The Genre - Fim Noir.

film noir was produced around the time of World War II and was named first by French film critic Nino Frank in 1946, who noticed how dark many of the American detective films had become. Films like M, Murder My Sweet and D.O.A. 

Noir films became more prominent in the post-war era, and lasted in a classic "Golden Age" period until about 1960. Many films reflected the anxiety and insecurities of the time period and film noir counter-balanced the optimism of Hollywood's happy musicals and comedies. Distrust, fear, misery and obsession are extremely evident in film noir, it shows the true feelings of the Cold War period when the peril of nuclear annihilation was always present. I have read that the violent, greedy and criminal perspectives of anti-heroes in film noir were a metaphor for society's evils, there was rarely a happy or optimistic ending in film noirs.

Risk table

The risk	Severity of risk on filming	Solution to the risk	If the risk did happen what would we do
Actors not turning up	10/10	Ensure our actors are aware of the date and timing of our filming. Plus remind them a day before filming and on the day of filming.	Use one of our group members siblings as they will be more reliable
Actors wear incorrect clothing	7/10	Remind actors of what we would like them to wear the day before filming and on the day of filming. Also bring clothing of our own that could be used as an alternative if our actors forget	As a group we will bring clothing of our own that could be used that would still accurately reflect the genre
Forget camera/ camera not charged	10/10	Complete the charging of the camera a day before filming then pre pack it so that in the morning everything is already done and ready to go.	We would have to re schedule our filming with the station and return on another day
Actors/ Actresses couldn’t play a part in the filming.	7/10	Confirm the actors before filming and make them aware of the importance of the shoot. Also attempt to have back up actors incase either actor is involved in an accident	We would then be able to rely on our back up actor ensuring that we could always film.

Public knocking the camera	4/10	Ensure our group members stand either side of the tripod preventing the public from making contact.	We would re shoot the shot so that it would appear smoother and therefore more effective
Tripod not working	4/10	We would have to film our shots handheld meaning that they may be shakier. We will practice filming handheld before filming so that we become more accustomed to it	We would film our shots handheld
Public walking in shots	3/10	Sometimes it will be appropriate however when it is not we will try to use our group members to block off the area where we are filming so that it is obvious we do not want people to walk in on the shots	We would re shoot the shot until it was successful

Further camera research

We Lit only what we wanted the viewer to see. We Dramatised shots by filming a shadow of the villain slowly walking towards his victim sitting tied onto his chair. We kept this victim surrounded by darkness to portray his evil character.
We shot from provocative angles and cast light looking up toward a character's jawline during the torture scene to give a dramatic effect. We chose close up shots of the character being tortured whilst smoking a cigarette. We allowed the white smoke to enter dark scenes and tried to  obscure the characters in puffs of smoke and shadow.

Research into Film Posters

The difference about this film poster is that the director display himself, he even goes as far as to make himself one of the biggest objects on the poster.

I like this poster because it speaks highly of itself, through its confidence it implies that it is a masterpiece . It makes people want to watch it and again Hitchcock is the biggest thing in the poster.

I really like the caption in this poster because it's play on words involves both the title and the directors name, you must include both of these in a poster anyway but they have made a nice short quote out of it.

Location Research - Shotover Woods.

Sound

In Shotover we should have no issues with sound, it is a large forest  so the only sort of loud noises that could effect the filming is possibly the wind, the trees or some sort of woodland creature. In conclusion i think this would be a good place to film however it is not really a western scene.

Lighting

If we were to film in shotover we would definetly have to film during the day as i have been there to research it and it can get extremly dark very early. However if we felt the need to film later in the day i can the acquire the appropriate lights.

Health and Safety

This location is a forest so again there is little to worry about danger-wise, however Shotover is rather large and i speak from expeeriance when i say you can get lost very easily.

Power

there will be no way to recharge the equipment so we will have to make sure we are fully charged before we start.

Target audience research

Some people claim Film Noir is more of a style than a genre of film. I understand this claim as many Film Noir productions are Thrillers, whilst others are romance orientated. Regardless of this a target audience has to be established. We are aware that Hollywood's classic Film Noir period was around the 1940s and 1950s, so attracting people to the movie who lived through that era and for them to be old enough to watch it now would obviously be very difficult, but we feel that releasing a Film Noir at this present time would be a smart idea for the following reasons. We are in a period of time where large clothing retailers and starting to advertise many classic clothes that were worn during the Film Noir and in a whole peoples attitude to older, retro style media has completely changed and is very positive and considered classy and stylish. This is why our target audience is targeted mainly at young adults who could have a clear interest in the genre as whilst growing up they have never experienced such a film. This film is likely to be viewed by a very young generation due to the harsh and risky story lines and gun crime, with the dark lighting creating a scary and depressing mood. This film could also appeal to an older generation of adults who grew up with their parents watching the genre and wanting to reminisce over a genre which, before now, had appeared to have died along with many other sub genres. To make our choice for our target audience even more successful we created questionnaires for people of varying ages to fill in.






Below is a link to a survey for 13-17s - I did not ask directly if Film Noir was a favourite genre as most people would not define Film Noir as a genre. Instead i felt that if the majority voted for thriller or action a Film Noir would be more suited to their liking, rather than a comedy.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5SWPVDM





Below is another survey but this time for the older generation 45 - 65s. More direct questions were asked to try and get a clear cut measure of where the elders interest lie in terms of film.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5TYCQJ3

Further lighting research

For the opening scene we wanted to create a lighting contrast. We chose very bright lights at around 400  watts. Then we added smaller lights to create alternate light sources. This was done as we know Film noir is known for its high contrast through dramatic shadows and bright lights. We had to make sure the black and white colours were strong, we checked to see if the black was pure pitch black and the white was a pure snow white colour. Initially we found some grey and had to adjust the aperture settings on the camera and increase the intensity of the hardest light source.

Further lighting and research

For the opening scene we wanted to create a lighting contrast. We chose very bright lights at around 400  watts. Then we added smaller lights to create alternate light sources. This was done as we know Film noir is known for its high contrast through dramatic shadows and bright lights. We had to make sure the black and white colours were strong, we checked to see if the black was pure pitch black and the white was a pure snow white colour. Initially we found some grey and had to adjust the aperture settings on the camera and increase the intensity of the hardest light source.

Props for Production.

Shirt I want to make our production as authentic as possible, so here is a list of everything that i would need to make it an exact remake of a 1940's film noir movie.

• Fedora/Trilby

• Long coat/ Trench coat

• Shirt and Braces

• Smart Shoes

• Retro Glasses

• Magnum/Gun

• Lucky Strike

• Zippo Lighter

• Suit

Obviously i have no budget on this film so i will probably not include everything on this list as it may be too expensive, however i will make it as authentic as i possibly can with my severe lack of funding.