Update

I've made more progress on my storyboard and I am set to prepare for filming. With costumes for characters already planned, I need ony finish my storyboard/animatic and gather my actors in order to begin.

In a Lonely Place - Trailer

The trailer for 'In a Lonely Place' another big inspiration for creating a parody of film noir, note the characters costumes and attitude, plus some of the acting in the trailer seems somewhat over-the-top and easy to parody. The camera angles in the cabaret club around 30 seconds into the trailer are a good example of what I would need to use in my own film.

The use of the terms 'Suspense in the night!' 'Intrigue at dawn!' and 'Suspicion 'round the clock!' give way to the depth and narrative of the film as mysterious, a plot that will keep an audience hooked by continuously having them guessing about who could possibly be a murderer. With suspence, intrigue and suspicion all playing key roles in the plot, I find this to be a critically important source for my own film which is also centered around a murder.

The Man Who Wasn't There - Trailer

Above is the trailer for the noir film, The Man Who Wasn't There. Note the use of shadows, close-up's and the bleak settings. The character's costumes are also a big inspiration for my own film. The trailer does not show who committed the first murder of the film (That of Big Dave). It shows whoever committed the murder looking at their hands and briskly walking away from the scene of the crime.

The shots of characters in courtrooms shows the intrigue of figuring out who committed the murder, despite the audience knowing the whole time. This is much like what I plan on doing with my own film, making it blatantly obvious who committed the crime but keeping the characters oblivious until the last moment.

Picture examples of Film Noir

Billy Bob Thornton in 'The Man Who Wasn't There' a 2001 neo-noir film directed by the Coen Brothers. Note how the characters face is lit but the sides of the head and the background are kept very dark in order to allude a sense of mystery.

Humphrey Bogart in 'In a Lonely Place' the 1950 noir film directed by Nicholas Ray. Once again, note how the front of the face (particularily the eyes) are much better lit than the rest of the scenery, placing the emphasis on the facial expression of the character.

Harrison Ford in the 1982 futuristic noir film Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott. Despite not being in the stereotypical black and white, the film still has lots of the common conventions of a noir film, it is set in Los Angeles where it constantly rains, there's lots of bleak and dark colors.

Film Script

Below is a copy of the script to my film, right now it is not considered completely finished with shooting elements being added at a later date.

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Film Script

(A montage of Alfred McGuiness walking into the college and up to the crime scene as a voiceover by McGuiness is played)

Alfred: This is it for me, this is my last chance to make a mark, and this is my last chance to go out with a bang. Many are considering it my last case, myself included. The murder of a college student within this very place of learning. I’ve been given three major suspects to look at, the kids teacher, his ex-girlfriend and his best friend, like the true detective I am I shall have to trust no-one whilst I’m here. Anyone I walk past right now could be a possible suspect and maybe even the killer, but at this moment in time, I’m going to concentrate on this particular suspect… The kids teacher, Mr Franklin.

(As the monologue finishes, McGuiness turns into the classroom in which Mr Franklin waits, from the characters nature and the number of alcohol containers scattered around the room, it is clear that the teacher is drunk)

Alfred: Mr Franklin.

Franklin: Ahh! Detective McGuiness… I do presume?

Alfred: Yes, Mr Franklin, I’m investigating the murder of one of the students in this college and I was just wondering, if I could see the body?

Franklin: Yeah! Yeah! Sure! Just follow me!

(Alfred steps aside, expecting to leave the room but Mr Franklin instead just moves a few chairs and exposes the body of The Victim)

Alfred: Sir, are you telling me you’ve been sat here with the body the whole time? Possibly perverting this entire investigation?!

Franklin: Perverting?! No, no , no! There’s been nothing perverse going on Officer, I’ve just been sat here uh… Marking papers…

(McGuiness nods)

Alfred: I’m sure. Still, I shall make do with what I have…

(McGuiness motions towards some of the empty alcohol containers)

Alfred: Been drowning your sorrows have you Mr Franklin?

Franklin: That’s what I’ve been telling people! I just see all this as a good excuse to have a drink… I like having a *hic* drink…

(McGuiness scribbles something down on his notepad)

Alfred: You do realise you are breaking the law, do you not?

Franklin: Pfftthh… Let’s face it, I let a student get murdered just before a lesson with me, do you really think I expect to keep my job after this?

Alfred: Maybe so, but being fired for drinking on the job could be even more disastrous.

Franklin: Watch in amazement! As I. Don’t. Care.

(Franklin prods McGuiness on the last three words for emphasis)

Alfred: Quite the attitude… Seems almost suspicious doesn’t it Mr Franklin?

Franklin: We shall see Detective… We shall see…

(McGuiness approaches the body and leans down to look at it, being careful not to actually touch the corpse he tries to look for anything he could use as evidence)

Alfred: Do we know how he died Mr Franklin?

Franklin: No…

(McGuiness pulls on some gloves and opens the students jacket, noticing a large knife wound)

Alfred: Mhmm, it seems there’s no obvious explanation for his death… Poison maybe?

Franklin: Don’t ask me! There’s only one poison I like! And that’s vodka!

Alfred: I guessed…

List of Needed Props/Costumes

For the scene of my film I will need a number of props and costumes for each character as listed below.

Alfred McGuiness

With McGuiness being a parody of the common film noir detective, I want him dressed as such, in a long trench coat, fedora hat, shirt and tie and dress shoes. All of this will emanate his status as a detective as well as make him seem ‘mysterious’

·         Long dark coat

·         Dark fedora hat

·         Black trousers

·         Shirt and tie

·         Dark dress shoes

Mr Franklin

Mr Franklin is a drunken teacher. So not only am I going to have him stereotypically dress like a teacher, I’m going to dot some empty cans of beer and lager around the classroom which alongside the nature of the actor will give away the drunken nature of the character.

·         Trousers

·         Shirt (Optional Tie)

·         Smart shoes

·         Empty cans of beer or lager

‘The Victim’

‘The Victim’ is the only character in the scene that doesn’t either speak or move. And possibly the easiest to dress, all that will be needed for the character is

·         T-shirt

·         Jeans

·         Trainers

·         Fake blood

Story Type

The story type of my film is The Quest with my film being around a character needing to take a long journey to achieve his goals.

In my film the main protagonist, Alfred McGuiness, has to go on a journey through the investigation in order to find the murderer.

Aims and Context

Aims

I aim to create a sequence from the fictional film 'The Detective Chronicles of Alfred McGuiness' in a Film Noir style and use the common codes and conventions to create a parody of the usual detective film. With the use of the most common codes and conventions it will be easier to raise these to a parodical status. I will be using a genre-based approach and will look at different films of the genre. The audience I will be aiming at is the 15-20 year old in a working class family and preferably have some experience in Film Noir so as to recognize the conventions of the genre.

Context

The context of my sequence is to introduce the main protagonist of the film as well as the disruption in the narrative. I will be taking on the role of director, camera man and editor so as to produce the film language that I want exactly. This particular scene is the first scene after the opening scene and as such will introduce the first secondary character in the narrative

Film Synopsis

In the early 1990’s Detective Alfred McGuiness is the last of his kind, a tough as nails, act now talk later kind of detective. McGuiness wants to leave his mark on the policing world before he is forced into an early retirement by his superiors. He gets his chance when a student is murdered in college and there are no witnesses to provide any valuable evidence, with three suspects possibly being the killer including the victim’s teacher, ex-girlfriend and best friend, McGuiness sees his opportunity to go out with a bang.

Film Synopsis Update

Over the last week I have began to write my full film synopsis and allowed the project to start to take shape, whilst a lot of the details have yet to be placed into the story I am certain that the full film synopsis which will include the scene which I shall be filming will be placed on my blog before the 1:00pm deadline on Friday 30/09/2011.

I have also recently updated the brief on my first post of my blog. Removing the short synopsis I already had on the blog to be replaced by the full synopsis on a post of it's own, tomorrow, I have also extended the information to that of the full brief including how to work in a group, reflective analysis and the number of marks that this unit of coursework will take up.

Codes and Conventions of Film Noir

Codes and Conventions of Film Noir (Detective Films)

I will be looking at the codes and conventions of the Film Noir genre, but to be more specific, Detective films. Detective films are a very hard to categorise. A lot of the conventions that can be found in detective films can easily be found in other genres as well, and is placed under the umbrella of the crime genre. In short, for a film to be considered a detective film there are two definitive items that are required, the first is a narrative that follows the investigation of a crime, the second is a detective like character as the main protagonist. There is also a second type of detective film which is called an ‘Inverted detective story’ in which it shows the criminal committing the crime at the start of the film and then goes through the investigators journey to unravel the mystery, usually clearing up most of the points such as why the crime was committed and who committed it on the way. A popular example of an inverted detective story is ‘Dial M for Murder’ by Alfred Hitchcock which shows the crime being planned at the start of the film, and has the story unravel with the characters figuring out who the real mastermind behind the plot was. A good example of a more classic whodunit storyline is from the TV series ‘Monk’ which features a number of locked room whodunits in which a character is killed in a near impossible scenario from which a criminal could enter or leave, for example, a locked room.

With a detective protagonist, the detective sub-genre becomes much easier to break down and define. For example, most detective characters are usually male and display a sense of American masculinity, whilst female detectives have started to infiltrate the genre over the last few years, male detectives are still portrayed as the most popular. The protagonist is usually morally questionable in detective films, usually having some form of dark past or secret that placed them in the current situation, such as in the case of detective films, the detective may have some past experience that procured them the skills or grit to be the only one good enough for the case.

Detective films and novels are usually set in heavily populated cities and the murders in an enclosed space, so as to allow the detective character to get really close to the suspects involved. Camera angle wise this can be shown by using close ups of the character and eye-line match ups to show the proximity of the characters that are in the film. Another prominent camera angle that is used in detective films is the low angled shot, this shot is effectively used to make characters (usually the detective) look far more menacing and intimidating, most notably during questioning or interrogation of other characters. Some good examples of these would be films such as Citizen Kane or Star Wars were evil or more menacing characters were shot with a low angle shot to amplify their status.

Most films in the crime genre (thrillers un-included) are set somewhere between the timeframe of 1920 and 1950, because of this most detective films usually use a black-and-white special effect to straight away set a time zone for the film. Other effects that can be used are to cast the shadows of blinds or banisters across a character (usually whilst they are sat down) or to actually film night time scenes during the middle of the night versus using special effects and lighting to emulate it as most Hollywood genres would, this is most commonly referred to as ‘night-for-night shooting’ versus ‘day-for-night shooting’ which is used by other Hollywood films. Characters faces are usually obscured by shadows to fit in with the mysterious theme of investigations and crime, when used to the right effect, partially or completely hiding a characters face can achieve a number of accomplishments as listed below

• It can hide the identity of the perpetrator of the crime

• It can show the divided personality of a character

• It can show that a character is deep in thought or does not wish to be disturbed.

A number of narrative devices are used in detective films, one of the most notable being the use of flashbacks to remind the audience of an earlier clue that may have been forgotten. Another device that is widely used in this genre is the voice over narrative. Usually given by the protagonist these narrations are used to recap previous events of the film or can be given as a monologue either at the start of the film to properly set the scene, or at the end to give the film a morally good ending. Inverted detective stories also sometimes use a non-linear story line, showing the crime happening and then having the detective (through flashbacks and description) redevelop the crime from the ground up, discussing the reasoning behind it and the motivations of the perpetrator.

Detective films are usually very downbeat and pessimistic, despite having the detective capture the killer towards the end directors usually make it clear that someone in the film has still been murdered and that a number of characters have been placed in a situation which they had never wanted, pitted against fate there was always the possibility that if the judgement of the detective were wrong, then it could have been them going to jail whilst the perpetrator of the crime was able to go free. Critics have always declared the entire film noir genre (of which crime and therefore detective films are a sub genre) to be depressing, and that the general tone of these films is a ‘hopeless’ one.

A2 Film Studies - Creative Product Brief

This particular unit of coursework is worth 50% of my A2 course alonside my small scale research project, making it 25% of my full A-level. It is worth 60 marks whereas the small scale research project is worth 40 marks. The different portions of the unit are as follows.

- Aims and context (Required for assessment)

- Creative Product (45 Marks)
- Evaluation (15 Marks)

The film / video production option of FM3 gives me the opportunity to develop an extended sequence from an imagined feature or develop a complete short film between 3 and 5 minutes.

With both of these options I am meant to engage with the issues raised in FM1 in relation to the production of meaning and the study of film stylistics and theory. I can undertake this task as an individual and it is advised that I do so, but if I do work in a group then my production role within said froup MUST be clearly defined and I will need to provide evidence of my contribution in terms of that role and I will be assessed on my performance in that role.

The film studies department advise that each student should plan and produce a short film or extract and that other students within a study group (4 people max) will help them. You will work on each others films. All students will aid everyone in the study group and they will in turn recieve help on their production.

It is clearly vital that if I am contributing to a production group that I must be reliable, committeed and I must accept the final decision of the person who's project it is. The finished production should clearly show evidence of the individual roles while group members may assist in various roles I will will be assessed on the role I have chosen as my primary role.

This will form the basis of my refleective analysis.

The reflective analysis should select key features of the creative project and reflect critically on both the creative process and the product, focusing on the contruction and the impact of my specific role and how meaning has been created. In order to aid me in this I have produced this blog which must be updated weekly (by 1:00pm on a Friday) to allow for effective monitoring. This will take the form of a production diary and record my progress an creative decisions made.