Our film noir opening sequence

Below is our finished film noir opening sequence, called 'Shadows Present'. Click on the video box to play it:

As the screen above is quite small and the film sometimes doesn't play very well, you can alternatively watch our film on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJBt-YHw140

Evaluation

In what ways does you media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The film noir genre has been occupying our screens since it was established by Nino Frank in the 1940’s. Through research I’ve found the genre has connotations of darkness, death, protagonist men and fem-fatales. In our film opening we’ve used many of these conventions to keep our opening within the noir genre. However, we’ve developed it by using today’s technical advances to create a stylised, modern neo-noir. For example our opening includes circular-tracking shots in the studio, synchronous music throughout and pleonastic sound effects when Chris enters the studio. Another modern touch we’ve used is cohesively referencing to ‘eyes’, with close-up shots and mentions in our voice-over. This is because eyes have connotations of innocence and truthfulness, which contrast against aspects of our narrative and characters. Through research, I’ve found that ‘whole-face’ close-ups weren’t popular in many traditional noirs, but are commonly used in films like Rian Johnson’s (2006) noir ‘Brick’, where its naturalistic style opening uses close-ups to show character’s emotions and build a relationship between them and the audience. Our stylised design idea is also in the opening to Frank Miller’s (2005) ‘Sin City’, where crane shots are used to establish the location and demonstrate power. As well as using modern styles, we’ve also included many traditional noir conventions, like using a gobo to create a Venetian blind effect in the studio scenes, and using metaphorical noir dialogue and voice-overs. So we’ve maintained and developed the noir genre by using both contemporary/neo and traditional styles.

How does you media product represent particular social groups?
Our film opening contains 2 main characters, acted by Chris and Josh. Middle-aged, elderly and young children aren’t in our film as we wanted to represent British teenagers and the ideology behind that age. Today teenagers are represented with youth crime and ‘hoodies’, specifically stereotypically associated with young males. Through mise-en-scene, cinematography and character roles we’ve recreated this representation. A knife and gun feature in our film and the bad villain (Josh) wears a dark hood. ‘Black’ has connotations of death and evil, so our villain character wears an entirely black costume. Josh also wears trainers, which are also associated with the teenage representation. As the main character, Chris is given most screen time, is shown in low-angle shots and contrasts against Josh’s deliberately concealed identity so he has additional importance. Our characters are also typical of the noir genre stereotypes, as Chris plays an innocent character who accidentally involves himself with the wrong person, and Josh plays the evil villain behind every murder in the film. These roles are found in both neo and traditional noirs, though we’ve updated them by using young actors and costumes. I noticed that fem-fatales are common in many noirs, but we haven’t included any in ours as we wanted the audience to concentrate on Chris and Josh’s characters, but if we were to finish our entire film a fem-fatale could appear later in the storyline. The main location we used was the woods, because of its scary/lonely connotations, which represent Chris's emotions. We chose to represent our characters in a realistic way so the audience could relate to them.

What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The noir genre is known for its cheap-budget B-grade movies. Therefore the media institution that would fund and distribute our film would be a small independent company, like ‘Verve Pictures’ or ‘Optimum’. Our film would be platform released into art-house cinemas, like ‘The Hollywood’ (Ipswich), and would be shown in 5-10 screens across the country. The cost of distributing into cinema multiplexes, like ‘Cineworld’, would be over budget, but may be possible if the platform release is successful. We could also show our film at festivals such as ‘Raindance’ or ‘Sundance’ as this would reach a large film audience inexpensively. After a cinematic release we’d screen our film on television, and aim for channels that appeal to a young audience, like E4 or BBC4, as then it would reach our target audience. Our screening would be past 10pm on a weekday as this would avoid the expense of peak-time TV. We’d also release our film on DVD as we’d follow the example from the neo-noir ‘Brick’, where it gained the majority of its profit from DVD releasing.

Who would be the audience for your media product?
Our film audience would be aged 15-24, as this is the main cinema-going audience. We’d be aiming towards the ‘Experiencer’ social category as they have the money to enjoy regular entertainment. We’d certify our film with a BBFC rating at ‘12’ as our film contains mild weapons/violence and this would broaden our audience intake. Through primary research we found males were interested in genres similar to noir (crime/thriller etc), and females enjoy action scenes and enigmas, though this wasn’t their favourite genre. We’d therefore mainly aim towards males as they prefer the noir genre style, but the action would also appeal to females. The socio-economic class that our film would appeal to would be C1 and below as they could relate to our characters and narrative. Our film would also appeal to a noir genre community: people who specifically enjoy noirs. Our audience would watch our film for ‘Active’ reasons because they’d gain most benefit from our film. The ‘Preferred Reading’ of our film is to intellectually puzzle the audience and let them work out the ‘who-done-it?’ mystery. We’d want our audience to be in the ‘Dominant Audience’ position and admit our preferred reading, and our complicated narrative requires full-attention.

How did you attract/address your audience?
To appeal to our audience we’ve used young characters and a modern filming style to keep them watching and intrigued with the storyline. E.g: smooth and stylistic editing, casual costumes, mysterious but contemporary music and shots like Dutch-tilts adding a modern atmosphere. However we’ve kept many traditional noir attributes to appeal to noir enthusiasts and an older audience too, such as shadows, darkness and murder. From watching our film audiences would get an adrenalin scare from the violence and chase scenes and mystery/enigma from the ‘cliff-hanger’ ending to our opening. They’d get both an emotional and intellectual pleasure from our film as they’d care about our characters’ fate and have to work out the ‘who-done-it’ mystery. Through initial screenings to our media class, we found they enjoyed the film though didn’t quite understand the metaphorical dialogue. Therefore we’d be aiming towards people aged early 20’s instead of 15-18 as they would understand it more easily. This isn’t too much of a problem for us as this age still fits within the regular cinema-going audience.

What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
Many new technologies have helped me through this project. In the researching stage the Internet played a crucial part when learning about the genre. www.imdb.com and www.youtube.com were particularly useful when looking at film clips. Without internet technology it would be difficult to find current noir information and rare examples, like ‘Brick’. In the planning stage we used ‘Windows Movie Maker’ to create our animatic and a scanner to insert our storyboard into this programme. I used www.blogger.com to log my progress and view other group member’s ideas. Since I’ve never used a blog before, I’ve learnt how they allow people to share information easily. Throughout the project our group used email to communicate ideas and ensure we’re organised before shooting our footage. Email is quick and efficient, and allowed us to keep everyone up-to-date. During shooting the production we used a variety of new technology, including: a digital ‘Canon HV30DV’ camera, ‘Yoga Shotgun’ microphone, ‘Velbon DV-7000’ tripod and a ‘DV’ tape to record our footage onto. The lightweight camera and tripod made transporting the kit easier, and the camera viewing panel allowed us to play-back footage before editing. I found the equipment simple to understand and the many adjustments let us shoot the exactly as we wanted. When editing we used ‘Adobe Premiere Pro’ as although it’s a complicated programme, the different functions let us precision our footage to our exact specification. We also compressed our edit into a smaller ‘Windows Media’ file so loading it on to internet would be easier. Throughout the project I've learnt how to use each piece of technology, and how it would be difficult to create our film to the same standard without it.

Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
In the preliminary exercise my skills were basic and I made many simple mistakes. The cinematography involved many errors (e.g. poor framing, the 30° line rule and not leaving handles) however we avoided this in the noir opening. We didn’t capture enough footage in the preliminary, whereas in the noir we had plenty, and more freedom to select the best shots. There were still problems with the noir e.g. the sound effects and synchronised dialogue wasn’t loud enough. We overcome this issue by re-shooting/recording what we needed. There was also a problem with our first music choice (AR.Rahman - ‘Mausam and Escape’) as our film looked like a trailer rather than an opening, but we eradicated this by choosing a new piece and rearranging the sequence. In the noir we had more time to research and produce everything in detail, which we didn’t have in the preliminary. Pre-production work is an important stage in film development as we could plan what we wanted instead of deciding important aspects in a rush. More time let us make script and storyboard drafts and consider locations and music in depth before making final decisions. In contrast to the preliminary, we allocated roles and responsibilities in our noir group so everyone contributed something. In the preliminary we spent less time planning (mise-en-scene, editing, lighting), but with one person attached to a role, all areas were covered. My role was editor. I was therefore main editor and helped search for suitable noir-style music and sound-effects. In the preliminary I found it difficult to edit and required lots of help. In the exchange (a practice sequence in preparation for the noir) I improved but spent too long on rough cuts. By the noir my newly developed skills let me work with sound effects and long-take shots, and be ambitious with effects and transitions. As well as editing I contributed towards other areas, like recording sound and suggesting ideas. As editor I ensured the group were satisfied with decisions I made, and that each aspect followed noir conventions. The music adds atmospheric tension. The voice-over and flashback styles are typical in many noirs (Edgar G.Ulmar’s ‘Detour’). The title font is mysterious but modern (similar to David Fincher’s ‘Se7en’). The pace is fast, but music slows it down. These things associated with my role, plus those from other people’s roles, helped us produce a good-quality finished product in the style we wanted. Compared to the preliminary exercise, the noir opening is better planned and the knowledge I’ve developed through both the preliminary and exchange have helped to produce a higher standard film.

Screening to our media class

Today all groups showed their finished film noir sequences to the rest of the media class. This was so we could gain feedback from our potential target audience (aged 15-25) and to compare our sequences to other groups. For many people in our class, this was the first time they'd seen our film opening and didn't know the full synopsis of what our film was about. Therefore it was useful to gain feedback from them as they were watching our film under the same circumstances as our target audience would if they went to see it. Feedback is a great way of understanding people's reactions and finding out ways of improving to suit the audience. Below I've listed things that people liked and disliked about our film:

• Forms and conventions: ECMS

Editing: They liked the title font and how the 'Shadows Present' title at the end gradually changed to red before blurring away. They felt the pace was very noirey but some people felt the distinguish between flashbacks and present time was confusing at points and could have been made clearer. To resolve this we would have either applied a noise or transition effect that triggered the audience were going into a flashback, or putting all flashbacks in black and white formatting.

Cinematography: They felt a good variety of interesting shots were used and they particularly liked the tracking shots when the man is opening the package. However many people felt that a shot of the dead body at the beginning would have established that someone had died and made it more clearer to the audience. The class particularly picked-up on the shot where Chris is shot at an angle with half the desk slicing through the screen. They liked this shot and said it made the film more modern and interesting, which we were pleased to hear as this was just a quick shot we'd done from an obscure angle and had no intention of including it. But we're glad we did because it left a certain impact on our audience.

Mise-en-scene: They liked the way the characters were dressed and felt it made them look older. They also liked how the villain was dressed completely in black clothing, as this gave connotations of danger and death. They liked the woods location and felt it worked well with the running scenes, and they liked the way the studio was dressed to look like an office.

Sound: They liked the music and felt it added a noir style atmosphere to the scenes. They also liked the pleonastic sound effects as they added tension and made it seem like Chris was lonely. Many people also liked the church bells playing at the beginning and felt they also added dramatic tension.

• Characters and iconography

People liked the characters and understood the different roles they played within the film. They felt the characters represented young people aged slightly older than us (late teens/early 20's) and also how they represented traditional noir style characters too e.g. Chris played the confused man who's got into trouble and involved with the wrong person, and Josh played the mysterious villain who's out with a deadly ambition to get Chris. However the audience noticed no fem-fatales featured in our film, though this doesn't make it any less of a noir because not all noirs feature fem-fatales in the opening.

• Narrative

The class liked the narrative idea and felt many aspects of it were of he noir style, however many people didn't understand entirely what was going on, and felt the narrative was quite difficult to follow throughout the film, maybe because we'd been too ambitious about fitting too much into a short time scale. To make this clearer we would have focused on on or two key points in the storyline and not tried to over-complicate things with too many different enigmas going on at once. The audience felt the enigmas were good and would keep them watching, but perhaps too much was left un-answered and left them questioning too much instead of focusing what was actually going on. The majority of the class didn't like the dialogue and voice-over though. They liked the idea of having a voice-over as it fits within the noir style, but felt they couldn't understand what Chris and Josh were talking about because it was too 'flowery' and metaphorical. We wrote our speech in this particular way to exaggerate on the traditional noir way of speaking, but to overcome the issue we could have written it to be more understandable and appealing to our target audience.

• Audience

The class felt they enjoyed watching our film sequence and would want to watch the rest of our film, but the speech would probably make it more appealing to older people (20's ish) instead of the younger half of our target audience. This is fine for us as we would still appeal to our target audience, but could have made it more appealing to younger people as well by tweaking the speech and making it understandable for all ages in our target range.

• Within the noir genre?

The class agreed that our film was within the noir genre as many codes and conventions were addressed. They liked the running scenes and felt the studio scenes were particularly noirey. They felt the characters and locations represented the noir genre well and liked the use of shadows to illustrate the presence of a new character. They also liked the fast action against slow paced music and felt that worked well to create a tense atmosphere.

Overall the class enjoyed our film and said our film was definitely within the noir genre. We have fulfilled the brief and even with a few things we could have made clearer, the end result was still good.

'Shadows Present' script

As part of our pre-production work Josh created a script for our film. This involved the dialogue each character would be saying and a rough discription of where shots would appear in the storyline. We were each given a copy of the script to write our own notes on, relevant to our role. There were more than one versions of the script as Josh decided to change things according to what the rest of the group wanted or what we were advised to do by our media teacher. Below is a scanned version of my script copy with notes on editing, sound and titles that we could use. This script version was done about a few weeks before we began filming.


Creating a script is an important part of pre-production work as it helps to order how our film is going to appear. We took the final version of the script with us when filming in both locations as it helped us to keep on track with what we wanted to film and so that both Chris and Josh could learn their dialogue lines. Although it was Josh's task to create a script, as his role is writer and producer, everyone in the group contributed ideas and made useful suggestions for what else could be added.

Initial Feedback

On Wednesday 1st April we asked 2 people from different groups to come and view our film opening. They hadn't seen it before and didn't know what it was going to be about, so it was a good test to see if our intended audience would understand the narrative, characters and noir style as well as we all do in our group. We also took the chance to look at other group's work and compare their film ideas to ours. We asked Kamal and Laura to note down anything they liked or didn't like in our film so we could adapt our film on the basis of their comments.

Laura

• Liked the music choice and felt it was very noirey and matched the action on screen
• Didn't like the 'tumbler' effect we'd applied to our titles
• Liked the voice over as it added tension
• Understood the narrative and felt there was a good enigma

Kamal

• Didn't like the hissing sound behind the voice over and between the shots, but recommended how to sort it out
• Liked the different shots and the editing style
• Didn't like the voice over
• Liked the ending
• Hated the 'tumbler' effect on the titles as it isn't noirey at all and ruins the atmosphere

We had a week left until we'd have to finish our film, so had plenty of time to sort out what both Laura and Kamal didn't like. One of the things they both disliked was the 'tumbler' effects we had recently applied to each title. Me and Josh didn't liked the tumbler effect but agreed to allow Emily to keep it if our audience liked it. From the their feedback we decided to lose the 'tumbler' and keep a simple straight cut between titles.

Kamal's comment about the hissing noise could be fixed in two ways: either applying a fade transition between each audio bar, or inserting a recorded piece of ambiance sound between the gaps. Both methods came with the same result of continuing the hissing noise throughout but not making it noticeable to the audience. We decided on applying a 'Constant Power' audio transition that would gently fade in and out the hissing sound. This was a time consuming job but was needed to be done because it would ruin the viewing experience for our audience.

Both Laura and Kamal liked the narrative and enigmas and understood it. This was good to hear as from the presentation about our film ideas we did earlier in the year resulted in feedback about it being too complicated and difficult to understand. So this shows that even with such a complicated idea, the audience were still able to follow it.

Then there was a disagreement over the voice over. Laura liked it and said it made the film more noirey, but Kamal said he didn't like it and felt Chris's voice didn't suit it. As a group we liked the voice over and felt it added a more noirey feel and helped the audience to understand what's going on. And since we don't have much dialogue in the opening we thought the audience would be bored from just listening to the music the whole time. We therefore chose to keep the voice over as it was and hope that the majority of our audience would agree with Laura's opinion rather than Kamal's.

Both the negative and positive feedback was useful to us and we chose to act on most of it instead of ignore what our audience would want. Ideally we would have liked 3 or 4 people to look and review our film, but there wasn't enough time in the lesson. From looking at other group's openings I found that they're narratives were also good and very noirey. Compared to theirs, we've gone for the fast action-packed style noir with chases and fight scenes, whereas other groups have gone for a murderous deadly noir style with lots of blood and fem fatales. I also found that many groups had chosen music with lyrics that matched the action. Our music however doesn't have any singing in it as we entirely rely on the voice over, dialogues at the end and the different shots to tell the story. So overall I think other groups have produced work at the same standard as ours, but have used different codes and conventions to create a different style of neo-noir.

Music choices

As editor, I am also responsible for sound. This includes the music and sound effects we need for our film. Back in January, Chris and I listened to many different pieces of music before deciding on 4 top choices. These are shown below along with the reasons why we shortlisted them:

• 'Mausam and Escape' by A R Rahman - This piece of music is fast paced and would suit our running scenes. We applied and kept this music on our film for a while, but after showing it to class members and our media teacher, we gained feedback that it was a little too dramatic and made our sequence sound like a film trailer instead of a film opening. I also felt it sounds too Indian for our film, though there are some good parts in the song that add extra emphasis to certain scenes in our sequence.
  
• 'Clues' by Jan Hammer- This music is well suited to our film and the noir genre. It's slow paced but mysterious and matches with the action scenes in our film, as well as the slow studio scenes. The quietness also allows any diegetic sounds in the background to be heard alongside the music. We applied this music in our second edit sequence and the whole group agrees with its suitability compared to the first piece.


• 'Keep Running' - This music varies in pace throughout, which would be useful for our running scenes. The title also links in with our film narrative, but overall we don't like the music enough to see it fitting in well with our film and matching with all the action.


• Theme from 'The Warriors' - This music is from a film called 'The Warriors'. It suits our film in regards to pace, but the genre of the music isn't very noirey. We also want to avoid using any music from a previous film as we want our film to be individual.

Applying for commercial use of our music

If we were to finish the rest of our film noir and publicly release it into cinemas worldwide, one of the things we would need to apply for is permission for music use. This is because we haven’t created our own music to use in our opening sequence, as we are using the song ‘Clues’ written by Jan Hammer. PRS (Performing Rights Society) acts as the agent between our film production company ‘Take Two Productions’, and Jan Hammer, as they ask the owner of the music if we would be able to use in our film opening. To apply for music use, we would have to log onto the PRS website (www.prsformusic.com/Pages/default.aspx) and apply using an online application form. On receipt of our request PRS would then contact Jan Hammer and ask for his permission, and negotiate a price we would pay for use of his music.

As I am responsible for sound in our group, I undertook the task of going through the process stage towards applying to use our music, ‘Clues’. We would need a broadcast licence for a feature film for commercial use only. I entered the name of our production company, our film title, a brief synopsis of our film and various other information, so that PRS can inform Jan Hammer the specific use of his music. Then I entered the piece of music we wished to use and who PRS would have to ask permission from to enable us to use it.

Below is a scanned version of the details I was intending to submit to ask for music use permission:

Looking at titles and fonts

In our film we have chosen to place the main title, 'Shadows Present', at the end of the sequence. We found this popular with many films and we thought it would create an enigma for the audience and keep them watching to find out what the film is called. However, as editor it is my responsibility to choose a suitable title font that will match with the noir style and be interesting for the audience. The same chosen font will then be applied to our name titles (which will be shown during our final fight scene and between the running through the forest) to show continuity throughout. We have also had a group idea that the actors' names should appear during the woods scenes, but are unsure if this idea will stay as it is not neccessary to have too many short unreadable titles disturbing the film, rather than a few good readable titles that break up the action nicely. For the background to our titles we had already decided upon black as it would make the text stand out and would match the noir style.

Below are some of the font ideas and the reasons behind them: (the font examples shown below aren't the same as the ones we looked at in the editing suite, but they are very similar. You might have to click on each font example to see it more clearly as the quality isn't very good)

1. The first idea was to have the titles written on a piece of paper attached to the package, which would be in the hand of the person who dies at the end of our film. The shot we took panned out from the title to slowly reveal the hand holding it, however after following advice from Jon (our media teacher), we decided to abandon the idea on the thought that it looked unprofessional and too 'studenty'.

2. The second idea was to keep the handwritten appearance from the first idea, but use a professional font instead. For this our options were 'Copybook' (shown on the left), 'Brush Stroke 26', 'Bradley Hand ITC' or any other similar examples. After applying the title to our film, we realised it didn't look very noiry and gave connotations of a comedy or children's film instead of a dark crime/horror noir sequence.

3. The third idea was to choose something more gothic and detailed. For this we'd use 'Annual' (shown on the left), 'Copperplate Gothic', 'StoneSerif.1 Gothic' or any other similar font. I liked this font style as it suited the noir genre and introduced our film title nicely according to the previous action shown. However, there were still other ideas that could work just as well, so I looked at these first.

4. The fourth idea was to choose something simple but looked like a typewriter, to give the impression that someone is present and has just typed/written it onto the screen (like in the first and second ideas above). For this we used a font called 'Perpetual Elite' (which is similar to 'Courier New' - shown on the left). The font suited our film noir, and is similar to the titles in the opening sequence to the film 'Se7en' (as analysed previously). We decided to put the font into size 86.0 for the production company titles at the beginning, and size 70.0 for our names.

5. Once satisfied with the font choice, Josh and I tried to apply some sort of title effect that would create the appearance of a shadow walking across the font. After a long time of fiddling around, cutting bits of the title and inserting different effects, we decided that our ambitions were set too high and it wouldn't be worth it after all. So we then decided that the font could change colour to red. This would give connotations of blood and death, and would be a nice touch to the end of our sequence, but the beginning of the film. We kept the same font but changed the colour to red. We placed the titles next to each other in our film timeline, and applied a fade transition between the 2 titles. We then applied a 'blur' vidoe effect to the end of the red title to disorientate the audience and add a noirey touch. We showed the rest of our group and we all agreed that this effect worked well.

So above are the few ideas we had as a group, and ideas I had myself. Each idea is good in certain ways, but had to match the noir genre for it to go well with our film.

Looking at effects and transitions

Being the editor in my group means I have to decide on appropriate film effects and transitions to apply to our sequence. Below is a short film using images from 'Galleryplayer' to demonstrate various effects and transitions that we could use:

Many different effects and transitions have been applied, some noticeable and some not. Each effect and transition between each image adds to create a certain feel towards the film. Below I've analysed each image to explain what has been applied:

1. Image 1 is of a a green leaf. The image fades in from black, so it is slowly introduced to the audience. It also reinforces the vibrancy in colour of the image.
2. Image 2 is of an orange rose. The transition applied between Image 1 and Image 2 is a dissolve, as the audience can see the beginning of Image 2 appearing over Image 1. This gives a soft and gentle feeling, which helps to represent the characteristics of the rose in Image 2.
3. Image 3 is of seashells and starfish. A black and white effect has been applied to this image to give connotations of old and the past. The transition between Image 2 and Image 3 is known as a 'checkerboard'. The effect is common in cartoons but otherwise isn't used as it breaks up the atmosphere created previously, and gives the film a cheap amateur feel. We won't be using this transition in our film noir opening sequence as it wouldn't set the right mood for our audience, and it isn't very noiry either.
4. Image 4 is of a spider's web. The transition applied between Image 3 and Image 4 is called a 'cut', and it is the most simple of all transitions. One shot appears directly after another shot, and the 'cut' is where the 2 shots come together. It is basic but is used frequently in many types of visual media (tv programmes, films etc.). We will be using the cut the most in our film opening as it is basic and gives a sharp, snappy rhythm to the film, which is what we want since our film involves lots of fast-paced action.
5. Image 5 is of a snowy landscape. The transition applied between Image 4 and Image 5 is called 'pixelation', and is common in TV programmes and films to show a character's ill mental state or emotion (e.g. a migraine or headache, confusion or in a nightmare scene). The images blur together to confuse the audience, which could be the same feeling the character shown is feeling too. We won't be using this transition in our film as it doesn't suit our narrative and would break up the tension we are trying to create through our footage. Image 5 fades out to white at the end, which matches with the snow theme from the image. We want to use this effect at the beginning of our film sequence, to give connotations of death just before the anonymous dead body is shown, and also to mark a change in location. Or maybe at the end to mark the death of one of our characters and the beginning of the film.

As demonstrated through the short film above, even motionless images can create a certain atmosphere or feeling when a certain effect or transition is applied. That is why it is very important that we choose the right transitions and effects in our film sequence, as we want to ensure there is tension and enigma so that it fits in with the noir genre style.

The images used can be found from http://www.galleryplayer.com or from the 'Sample Images' file located on most 'Microsoft XP' computers.

Inspiring Images

Above are a few images (found by Google Image search) that inspire our film noir narrative...

Each image shows something that is represented in our film sequence. Two of them show shadows amongst the trees, light seeping in and a mysterious figure. The other one shows an envelope containing money. It is useful to have images that inspire you when creating a film as they can help you to think of good shot possibilities and new ideas for when you create the film yourself.

Animatic

CLICK THE VIDEO ABOVE TO WATCH IT!

Creating an animatic is a very useful piece of pre-production work as it gives us an insight into what our final film opening will look like when all our chosen shots are put together. Intitially I was responsible for creating the animatic, since I'm the editor, but because I was away for the crucial animatic lesson and Chris had already made a start on it at home, we decided that he should continue it and I would do a different piece of pre-production work instead. From the animatic I've learnt what our film will look like alongside sound, and as editor can begin to consider what order and length each shot appear on screen for.

After Chris completed the storyboards, he cut each frame apart and arranged it together to form a look-a-like of our final film, but in storyboard drawings. He then applied 2 of our music choices to add extra atmosphere and make the animatic seem more realistic and like the final piece. The music choices were from our final list of 4, but because we haven't made a final decision yet he decided to incorporate 2 of our choices here to see which one is best suited. The first piece by Jan Hammer ('Clues') is slow but spooky and more noir style, whereas the second piece by A R Rahman ('Mausam and Escape') is more for a running pace but sounds very Indian style. As you can see our animatic runs over 3 minutes, but in the real film the shots will be shorter and the action in each scene will be quicker than it's shown here. Also we decided after viewing the animatic that the name titles could appear at the beginning of the film and we would have no music, or very quiet background music on the final scene where the 2 people exchange their dialogue and get into a fight. This is because we want the dialogue to be heard clearly and the gunshot to shock the audience with a loud effect. At the end of our animatic Chris also added the gunshot sounds we wish to use. We found the gunshots on a sound-effects disc from the college library, and they have proved very useful as we wouldn't be able to create a gunshot sound ourselves.

You can also watch our animatic on YouTube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9k4abKaKFDc

Storyboard for our opening sequence

Drawing a storyboard is also a very important piece of pre-production work as it outlines the various shots we will be using, and it gives useful guidlines on what our final film will actaully look like. Above is our storyboard, drawn by Chris as this was part of his role as director. We took this out when filming in both locations and found it very useful to follow by.

Synopsis for our opening sequence

As a part of the pre-production work we had to complete a full synopsis explaining the storyline for our film noir opening. This was Chris's task to create as he is our director, though we each gave ideas towards this. The sequence only involves 2 characters, of which we have named Peter and the Mystery Shadow. The importance of a synopsis is that it gives guidelines to the script and ensures we know exactly what to film and what moods and atmospheres we wish to portray.

Synopsis:

• The first part shown is a flashback showing Peter walking along a footpath in a woodland area. He is wearing a dark leather jacket over a creased white shirt of which the collar can vaguely be shown. The rest of his clothing is quite casual, including a woolly hat which suggests it is winter. He is alone when he discovers a dead body holding a brown package on the ground.
• Peter has no idea who the dead person is but can see a large wadge of money poking out from the package. In an act of selfishness he takes the package and on hearing a noise in the distance, he runs with a panicked expression and clearly unaware of what he has just committed himself towards by taking the mysterious package.
• Voice over: "This is the day my life finished". This comes from Peter as he runs away.
• The screen switches to Peter entering a dark room of his apartment. All that can be seen is a desk with a lamp and fan on it, as the rest is darkness. The desk is in the centre of the room and a Venetian blind effect is throwing awkward lines across it.
• Peter unzips bis leather jacket and throws his woolly hat and the mysterious package onto the desk before collapsing into the chair beside it. He switches on the desk lamp which reveals the contents of his desk. A black folder, a glass of whiskey with ice cubes in it, an electric fan (which is switched off), pad of paper and a handful of Biro pens.
• His hands are shaking with nerves as he carefully inspects the package. He takes the bundle of money (£20 notes) from the package and checks its quality under the dim light of the desk lamp.
• Voice over: "Like a panther prowling through the undergrowth stalking its prey. Was I the panther, or the unsuspecting gazelle staring into the great gorging eyes of abyss without even realising it?” Here Peter is metaphorically describing his emotions to the audience.
• The screen suddenly turns to a piercingly bright white light. This triggers Peter's memory of him running through the woods just a few hours ago. The screen then switches between location (the woods and the dark apartment room) as Peter reveals the contents of the package item-by-item.
• He inspects each item carefully. 2 black and white photographs of himself walking in various locations, A black notebook containing a date and nameless contact details (address and phone number).
• Between the shots of Peter looking through the package the screen cuts to him running through the woods looking anxiously behind him, as if there is somebody following in his footsteps. Faint noises and quick shots of a Mysterious Shadow appear on the path Peter has been running along, creeping up bushes and other foliage, and disappearing whenever Peter glances around. The Mysterious Shadow's identity isn't revealed though we know he carries a knife, and an over-the-shoulder shot shows him wearing a dark hood. Other shots of his fast-walking feet show he's also wearing dark jeans and trainers.
• At one point the camera follows Peter climbing up a steep slippery mud hill in a hurry as he drops the package but turns around to pick it up. This shows that Peter is money-orientated and desperately wants to keep the package though he has no idea of the other contents and the audience don't know why he 'stole' it.
• Peter then rests against a tree as he catches his breath. Voice over: He asks himself “Why me? Why me, the keep your head down, no fuss, always do as you’re told, unimportant cog. The one whose eyes you always avoid because otherwise you might actually have to acknowledge they exist. The bloke who melts in with the crowd. No one taking second notice!” This reveals Peter's true thoughts about himself.
• Then the audience are taken back into his apartment room where he takes out the final item in the package. It is a black gun, complete with loaded ammunition. In a moment of panic Peter hides the gun in his inner jacket pocket, as if he knows this will be of use to him later on.
• Then the audience return to the woods and see Peter turning to look back from behind the tree. A small silhouetted figure disappears in the distance behind another tree before the camera focuses on a small, insignificant, blood-red berry gracefully falling from a branch. Halfway as it slowly falls from above, the screen cuts to ice-cubes dropping into Peter's glass of whiskey. This cut joins the times and locations together (though will be tricky to film!)
• Peter's hand gently appears in shot as he clutches the glass and gulps down the contents in a nervous hurry. He arrogantly slams the emptied glass onto the desk in front of him, but almost instantly after can an even louder slam of the front door be heard. The audience now know there is someone else at present in the apartment as Peter worriedly glances at the door with fear.
• The darkness hides the identity of Peter's company, though as we cut to a shot of a shadow slowly walking along the grey apartment carpet the audience will recognise this shadow to be of the Mystery man. Also there will be reflection of light from the knife he's holding, which again shows that this is the same person who was following Peter through the forest earlier.
• The Mystery Shadow is walking very slowly as Peter follows his every move. The Mystery Shadow stops before the desk. Dialogue: “You know that stuff will kill you.” He speaks directly to Peter's face about the alcohol Peter has just be drinking.
• Every step the Mystery Shadow takes can be heard loudly as he slowly circles Peter with a casual manner about him. Peter's facial expressions reveal his nervous emotions as the contents of the package remain still on the desk before him. The shadow of the Mystery Man creeps up Peter's desk as he addresses the Mystery Man. Dialogue: “I suppose that’s your job then isn’t it. It was all set up. Right from the off.” His sarcastic tone doesn't hide his anxiety as he closes his eyes during his speech. The Mystery Shadow is staring directly at Peter, which disturbs him even more.
• The Mystery Shadow continues to walk until he is standing behind Peter, who remains still in his chair and is staring at the package contents in front of him. Dialogue: “Manipulation does indeed taste sweet in success. Whilst revenge on the other hand is best served cold. And it’s said that death is so very, very cold.” The Mystery Shadow is clearly in control of the situation though he speaks calmly and softly to demonstrate loneliness and that nobody else can hear or see him.
• The audience then see Peter draw the gun out of his jacket pocket, whilst the Mystery Shadow man leans forward to stab Peter in the back with his shiny sharp knife, reflecting in the dim light. Peter falls onto the floor and takes the Mystery Shadow with him. The package envelope is seen to fall gracefully on the floor amongst the vicious fighting below.The camera doesn't follow the two men as they fight because it stays focused on the package contents lying in the middle of Peter's desk. This reinforces the importance of the package and reminds the audience that this is responsible for the beginning of misery for Peter.
• 2 loud gunshots pierce the moment, sharp and sudden. The audience now know that either the Mystery Man or Peter has been killed, but who? This is not revealed as we left this to be the enigma. The screen then switches to a hand lying still on the floor with a note resting in it. The note reads 'Shadows Present' in a bold, black, handwritten format. This is the title our film noir, and the audience are lead to believe that this note was inside the package all along, amongst the various other contents. This also anaphorically references to the very beginning of our opening where the dead girl is lying on the floor in the woods, holding the package.

The enigma left for the rest of the film to reveal is who exactly has been murdered? Why was there more than just money in the package? Who was the Mystery Man and does he know Peter already? With all these enigmas (and more) the audience will want to watch on and resolve the problems seen in our film opening. The style we use (darkness, the Venetian blind effect, murder and blackmail) all reflect those used in neo-noir films.

Group Treatment

As mentioned before in a previous blog post, everyone in our group has a specific role. As we needed to complete a treatment of what our film noir opening will be like when complete, we decided to each write up the area which our role is involved with. Below is the combined group treatment and I have included the group names of who has completed what part of it.

Treatment for mise-en-scene - Emily
Locations: The man running in the flashback (Peter) is going to be set in the back of our college, at a park called ‘Alexandra park’ we choose this place for our exterior scene because it has a lot of trees and it would be good if it was sunny as you'd be able to see shadows through the trees for our shadow man. Also not many people go down there so it would not be a problem when we have to come to edit to get rid of the diegetic sound. When the man is sitting in the room we have chosen to use the studio in our college because it’s very dark, there are lights already there and it's a good place to give out shadows and it would be very effective for our venation blind effect.

Costumes: Both exterior and interior we our going to have our main man who is running (Peter) to be wearing wrinkled clothes and black clothes and a little stubble on his chin because it shows that this man is in his late teens and he is not experienced in making rational decisions in life. The shadow is just a black figure so it does not require a lot of costume but my plan was that we get the actor who is playing him to dress all in black and not put any light on him to make him more of a silhouette.

Lighting: When we come to the interior (Peter in the room) it is going to be darkness and then it has a few seconds of the Venation blind effect over his face. When it is exterior in the park we are going to use natural daylight on the man running but with the shadow we will need some lighting so that we can put a shadow effect on him on the ground so that it appears that the shadow is bigger and more powerful then this man.

Performance: In the beginning when we see the man in the room his facial expressions is relieved to show that he has just gotten away from something and he escaped. But when we go in and out of the flashbacks you see his face getting more anxious and nervous.At the ending when he is in the room you see his face relaxed and calmed then there is a lose up of his eyes which seem scared and nervous like he has released something.

Props: I made up a list of what props that we need in this movie and we all discussed who would bring in what. Below is a list of all the props we will be using both indoors and outside in the woods. Some of the things we need are available from college, but we have to supply most of them ourselves.

• A desk (available at college)
• A chair at the desk (available at college)
• A angle desk lamp (available at college)
• A fan (for the desk, available at college)
• A black folder, a pad of paper, a few Biro pens and a mobile phone (to decorate the desk)
• 2x large brown envelope packages (1 as a spare)
• A drinking glass filled with water
• A fake knife and a fake gun
• 2x black & white photos of our main character walking, and a paperclip to hold them together
• An A5 black notebook with a mysterious date in it
• A magazine cut-out collage of a nameless address and phone number
• A fake ice-cube (or real ice from the college cafe if they have any)
• A piece of paper with 'Shadows Present' handwritten in bold onto it
• The main character's costume and the shadow man's costume (as described above)

Treatment for cinematography - Chris

• For exterior shots, we were thinking that since the first shot is going to be of a package full of money clenched in a hand, maybe some sort of close up should be used on the package in the hand. A normal close up might be a bit far away, so I’m more likely to use a big close-up or even an extreme close-up on the hand and package.
• Again, I was thinking of maybe a close up of the package on the ground after it has been dropped and is still in a hand. It would look obvious that the person’s hand is on the ground because of the foliage in our chosen location, so a medium close-up would be best.
• A medium close-up shot of the package as a shadow passes over it. If the shot is framed nicely and nothing is moved between shots, then maybe it would seem like the same shot - the shot of the package on the ground, and the next shot where the shadow passes over it.· Medium shots, Wide shots and Close-ups are probably going to be the main shots used in the production. Of course, when filming this on-set in our locations both inside and outside, as a group we will probably discuss the shots whilst practicing them and make final decisions there and then, so most of the ideas I have may change to different shots on-screen, which will be down to different perspectives of the same shots.
• Also there is a shot of my eyes “wearing a panicked expression” at the beginning, so an extreme close-up will probably be the best type of shot to use. Fellow group members will act as assistant cameramen/women when I am needed in front of the camera.
• Maybe a change in the focus, between the background and the foreground, though looking at our ideas and script I don’t quite know where we could include this kind of detail.· The use of Dutch Tilts in my “Exchange” project before Christmas received a lot of positive feedback from the rest of the students in my AS Media lecture when it was screened, so I shall aim to reuse Dutch Tilts in a similar fashion.· On the interior shots, I’m going to be acting so I shall have to tell my crew what shots I will require, and whilst on-set maybe they can show me the framing before we film each shot. I shall also oversee the shots as the director of the production both in front of the camera and behind, on both locations. Especially the interior location, since we’re planning on using the Media Studio where we can adapt the lighting and position of props to our liking.
• shall be acting in the interior location, so my assistant camera crew will be filming the shots. I will have set it up and all they will need to do is press the Record button on/off. If one of them wants to adjust the exposure or aperture on the camera then I can do it, since I’m very confident about altering the settings on any camera that I will use or have already used, both in Media Studies and in my private life.
• Whilst on-set, we can discuss the height, angle and framing of each shot since it is difficult to draw these small details on a storyboard.· We will mainly be using a tripod with the camcorder, but maybe a handheld shot here and there if shots are too difficult to shoot on a tripod. Panning and tilting may be used in the exterior location as my character runs past the camera.

Treatment for audiences and influences - Josh

After conducting our surveys which were targeted at the age group suggested by our brief, 15-24 year olds, we found what the common tastes seemed to be. Firstly, they were on the whole unaware of the term film noir and many of them listed their favourite genres to be comedies or action films. This meant that a film that simply copied many traditional film noirs would simply not interest a modern audience, in order to catch their attention we need to put a different spin on it. The first thing to do is to not film it in a black and white visual as another fact that came out of our primary research was that many people seemed to be put off by a film being in black and white. By keeping the film in colour we will need to be more creative and careful with our lighting techniques.

As well as that our primary research indicated that a lot of people require several 'action' scenes in a thriller which indicates that they prefer a faster paced story and avoid any pondering. Josh tried to incorporate this into the script by introducing a fast paced opening with our main character fleeing from an unknown pursuer as he tries to make off with a mysterious package containing a large sum of money. This was intended to get the film off to fast start. However it was also important to maintain many of the traditions of noir in order to keep the film in this genre, so the scene where the two men are in the room together will emphasise many classic film noir lighting techniques and the dialogue throughout the piece will be noir like in both its subject matter and wording.

Our influences for the more traditional noir characteristics in the piece were classic film noirs such Citizen Kane, 'Detour' and 'Double Indemnity' for the feel and visual styles including how they put the camera in different positions to create interesting angles. Also, some of the dialogue in our piece references these kind of films. However, the wording is slightly updated and our props and costumes have been modified to fit into today's fashion criteria.

Looking at more recent noirs influences have included both the George Clooney thriller Michael Clayton and the Coen Brothers' 'No Country For Old Men'. Michael Clayton starts out with its main character sprinting through a wooded area with his expression indicating that something very unexpected and dramatic has happened hence his fleeing which serves as a hook to the audience. Also, in 'No Country For Old Men' the main protagonist steals a suitcase full of money and intends to make away with it but finds that a killer is now on his trail. The plot plays on the age old question of whether you would take an abandoned bag of money if you simply came across. The idea of an ordinary man making one bad decision and then having dark repercussions is a constant theme in film noirs and helps us to further our film's connection to noir traditions.

Treatment for editing and titles - Chloe
The initial ideas for the editing style of our film noir opening would be cutting shots to create a short, sharp and precise appearance. The effect of this would make the scenes seem more intense with lots of things going on in each one, and also to put the audience on the edge of their seats with anticipation. We also decided, as a group, that the speed in which the Man was travelling would affect the speed in which the shots would appear on the screen. For example, the part where the Man is running at a breathless pace, the shots would be fast also. And where the Man is dead in motion and lying on the floor, the shots would be left long to create a slow pace.

When the cuts occur between the Man running and when he is in the isolated room, we decided it would be best to use a sweeping transition to illustrate a change in location and a change in the Man’s emotional state. A sweeping transition may seem to calm and unsuited to the action on the audience will be viewing, but we wanted this transition to not be too noticeable as it may break the audience’s trust and belief that our film is real. Late after a piece of voice over from the Man, a series of location cuts begin. These will be between the Man running through the woods, and the same Man sitting in a darkened room alone. Each shot-after-shot will be fast and chaotic as to disorientate the audience and make them watch carefully, as the shots unveil more of the Man’s problems and secrets.

Whilst in the editing suit, we as a group decided that in the shot sequence between the woods and the room locations, the ones where the Man is running could be put into a black and white or tinted blue effect to show the grimness of the woods and also as a nice touch to show that this is directly from the Man’s memory. Also, it ties in with many of the traditional noir films, as they were all in black and white because of the time period they were filmed in.

For the titles, we have decided that the personnel titles would be shown before the action begins, and then the main title of the film would be displayed at the end. The personnel titles would feature our group names and roles, and would drip-fill with red one by one onto a black background. This would represent blood and murder, and is used on other film noir, crime or who-done-it mystery films. The main title would be best positioned at the end as we discovered that most opening film sequences come before the main title appears. This also ensures that the audience stay seated throughout until they uncover the name of the film they are watching. We decided that instead of following the same format as with the personnel titles, we would have this written on a piece of dirty, torn paper that drops onto the floor. It has yet been decided who drops this piece of paper on the floor, but it would probably be the main character Man as he is dying. The font of our ‘Shadows Present’ main title would be in a handwritten style, but bold and clear enough for the audience to read. The colour of the writing would either be black or deep red, to represent blood again.

Treatment for the sound - Chloe
As a group, our first ideas for the sound were to have a continuous soundtrack accompanying each shot. We ideally want this piece of music to be contrapuntal to the action on screen as it would show that we haven’t just picked a piece of music at random, and that it was clearly planned and prepared for. We wanted our music to be orchestral yet modern, and to make it sound creepy and odd. In the editing suit a few days ago, as a group we decided on a list of top 4 music choices that suit our demands. One of our top choices is called 'Mausam and Escape' by A R Rahman. It has a fast pace towards the end of the piece, which will be the part of the song we will use for the running scenes. Although we have had some doubts about whether it sounds too continental for a film noir, despite it's suitability in regards to pace. Our other choice (featured in the beginning of our animatic) is 'Clues' by Jan Hammer. This music piece is slow by has a mysterious feel about it. Therefore we would probably only use parts of this music in the scenes where Peter is discovering the contents of the package.

Other sound that would be recorded would be diegetic as we would leave the camera-top microphone on. For the sound where the ice-cube crashes into the glass that the Man is holding in the room, we may have to make it pleonastic as to demonstrate the Man’s loneliness and that every small sound can be heard and is amplified. For the sound that would be impossible to retrieve for our opening, such as a gun shot, we will have to result to finding a sound affect that suits our film. Sound effects can be easily found on the Internet or on disks in sound libraries.

We have realised that it is important to get the music and the sound right for a our opening as it will be used to create the atmosphere of a film noir, and can keep the audience intrigued into watching more.

Conducting a questionnaire

As a group we wanted some feedback about film noir to help us with our project. The feedback would be gained through primary research in the form of a questionnaire, as this way we could tailor the questions to ensure we would gain the useful answers we wanted. Emily devised the questionnaire and went out to ask people for answers. She asked 7 people in the 16-25 age range as they are the main cinema audience and they are who we would be aiming our noir towards. She also asked people aged 40, 28 and 14 to see if our film would appeal to a wider audience range as well. My job was to analyse the results and below is a table showing what I found out explaining how the information we gained from each question was useful to us.
We will attempt to incorporate our findings when creating our opening sequence to make it more appealing to our target audience of people aged between 15 and 25. The question about black and white films (question 2) will be particularly useful when we are in the editing suit and are choosing to add any effects to our film. Our results show that black and white films aren’t a popular choice and that they would turn off/over the TV if they saw one was on. Our role in creating our title sequence is to get people to stay tuned in and watch on to resolve the enigma(s), but if our audience would choose not to watch it just because it was in black and white, then perhaps we shouldn’t add that effect. Question number 5 also proved interesting with the results as it shows how people can be interested and ‘hooked’ in a film opening even if there isn’t any music to accompany it. We will still use music in our opening piece as we feel it’s the key to creating the right noir atmosphere, though it is useful to know that we won’t be turning away our audience if we chose to have loud sound effects, plain speech or dead silence instead. Although the resuls we gained were useful, there were still some things we could have done to gain even better results. Firstly we could have asked a bigger sample of people to gain more accurate results with defined replies on each question. However, I think the outcome would still contain similar results, and wouldn’t be of any further use to us. Also, we could have more questions requiring a more detailed answer (open questions) to gain more feedback from each person we gave the questionnaire to. But they may not have been as keen to fill it out if they had noticed how detailed it was. Overall, I am pleased with the results we discovered as they’ll be very useful to us in the future.

Looking at opening sequences

So, what makes a good opening sequence? There are many different things that a title sequence must have to ensure it's quality, and since I'm creating my own sequence, this research would be very useful to me. Below I have come up with a list of 7 key points to consider:

• Cinematography: A mixture of interesting shots must be used to capture the audience's attention.
• Narrative: The opening must have an enigma(s) or a mystery attached to ensure the audience will want to watch on.
• Sound: Dialogue, music and sound effects can all be used to set a certain atmosphere and interest the audience.
• Characters: The main character(s) in the film must be interesting and well set-up in the opening. The audience must be able to relate to them and establish a relationship with them.
• Mise-en-scene: This includes the location, props, costumes, performance ad lighting. They must all be carefully thought out to create the right impression and atmosphere.
• Editing: The pace, rhythm, transitions, titles and special effects must also be carefully planned to introduce the film well and keep the audience's attention.
• Genre: The opening must include the correct characteristics that meet its genre e.g. a noir opening would include shadows, darkness, dodgy characters etc. to ensure the audience know what they're watching.

Below I have analysed 2 film openings that have inspired and are related to my film noir opening. As well as watching each film opening myself, I found the IMDB website very useful - http://www.imdb.com/

'Resurrection Man' - Marc Evans - 1998

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-iKzpGR0Uo

* Click on the link above to watch the first 9 minutes of the film on YouTube*

'Resurrection Man' is a neo-noir film and this is clearly demonstrated in the title sequence. The titles enter on-screen in time with the music, which is deep with loud drum beats that make it almost sound military. The main character is first seen walking in slow motion down his garden path. The way he carries himself confidently, his gold jewellery and his black costume shows he is wealthy but a bad guy in the film. The desaturated colour and the dated cars parked along the street set the time period, and the low angle shots on the main character reinforce his importance. The screen then switches to an image of an elderly lady who the audience are led to believe is the man's mother. Her costumes and surroundings suggest she is just normal, but since the whole screen is filled with the image of her, it suggests she is quite an important character in this film and may re-appear again. The scene where the little boy (who we are led to think is the man when he was younger) is lit with a piercingly-bright blue light that flashes on the boy's face. The other 2 men are poorly lit to show their insignificance, and the close-up shots of the boy reinforce who we should be focusing on. Then there are the bright lights of the 'Cinema' that is displayed in a disorientating trombone shot with unsuitably happy music. As the atmosphere has been set very cynically so far, this confuses the audience into the genre of the film, and the significance of the 'Cinema'.

Every way the character is portrayed in this opening, says something about him and who he is. This is why I chose to analyse this opening as it is all about establishing who the main character is, and introducing him to the audience. In our film noir opening, we want the focus to be on introducing our main character, so it was useful to watch this as it cleverly shows how the whole mise-en-scene (costume and props particularly), music and cinematography shots can present someone in a certain way.
'Seven' - David Fincher - 1995
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEZK7mJoPLY&feature=related

*Click on the link above to watch the opening title sequence on YouTube*

This film is also a neo-noir film as it was made fairly recently, but the style and plot pull it more into the thriller/horror genre. The film opening is renown for setting the example to many other films and tv programmes that follow with a similar idea. The way the character is shown fiddling with photographs, words on paper and various other things that leave an image of murder and cruelty in our minds. The character's identity isn't shown as all the audience sees is his/her's bandaged fingers messing around with things on a desk. This opening sequence inspired me as it sets up so many enigmas that make you want to watch to answer the many questions you have. What are they doing? Who are they? Why are they doing this? Where are they? What's going to happen? ...and many more. I hope to gain this sort of reaction from my film noir audience as our main character reveals the contents of the 'mysterious package'.

The cinematography mainly consists of close-ups and extreme close-ups so that the audience don't see anything but what the main character is doing, and they can't pull away to focus on anything else in the scene. The location isn't established and there are so many things going on that the audience are unclear on what they're doing. Also, the screen doesn't hold one shot long enough for the audience to look carefully at what's happening, as the shots quickly follow after each other with a fading transition. The majority of shots are coloured with a yellow-orange effect, which I think is a strange choice as they are usually used to give a warming homely effect to a scene. However in this case, the colours look univiting and spooky. The titles that appear break up the action. The handwritten font style and the flickering about of the words matches the action as the character is hand-making something. The background changes between black and brown as the the text appears in white. In our film we hope to do something similar with the background as it makes the titles part of the sequence, rather than putting them over the action. It also makes sure the audience reads them as each name appears by themselves.

The music choice for the sequence is simple yet strange and mysterious. This matches the action shown and adds to the atmosphere of the scene. There are no diegetic sounds, which makes the audience concerned about the location even more and also creates a sense of loneliness and secrecy. I thnk the music is well chosen and I hope that our music choice will reflect the action as it did in this film opening. The titles also appear in time with the music, which is something our group want to consider as it shows that the music was carefully selected to match.

I enjoyed watching this film opening as it looks very simple yet is very effective. The mise-en-scene involves many props but no costume as the character isn't shown. The tinting of the colour and the creepy music all contribute to the atmosphere, and although the location isn't revealed with an establishing shot, it adds to the enigma.

Group progress and discussions

In order to reach conclusions about our film noir opening, we meet up in our group to discuss ideas and answer any problems. Below are notes on what we discussed during our meetings along with the general progress we made towards creating our finished sequence:

• Wednesday 7th January - Emily about locations for our film noir opening. We each took a copy of the first script draft from Josh and mentioned anything else we wanted to be included. We all discussed what shots should be used where in the script and finalised a list of individual pre-production tasks to be getting on with. As editor, I asked about when we wanted the titles to appear and we decided that the main title would go at the end and the personnel titles at the beginning. We also decided who would play each character and decided on Chris to be the main person.
• Wednesday 14th January - Chris was finishing the storyboard whilst Emily produced a list of costumes and props we each needed to fetch, and discussed who would get each one. We also looked at what the main character would be wearing in each location (woods and in the dark room). We all went to go and look at our chosen location, Alexandra Park, to take pictures, look at where the main character would be running from and to think about where the camera could be positioned to get the best shots possible.
• Thursday 22nd January - Chris scanned the finished draft of the storyboard into the computer to create an animatic. We each prepared something to say to the class in tomorrow's presentation speech (except I was off ill so I did mine at home).
• Friday 23rd January - Today we did our speech to the rest of our media class and showed them our finished animatic. We answered any questions they gave us and considered their comments. One of the things someone mentioned was that it may be too much to film with too little time to show it all. We took this on board and will consider shortening the scrips and including less of our ideas to make it more simple, yet still with the same desired effect.
• Wednesday 28th January - We finalised all our pre-production work and Josh asked if there were any issues we found with the script. Emily reminded us of what props and costumes we needed to bring in individually, and I suggested that we used a small glass block (which I have at home) if the college cafe couldn't supply any ice-cubes to us. I also took the questionnaire results away to write up an analysis on them, whilst Chris thought about what we would do in wet weather conditions. We decided that if it was rainy on the day of the shoot, we would have to take the camera kit out during the half term holidays, or film the following week. Or we could use an umbrella to shelter the camera , though this would limit our filming abilities and we doubt the media department would allow it, though the rainy effect would add to the atmosphere of our film! We all went to the college library during break to search for sound effects CD's that could us in our film. We took out 4 in total with footsteps, outdoor atmosphere noise, indoor atmosphere noise and gunshots on each. We would listen to them tomorrow. ONLY 1 WEEK LEFT UNTIL OUR FILMING DAY - WEDNESDAY 4TH!
• Thursday 29th January - Today we spilt up as a group as Emily and Josh remained in the media classroom to look over the pre-production work and finish a birds-eyed view map of our Alexandra Park location, whilst Chris and I went into the editing suit to listen to our music choices. We came up with a shortlist of 4 possible music pieces, each from the CD albums that Chris and Josh found at home and brought in. We listened to the sound effect tracks and decided that the gunshots would be useful, but the footsteps didn't sound very realistic so we would try and record our own on the day.
• Wednesday 4th February - Today was our filming day and the weather was perfect for it. However the ground was icy and (in places) slippery with mud, and it was freezing cold being outside for hours. We all gathered at the media department where Chris had arrived early to take out all the kit we needed. We spent about 30mins checking everything worked and asking any last minute questions before leaving for Alexandra Park at 10am. The park is only 10mins walk away so no transport was required. Emily left the group at 2pm though we carried on filming until 2.30pm. We ensured we got all our shots from the storyboard and extras just in case. Once we'd captured all our footage and viewed it from the camera, we returned to college to give back some of the kit (microphone etc). We took the camera to the library and logged our best shots so it would be easier once we were in the editing suite.
• Thursday 5th February - We went into the editing suite to view our best shots on the computer and to check that everything was working. We finished our animatic and decided on a piece of music we wanted to use. WE chose 'Mausam and Escape' by A R Rahman as we all agreed it's suitability to our noir.
• Wednesday 11th February - Today we filmed the rest of our footage from the media studio. We began filming at about 9.30am once we'd all arrived and checked the kit was working. We arranged and lit the set to create a film noir approach, and used a piece of card to create a Venetian blind lighting effect. We were only given maximum 3 hours to film all of footage in the studio, so we ended up being finished at about 1.30pm. Altogether we took about the same amount of time to film in the studio as in the wood, and we captured a total of 25mins footage - though we won't use it all!
• Wednesday 25th February - Today we went into the editing suite to capture our woods footage onto the computer. Josh and Emily then logged the best shots from our studio footage whilst Chris and I began a rough-cut of the woods footage.
• Wednesday 4th March - We all continued with our editing and added the music to our footage. We also captured our studio footage and realised that one of our shots containing synchronised sound would have to be taken again as the volume was too quiet.
• Thursday 5th March - Me, Chris and Josh went into the editing suit at 12 today to sort out our music and get some extra editing done.
• Wednesday 11th March - Chris, Josh and Emily went to the studio today to film our synchronised speech close-up shot of Chris at the desk speaking his first line of dialogue. Whilst I stayed in the editing suite to rearrange the music. We finished our rough cut today though we are reconsidering the order of our shots and thinking about where we would position transitions effects and titles (though we didn't add them today). Emily also recorded Chris's voice over and the various sound effects we might need to include - e.g. Chris's coat zip, the desk lamp switch and shuffling money.
• Wednesday 18th March - Today we finished our rough cut of our film and began to apply titles. After showing our finished rough cut to class members and Jon (our media teacher), we were advised that we should change our music as it was setting a too manic atmosphere and it was looking like a movie trailer, rather than a film opening. Therefore, we took a copy of our timeline and applied our second music choice 'Clues'. As a group we all found that this piece of calmer, more noir style music better suited our noir opening than our first choice.
• Wednesday 25th March - Today we started a new sequence with the same 'Clues' music but with all our studio scenes in the beginning and our woods scenes at the end. We found this presented more of an enigma straight away, rather than confusing the audience about what's going on. This is our 3rd sequence we have made, and we all agreed as a group that this is the best one simple because it meet the noir codes and conventions, and looks less like a film trailer and more like a film opening sequence. We began to apply titles to our scenes and changed our minds about the final film title 'Shadows Present'. before we had the film name appearing on a piece of paper attached to the package. though after following advice that this shot looked 'too student-like and unprofessional' we decided that an ordinary title would look best. Chris, Josh and I stayed in the editing suite through lunch time today as Chris was looking for a good gunshot sound effect (with a silencer) so that it sounded like it was shot inside a room, rather than outside. And Josh and I were fiddling around with the titles to ensure they worked well with our footage. We also applied church bells to the beginning of our sequence as we felt they gave connotations of death and funerals.
• Wednesday 1st April - Today we decided to try out a new sequence layout for our film by adding new titles in between the action to break it up a bit but keep up the pace. We also experimented with the film transitions ('tumbler', 'spin', 'blur' etc.) We liked the 'blur' effect on the titles as they would disorientate the audience and the fitted in well with the noir theme. We then screened our opening to 2 people in our class who hadn't seen it before. They're response was useful and we took their opinions into account when putting the final finishing touches to our film.
• Wednesday 22nd April - Today was the last editing session we had left to finish our opening sequence. We finished applying titles and used feedback from group members about how to reduce the hissing noise in the background of our voice over. For this we applied a 'Constant Power' fade onto the end of each sound bar so that the hissing noise blended in and couldn't be heard as loudly. We then screened our film to Jon, our media teacher, who suggested we should ensure the font style and size of each title was the same. This would add continuity to our film and make it seem more professional and less 'studenty'. Simple things like this are quick and easy to correct but are still important as they can often be really noticeable to the audience. At about 12 o'clock we had finished our film completely and began to render the file so it could be written to a DVD. We could have spent another few weeks tweaking and changing little things about our film, but as a group we're happy with the standard of film we've produced and I'm particularly pleased that no drastic errors occured throughout our entire project. We worked well as a group and although we often spent too long on decision making, we still managed to end up with a good finished noir style film opening within the deadline. As editor I've learnt lots about how to use the editing software 'Adobe Pro' to make the best of our footage, and am pleased with the end result.