(week 7)
I am interested in film noir style, and more particularly neo noir, which is a contemporary version of film noir. Film noir can typically be categorised by its story attributes, visual styling, mise-en-scene, camera techniques and sound. I am interested in film noir and its many techniques as it intrigues me the way the genre uses such to tell a story, outside of a script and location. Moreover, such styling of both theme and story can be told through the visual styling of certain characters or situations. For example, if a character is to be perceived as dark and melancholy, he or she may be shot solely in shadows, or in a particular light or angle. If said character comes to a resolution or turning point in his story, he may be seen at that moment as emerging from the shadows, revealing both him and his state in either life or mind set.
For my project I would like to investigate these styles of camera, language, themes and visual styling through making a series of different shots, and small scenes by attempting to use these styles and techniques. Whilst using these techniques, I will also attempt to follow a basic storyline that represents the conventions of film noir. For example, I would like to mimic a scene from the movie ‘Brick’, a neo noir film. In this climatic scene, the protagonist is seen piecing the mystery he has been following together, and through camera technique you can see his resolution. In this scene I want to recreate, it is filmed at dawn on a football scene with two characters in an argument. Through this argument I want to explore how camera movement and angles can reflect the mindset of a character. In this scene there is one character yelling and distressed and one calm and informing the other character. The camera is and will be handheld and shaky in my version of the scene, possibly moving in and out of focus as the distressed character yells, whilst using a dutch angle to represent his skewed mindset. However, when it cuts back to the calm character, the camera will still be handheld, but with a calm movement, and a straight camera angle, looking upwards at him to show his current authority. As the calm character informs the distressed character of the situation, and the distressed character pieces it together, the camera movement becomes slow, and his language begins to be audible again, as often in neo noir it is hard to understand characters. thus through this scene I can explore the use of camera techniques, language and character to explore film noir conventions, just one of the scenes I wish to do this with.
The way in which I hope to achieve this is through creating 4-5 non linked scenes that incorporate at least two film noir techniques or themes. This will help me to better by understanding of the genre whilst adhering to the creative side of filming as well as improving my camera, sound and pre, during and post production skills such as learning how to use camera handheld, or how to colour correct in the editing suits.
Film noir: a brisk tell tale
My favourite movie of all time is ‘Brick’, by Johnson, and I’m sure my classmates are sick of me babbling on about how great of a production it is, and I’m not done. I am interested in the film noir style, and more particularly neo noir, which is a contemporary version of film noir as shown in ‘Brick’. Film noir can typically be categorised by its story attributes, visual styling, mise-en-scene, camera techniques and sound. I am interested in film noir and its many techniques as it intrigues me the way the genre uses such to tell a story, outside of a script and location. Moreover, such styling of both theme and story can be told through the visual styling of certain characters or situations. For example, if a character is to be perceived as dark and melancholy, he or she may be shot solely in shadows, or in a particular light or angle. If said character comes to a resolution or turning point in his story, he may be seen at that moment as emerging from the shadows, revealing both him and his state in either life or mind set.
For my project I am thinking I would like to investigate these styles of camera, language, themes and visual styling through making a series of different shots, and small scenes by attempting to use these styles and techniques. Whilst using these methods, I will also attempt to follow a basic storyline that represents the conventions of film noir. For example, I would like to mimic a scene from the movie ‘Brick’, a neo noir film. In this climatic scene, the protagonist is seen piecing the mystery he has been following together, and through camera technique you can see his resolution. The scene I want to recreate, or draw ideas from will be filmed at dawn on a football scene with two characters in an argument. Through this argument I want to explore how camera movement and angles can reflect the mindset of a character. For example, one character could be distressed and as such the camera will be handheld to reflect such, with a dutch angle to represent his skewed mindset. The other character, the calm one, will be portrayed moreover through a still camera. Moreover, I will incorporate the use of camera angles to distribute authority to certain characters. In my scene, and in the Brick scene, the two characters mindsets come together as an act of character motivation and resolution. Thus, the use of handheld camera will slowly be incorporated on the ‘calm’ character, to show his realisation of something horrible. Thus through this scene I can explore the use of camera techniques, language and character to explore film noir conventions, just one of the scenes I wish to do this with.
Film noir intrigues me due to it being different yet appearing to be conventional storyline and visuals. When you watch a film noir, a sense of nostalgia comes up, and why, I’m not sure. When I watched my first film noir it felt as though I was well acquainted with the visual techniques and clichés that it presented. I think this is because we are already familiar with the character stereotypes, such as a femme fatal, however they become exaggerated in film noir. I want to explore this, however how I’m going to explore it is still to come.
The way in which I hope to achieve this is through creating 4-5 non linked scenes that incorporate at least two film noir techniques or themes. This will help me to better by understanding of the genre whilst adhering to the creative side of filming as well as improving my camera, sound and pre, during and post production skills such as learning how to use camera handheld, or how to colour correct in the editing suits.
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