Scarlett Reed (her teacher) regarding her diary. In our film, Scarlett finds the diary and sees that Charlie has this obsession with her, and then realises that she can manipulate Charlie and use it to her advantage.
We wanted to have a voice over as not only is it a convention of film noir, but it also creates interest for the viewer as they will want to keep watching to find out what happens at the end. It also makes the ending of Charlie killing herself seem more surprising and haunting as the audience realises that they are essentially hearing a voice over by a girl who is dead.

Props for our Film Noir

This photo shows the props that we are considering using in our film, and the reasons why we want to use each prop.

Questionnaire

Storyboard

Beth drew some photos for the first scene of our film, which I then added music and text to and turned into a video.





(Music: Love Someone Else (Acoustic) by Lower Than Atlantis)

Pitching Our Film Noir

Today we pitched our ideas for our film noir to the class in order to get some feedback as to whether they liked our ideas. The general verdict was that they liked our idea for the storyline as the felt it was creepy and different. They also liked our locations we are considering using and the photos Cassia took in the photography studio of our actors. Overall, people appeared to like our ideas, especially our idea of having the voice over being done through the girls diary.

Character Shots

Here are some photos Cassia took in the photography studio of our actors. I feel as though she took some very good shots and got some very effective photos.

These photos show our Femme Fatale, Scarlett Reed (played by Cassia Lima) and Scarlett's husband, and also the victim, Richard Reed (played by Josh Volpe). Both of these actors have dark hair which we thought could be good as it could highlight their evil/dark side. Both characters are dressed formally which indicates their age. They are also both wearing red which has a semiotic meaning of evil and danger, thus foreshadowing our film.

These photos show our main character, Charlie Moss (played by Hollie Moss). We thought she would be good for the role because she is blonde and pale which makes her look more innocent. She is also dressed in lighter colours, highlighting her innocence and youth.

There is a clear difference in the relationship between Scarlett and Richard and Charlie and Richard in these photos. In the ones of Scarlett and Richard, Scarlett it facing towards Richard and touching him, showing intimacy. However, in the photo of Charlie and Richard, Charlie has her back to him which shows that these two do not have a relationship.

Cassia then edited some of the photos on Photoshop to further emphasise the contract between these two characters.

Developed Film Noir Ideas

Location Shots #2

Another location we are considering using is Hitchin. We took some photos of possible places to film and spoke to a couple of shop owners to see if we would be able to use their shops for filming. We feel as though Hitchin could be a very interesting place to film our Film Noir.

This is a photo of the town square in Hitchin. We thought Hitchin would be an ideal place to film as it has cobbled streets and old buildings which are similar to the locations found in traditional film noir.

Hitchin has a lot of alleys and roads that could be useful to create a good effect in our film.

This is a photo showing Jolly Brown (the black and white building). We thought that we could maybe film some parts of our film either inside or outside of this shop as it creates a nice feel and reflects the true style of film noir. We've spoken to the owners and asked if we could film here and they said that as long as it's after closing hours, it will be fine.

This is a photo showing Cafe Rouge. We are thinking of having this as a meeting place for the teacher and her husband. We thought this would be a nice location as it has 'rouge' (french word for red) in it's title. This could reflect the scene inside as red has a semiotic meaning of both love and danger and we thought that the husband and the wife could have an argument in here. We asked the owners if it would be okay to film here one day after school and they said it would be fine.

Location Shots #1

For our film noir, we are thinking of using a school as one of our locations. We are thinking filming in one of the classrooms in the older part of the school. This is to make it look more like the traditional film noir style. 

We thought that K10 would be a good location for it as it is a large open space, with large windows.

The door to K10 has a circular window on it which we thought would be good as we could possibly film some shots through this window to make it look more interesting.

This is a panorama of K10 to show the size and layout of this classroom. We thought that the size of this classroom, combined with the large windows would create a good location to film our Film Noir.

This is the view of the classroom whilst sat down at the teachers desk. This shows the classroom as she would see it, so therefore it enables us to get an idea of how it would look from her perspective.

This is a view from the back of the classroom. In this shot, you can see the teachers desk. Part of our storyline involves a pupil looking at the teacher from his desk, so therefore this may be a good place to film.

Film Noir- Initial Ideas

This shows the initial ideas we had for our film noir. We decided that we wanted to set it in a school for a more modern twist on film noir. It helped us to begin to get an idea of what sort of characters we want to use, what locations would be effective and what story lines we could potentially use. This will most probably change as we progress throughout this task, but it helped to give us a starting point to base our ideas on.

Timetable of When We Are Able To Film

WEEK A	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1			Everyone		Lesson
2	Everyone	Everyone			Everyone
3	Everyone
4	Lesson	Lesson
5		Lesson			Everyone
6

WEEK B	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
1		Cassia, Emily, Lib		Everyone
2		Everyone
3		Lesson	Lesson	Everyone
4	Everyone		Cassia, Lib, Bethany		Cassia, Lib, Bethany
5	Lesson		Cassia, Lib, Bethany		Lesson
6	Lesson

We decided to create a timetable to show what days we have frees together to help us get an idea of the possible days in which we can film.

Analysis of Brick (2005)

As a class, we analysed Brick using a number of different theories. I felt as though this was very useful as it enabled us to look at the film in a number of different ways and enabled us to bounce ideas off one another, which enabled us to get wider perspectives of the film.

Analysis of Detour (1945)

Analysis of Pulp Fiction (1994)

This is an analysis of Pulp Fiction I did using Padlet.

Created with Padlet

http://padlet.com/wall/huf0t21d5y

Cloud of Noir Terms

Codes and Conventions of Film Noir

History of Film Noir

The term 'film noir' comes from the French words for 'black film'. Films that fall under the genre of film noir are films of a dark nature. The colour black has a semiotic meaning of death, evil and mystery, so therefore these themes are also associated with film noir. Murder, smoking, money and sex are commonly featured in film noir.
The genre of film noir arose during, and after, World War II. This was due to anxiety and cynicism being highly apparent amongst communities. During the time when film noir was developing, a lot of psychological discoveries were being made which had a massive impact on the content of the films.