From watching the two minute film sequence that my group created, I am pleased with what we produced. We decided we wanted to try to create an extract from a neo noir film, and based its plot largely around the contemporized noir film ‘Brick’ (Johnson 2006), where a teenager finds a peer mysteriously dead, and searches for clues to discover what lead to their death. We worked on producing the opening sequence of our film, in which a teenager discovers the body of someone she knew.
The microelement I was responsible for was sound. (image of timeline in Final Cut)
As we were trying to create a noir film we decided it would be fitting to included a voice over from the main character, as voice over’s are a main characteristic of noir, and are evident within both old and contemporary noir films, such as ‘Brick’ and ‘The Big Sleep’ (Hawks 1946). The tone of our voice over is also very emotionless; to try to create the same effect as the hard-boiled voice over’s in other noir films. Rather than having the voice speaking in the present tense about the events in the sequence, we decide to have it talking in the past tense, looking back on what happened (this was inspired by the noir film Double Indemnity (Wilder 1944), which uses a voice over in the same style). The reason for this was; we were creating the opening sequence and therefore needed to explain to the audience what had happened in order to set the scene. However, the voice over overlaps the images of the main character journey, which results in her finding the body, from days before and therefore doesn’t complement what’s being shown. This may be confusing to the audience but because what’s being said does not fit the images beings shown, the audience have to concentrate on what’s being said, therefore catching their full attention from the beginning. Also it’s not evident what the character is talking about throughout the sequence until she finds the body, therefore the audience will be intrigued to find out what she’s addressing, again catching their attention and making them want to keep watching. We decided to end the voice over at the point where the girl finds the body, creating a dramatic pause to add emphasise to this moment, as it is vital for the films continuum. It’s also the moment where what’s being said finally makes sense to what’s being shown, (as the girl is explaining what she found), therefore it gives a moment for everything to click within the audience’s head.
(Double Indemnity: sound relevant from 3.33)
We decided we didn’t want to add any non-diagetic music to our sequence, as it would take away the emphasis of the voice over. Instead we only had the sound of footsteps, as are main character is continuously walking (until she finds the body), and therefore it highlighting that she’s on an important journey. To emphasise the footsteps, we edited the sound from filming to enhance it, and made it longer it so that it covered all the walking in the sequence, to keep it constant. The footsteps also adds a sense of eeriness, which would otherwise have to create using a soundtrack, as it’s the only sound that can be heard, giving a sense of isolation. We stopped the footsteps when the girl finally stops walking, so the silence emphasises the significance her finding the dead body, and signals to the audience that something important has happened as she is finally stood still
. (example of when diagetic sound is used, for conversation between characters)
Between the images of the girl walking, are several quick shots of the surroundings where the body lays. We added these shots as it shows the audience where the girl is headed, which is evident when she arrives. However when these shots are shown it is not evident of their significances and should therefore get the audience trying to think about why they are included. We decided these shots should be completely silent as it draws attention to them, and gives the audience a quick moment to only focus purely on the image, so they can consider why there’re shown. It also adds a sense of further eeriness as these silences come directly after the sound of the voice over and footsteps, making the silence more noticeable. This reflects the eeriness and the isolation of the location shown, as it is in fact the place where the dead body lies. To conclude I feel that the sound within our film extract was successful. Feedback from viewers shows they felt the voice over was key to the sequence and informed them of what they needed to know, and that the sound of footsteps worked well with the images of the girl walking. Some feedback however suggested that adding background music would have created better tension to the sequence. I disagree however; as I feel non-diagetic music would have taken emphasis away from the voice over and footsteps, therefore losing their effect.
My part in our two minute sequence was as editor , I enjoyed being mainly responsible for the finishing touches and the way it turned out. Our piece shows the begining of out Neo-noir style film in which a girl (main character) is walking home 'something she does every day' and finds a dead body, there is then a flash back to where she has seen this person before. 'Brick' being our main influence, as this was the only neo-noir film we studied in class, although we include some other typically noir style features in our piece taken from others we watched. Features we took from noir films included dark lighting, having a main character that the viewer can relate to in many ways, the theme of crime and using flash backs to piece together whats happened. I deliberately slowed down the pace of the sequence by lengthening each of the shots, so that the plot was slowly revield- which is typical to noir films, such as 'The Big Sleep'. The slow pace of our piece was also to fit with the 'hard boiled' voice over that we recorded at the very end of our project and i then put it over our piece in the desired place, in order for our voice over to fit with the piece it had to be in a slow, confused pace. It took a while to get the voice over in the place we wanted, which is as i am walking home. Another classic noir feature we followed was starting with the end which is always which is the problem (usualy a death) and the the rest of the sequence begins to unravel the reason why its happened. I made the cutting a very important piece, as it was so the audience could establish the connection between the main character and the girl in the purple coat. I try to make the distance between the shots as evenly spaced as possible, to make it as easier for the audience to catch on that there is a relationship between the two characters. I used colour corrector to make the footage darker, which I felt was necessary, as our film is a neo noir. I also wanted it to look grainy. i uesd footage from the surrounding (dark scary looking tree) of which the girl with the purple coat is laying dead, and added flashes of that into the footage of the main character walking. I did this so the audience can foresee that something bad is going to happen. I structured the sequence with a flashback in it, the rest of the film would follow on as the flashback, occasionaly ficking back to the future, this is a very common asset in film noirs. this makes it easier to show the audience how the problem will unfold, as it just shows the true past. In our flashback, which is showing how the main character recognises the girl in the puple coat (the dead body). As the girl in the purple coat pushes the double doors to look at the 'January time tale' i slowed down the shot a noticable amount. Again this was to make it clear to the audience that it was important to notice this character, it also gives the audience time to recognise the purple coat. Also in the flashback, when the main character walks out of the shot, i cut it before she completely goes out of sight, this is to add suspence to the piece and to show an unfinished situation, like you haven't seen the end of this character. The shot in which you first see the dead character was filmed in the day time, as it is said in the voice over 'it was still day light, she was displayed for everyone to see' was very much so to my advantage, as it ment i didn't have to mess with the light and tone of the sequence, apart from using colour corrector to darken the whole piece to give it that noir feel. We only managed to use a short amount of close up footage of the girl in the purple coat under the tree as you could see her breathing slightly andher lip move as we were so close, so i hade to make sure i cut it before this happened. I also slowed down this piece of footage so it appeared longer.
mise en scene -setting suited the type of film casual clothing worked well, purple coat -weather , raining fitted -weather fitted well -good settings
cinematography -good shot angles bit shakey in places -various good shots, a few bad -good range of shots -shots following character worked well
editing -liked the editing... alot. good cuts, effective in places -good cutting shots -match-on-action shots good -editing worked well with the time line
sound -its possible some background music would have greated tension -rain drop sounds good -voice over was very good told you information that you needed to know. -sound of rain good-diagetic. -tis great
