Conventions of a Film Noir poster

• The costumes used in film posters typically denote an earlier time period , and usually consists of a trench coat and hat for the main character
• Characters of film noirs are typically shown adopting serious stances and facial expressions, which builds tension and enigma among the audience. This is more commonly shown with male characters rather than females, who usually adopt fearful stances, meeting the stereotypes of female sensitivity and emotion. 
• The layout for film noir posters typically meets the conventions for film posters in general, with a large central image and elaborate font style. Film noir posters place a great deal of emphasis on the main characters and actors
• The font for film Noir posters usually has an elaborate, bright font in order to stand out against the background, which is often black and white. This makes the most essential part of the poster highly visible from a distance, attracting passers by. The tagline for the poster creates an enigma and a certain amount of tension among the audience persuading them to watch the film. 

Filming Schedule

As you can see in the image above, we have planned to film, edit and complete our ancillary products from January to April. Within the gaps we as a group did either blog work or had other work to do from other subjects. Prior to the schedule, in November and December times, we done our planning and research. Our aim was to try stick to this schedule the best we could.

Rating of our Film

http://www.slideshare.net/always_gracia/bbfc-for-a2-film

Here is a link to the rating of our film.

BBFC for A2 Film from always_gracia

Conventions of a Neo Noir Poster

• A modern noir film poster tends to showcase generic conventions which you associate with a classic noir poster, the pictures are often is arty and often resembles the films narrative or film name - We followed this feature of neo noir posters as our poster creates foreshadowing collage affects.   
• Modern day characters are often shown with bleak expressions with its protagonist with a centeral enlarged role in the poster - We applied this method to our poster as the protagonist is larger than the other characters in order to explicitly exhibit that he is the main character
• Title style is often bold and stands out-It also represents the films themes and narrative and it attracts audiences eye - We tried to emulate a similar style when creating our poster title, we played around with different variations of fonts. 

Noir Monologue research

Film noir monologues are known for their own unique cynical style, as such attempting to write a monologue without further research into the style would be foolish.

A clear example of a noir monologue can be found in video games, such as L.A Noire.



Analysing this particular scene we can see that the monologue, uses various metaphors in order to describe the scene. It contains a stylish, and immediate cool effect from the combination of the voiceover and light jazz/blues music in the background. The monologue aims to avoid using long or complicated words, instead preferring short ones, remaining simple yet effective and maintains that the speaker is of relatively good education.

Overall, from my research, I have discovered there are several key writing techniques a noir monologue must contain.

1. It is a monologue, therefore it is spoken, not written or read out from a book
2. Short choppy or snappy sentences
3. Minimal conjunctions (however, therefore etc..)
4. Avoid big long words as much as possible as it breaks the flow and is "uncool"
5. Use creative metaphors (WITHOUT repeating said metaphors)

Also, while not essential, including issues of religion or current politics would be a positive addition.

Editing the CCTV Effect

As our film ends with Mohamed being interviewed by a police detective, we researched how a typical police procedural takes place. Firstly, the location tended to be a small box room so we used a corner of our media suite to do this. Below is the section of the media suite we used.


Secondly, dress code was key. Through research we found that remanded prisoners are able to wear their own clothing, so we dressed Mohamed up in a sand yellow coloured tshirt to mimic the bare essentials he has in prison.


The shots for the last scene are as follows:

1. Over the shoulder medium close up of Mohamed
2. High-angled medium over-the-shoulder shot of Mohamed being interviewed by Aram
3. Close up of Mohamed

The idea behind the second shot was that this would mimic CCTV as in interview rooms we found that the detainee that is being questioned by the detective is being recorded, so a high angled shot would be ideal because it would allow us to create a convincing CCTV shot as well as putting Mohamed in a position of vulnerability. So to accomplish this we needed to add a CCTV effect but iMovie did not offer the option so after undertaking research on how to use green screen, this is the steps taken to create a CCTV look for this particular shot. 

Step 1 was to obtain a CCTV green screen add on that was found on the Internet and was free for public use.

Step 2 was to import the file into iMovie. This was done simply by dragging it in.

Step 3 was to drag the selection of the greenscreen required over the shot. It then gave several options to select but the chosen one was green/blue screen. This then replaced any green sections with the shot we wanted, hence creating the desired effect.

This was then cropped to remove any excess effects such as frame count and exposure levels, giving it a clean CCTV feel to it without overcomplicating what the audience will be seeing on screen.

This is the end product of our CCTV shot.

Sound

Reflecting on our AS project where we lacked sound skills, for our A2 project our plan was to try deal with sound in a way in which there was no inconsistencies in audio. To overcome this, we came up with a plan:

• First we would record the shots we wanted with a microphone present and edit the shots for continuity into an order we wanted.
• Then we would go over and mute all of the film other than the bits where dialogue was required. This was to eliminate the static sound that a change in wind direction against the microphone would create. The bits that required dialogue, we would provide a voiceover to match the dialogue on screen. This allowed for clarity in speech.
• Next we would find music to overlay the film with. This music had to be effective in getting the audience to feel certain ways at particular points in the film because of how a lack of dialogue meant we were unable to convey emotion and meaning that way.
• Lastly, we were going to write a monologue voiceover script to overlay the whole movie with. This would be a way for the main character to tell his story, as the story of our film consists of a police officer being interviewed for a murder he committed. 

All of this would have to be edited well to keep it as smooth as possible. We feel this would lead to significant improvements in our ability to capture and convey meaning through sound in a way that wasn't basic, using equipment such as a boomstick microphone and discrete clip on microphones.

Flashback lighting and significance

Because of the prevalence of the usage of flashbacks, we needed a way to allow the audience to distinguish distinguish between the scenes and the flashbacks. So, using iMovie, I added a variety of effects to the video. I started off with the flashback with the shots arranged in the order desired.

The first thing I did was add the Sepia effect to the flashback to give it an aged look.

The next step was to reduce the saturation of the clip and the temperature, giving it a colder blue look.

Lastly, a vignette filter was added to the clip to give it a flashback look that is noticeable.

Overall, this experimenting led to a look that we were satisfied with as it gave the flashback's a colder feel that could notify the bitter feelings the protagonist will be feeling, when he recalls these events

Thank You!

As a group, we would like to thank St James's Court, A Taj Hotel and Cask & Glass for allowing us to use your premises in order to film!