Group Members roles

Chantelle:

Larni:

Rhys:

Ashley:

Actors

Larni: female character

Ashley: main male character

Rhys: other male character

Chantelle: other female character

The exchange:

Exchange exercise:

In groups of four we will be doing The Exchange exercise which was to film a short (ours was 45 seconds) sequence of a film thriller which was called The Exchange, had to involve somehow an exchange of an item this could be anything at all from an envelope, tape or even a kidnapping exchange from one character to another. Using the style film thriller, this could be shown by the costumes, shot angle, music and location. This will also help me improve on using the camera equipment and editing and I will learn how to put over music as this will be the first time of putting a sound track over our filming.

As our group we wanted to make our 1 minute film thriller to look like a noir film as we could then look back at this task and see what does and don’t make it look noir and could use this to help us out with our final film opening. We followed the typical film noir location and therefore we filmed ours in a run down street next to a car park also there was a lot of wire fencing making it look a very dodgy place this was brilliant as we exchanged an envelope with money in it, we wanted the audience to think that it was a dodgy situation a girl giving a man an envelope full of money.

 I was the lady character in The Exchange I wore jeans and a long brown coat; we wanted the girl character to look simple and normal. The man character wore black trousers, long grey coat and black shade glasses; this was to make him look like he was in charge of the situation which was the money given to him. Also the lady looked like she was a bit nervous when she gave the money making him look like an important character. As the film idea would have been him being a drug dealer and the lady as his client. But as a group we did find out when we showed the class it that they laughed at the male character this could have been because of the glasses maybe we made him look a bit to serious especially as the audiences didn’t really know who he was. So in our final opening thriller that we will be doing we will make sure we don’t make this mistake of using humour as when humour is brought into the characters it loses the noir thriller feel to the film.

We tried out as many different shot angles such as Dutch tilt etc. As we wanted to have a few to choose from when editing and also could see what they looked like. We used a close up as the lady and male feet meeting each other. Mid shot when the envelope is passed over to the male. Over shoulder when the male character is checking the envelope to see if the money is in there. Also this shot of him doing this was filmed as a low angle, shows the audience that he is powerful as it looks like he is looking down, giving it that intimating feel to it. The first shot is a wide shot showing the whole location I found this worked as the audience know straight away where they are.

When we was editing we realised that we had a problem with continuity. As the lady was holding the money in her left hand but when she passed the money over to the male character it was filmed in her right hand. Because of this we didn’t have many shots to choose from for this bit of the film as some of the shots we could no longer use because of the continuity problem. Obviously this was a fault we did but I guess we learnt from it as we know not to do it again and make sure when filming keep everything the same or it just looks weird and stupid to the audience.

The sound over piece we added to it I thought went well with it as it was a simple slow beat and wasn’t anything over the top and it just worked and our feed back from the class agreed and said it went well and it made the audience wanted to know what was going to happen, the music contributed to this.

Preliminary exercise

We had to get into groups of 3 to do have our first attempt at filming which was our Preliminary Exercise which we had to do film someone walking down the corridor into a room and sit down and have a small conversation with someone else whiles keeping the rules of thirds. This was only a 30 second to 1 minute clip using 6-9 shots. This was just a simple exercise so we could get use to using the equipment and to get to look back it to see our mistakes or how to improve it. We had been taught the 180 degree line rule so we used this in this exercise so we could see how it worked. Whiles when we were filming we got to use different angle shots and distance. Also got to see which looked better and got to get use to using a camera as this was the first time I had used a proper filming camera. Also I acted in it as well so I had to do the shots that I wasn’t in for example when the other actor was walking down the corridor when I wasn’t in shot I filmed a close up of her feet and also when she opened the door. This experienced helped us a lot on editing and filming and the next time we filmed we would know what we were doing as this told us what we did wrong and how we could have improved it.

Synopsis and storyline to our film noir opening:

Synopsis for opening
Open with a man sitting in a corner, head in his hands covered in a hood. The man appears emotional as he throws objects from nearby over the room. He sits in the room as he thinks. As he thinks he has a flashback, seeing a man walking down a road and seeing a girl, their eyes meet and the problems begin. The film goes back to the man in the room he has various flashbacks which could link to the story which will follow, leaving an enigma for the audience.
Synopsis for rest of narrative
Later on the man is getting ready for a party with some of his friends, they talk about the girl he saw earlier that day anf he finds out from his friends that her boyfriend is a physco drug dealer.
At the party the guy and girl begin to talk then they get together, the boyfriend bursts in on them and hit’s the guy then proceeds to chase him out the house where he catches him and they both fight. During the fight the guy picks up a metal pipe that’s laying on the ground and brutally attacks the drug dealer, killing him in the process.

idea and synopsis and treatment on opening:

My idea of an opening of a film

A Girl wakes up in her mate’s bed, her hands covered in blood she looks around clueless as she doesn’t know why she’s there and doesn’t remember anything from last night. As she sits up she reaches and has a drink of water as her throat and mouth is dry as she had been drinking a lot the night before. She starts to panic and her bag is next to her so she starts to rummage around in it trying to look for her phone so she can call someone saying to her self “fuck”. As she is stressed because she has no idea what has happened she covers her face with her hands realising that her face is very painful when she touches it. She slowly walks to the mirror still covering her face, breathing heavily and hands start shaking. As her face is stinging and she is in more pain because she’s touched it. Breathing even more heavily as she starts saying to her self repeatedly “please no please no please no” When she removes her hands whiles looking at her face she screams and starts crying.

Then this is where the flashbacks begin, the first one showing you someone ruining her face, punching and slicing with a hand knife. This is showed using effects so it looks like each time she is getting punched it looks like the screen is flashing this would add an tense feel to it when the audience is watching. Also when filming this, the camera will be held by someone and it will make it look like one of the characters from the film is filming it. It’ll be filmed shaky to make the shot strange, odd and will show how the girl is distressed and is helpless. This is important that this is shown to the audience from this flashback shot as later on in the film the tape is found by the girl and this is how she finds out who has done this to her and why. The story is carried from here using a variety of flash backs and leaves the audience on the edge not know what has happening, so the audience will be thinking what has happened? Who did this to her? Why did this happen to her? Is she going to find out? Is she the good or bad character?  

The girl character in the opening scene will have long blonde hair, a lot of make up which is smudged and will be wearing a short black dress. This may show to the audience that she is the eye candy to the film, people love her because of he looks and this is shown later in the story as other characters are jealous of her because of how beautiful she is. This could also show the character that she worries about the way she looks and dresses like that to show of, maybe scene later as she is shown to be a flirt and tries to impress the boys from the way she looks. It is important that she is dressed like this as it gives the audience a feel to her character even before the film has started so they can judge the way she is just by what she is wearing.

Contempory Neo Noir Films:

contempory

Brick (2005)

StoryLine:

Brick is a neo noir film and the writer and director is Rian Johnson, made in 2005. A lonely normal high school boy called Brendan’s ex girlfriend Emily goes missing. Brendan becomes obsessed trying to find Emily and gets himself into crime and danger and won’t stop till he knows where or what has happened to her. He finally finds her dead in a tunnel and before when she was alive she told him that she was in trouble and that her killer had something to do with “Brick” and “pin”. So Brendan investigates who killed her with help from a few of his mates but this is when you see him get himself into trouble but wont stop till he finds out who killed her because he’s still in love with her. He finds out that her death involves drug dealers you find out at the end of the film why she is killed and who by. I really enjoyed this film it had a very neo noir feel to it and I loved the twist at the end.

Effects:

When the car drives fast past the main character they have used an effect to make it speed up to give the illusion car quickly approaching and looks very slick and stylist.

The flash backs are faded to give the impression of time changing and adds tension like when he passes out and wakes up where jump cuts are used.

Double Indemnity:

Double indemnity was made in 1944 and is a classic American Film Noir. The plot to this film is a successful insurance salesman gets talked into a murder and insurance fraud scheme. A lady has a rich husband and she makes him get life insurance with the salesman. The lady and the salesman murders the lady’s husband making it looks like he has fallen of the back of the train by accidence. The plan is for the lady and the salesman to collect twice the amount of insurance from the company.  

 In the first scene you are shown that the movie is in black and white which is very typical for a film noir. A man dressed smartly with a hat and pipe in his mouth returns to his office looking like he is in pain he doesn’t speak at all. There is just music in the back ground that spends up and gets faster till he picks up the phone. Starts to tell the audience why and how he got in the situation he is in and this is when flash backs are brought into the film. He admits on the phone saying” yes I killed her” this leaves the audience guessing on why, what and when he killed her.

The main female character is Phyllis Dietrichson, when you first see her on screen my first impression was she’s a blonde, stylist dresses very elegant, rich and she’s a stay at home wife. Also she’s half naked when Walter Neff comes round and meets her for the first time this shows that she is just an item and is scene as a sex symbol as the way she is looked is important to her roll she plays. Even when she goes to get dressed she put on a dress showing her famine character. You wouldn’t have expected her to be a murder which you find out later on in the movie as she looks very innocent and venerable. as the movie goes on the audience are shown that she is a strong character impression of her totally changes from the first time you show her as she convinces her insurance agent who is Walter Neff to help her murder her own husband because she isn’t happy being with him and want his money shows a powerful side to her, not the typical female character you normally see in films.   

The main male character is Walter Neff, who is an insurance salesman. He is the first character that’s introduced to the audience of him in the office looking like he’s in pain. He is dressed smartly and is in all black wearing a hat as well making him looking like a stylist classy salesman.  

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjt6KDdh6PA