Film Noir- Similar Products- Film noir basic plots

1- Sweet Smell of Success
The film transforms New York City into a dystopia soaked with jazz, smoke, and criminals.  We follow Sidney Falco, a press agent without the burdens of morality.  He is hired by J.J. Hunsecker, New York’s premier newspaper columnist, to stop his sister from marrying Steve Dallas, a fresh, young jazz guitarist.  So, Sidney plants some reefer on him and spreads rumors that he is a Communist.  Things work at first and the relationship is destroyed.

But that isn’t the end for Sidney- he is summoned to Hunsecker’s penthouse only to find the sister attempting suicide. Hunsecker walks in on Sidney saving her and accuses him of rape.  From there, fates are decided and lives are destroyed as the truth comes out.  In this powerful film, nobody is innocent.

A shot of Sydney in Sweet Smell of Success

2- The Big Heat

The Big Heat is one of the most intense noir films ever made.  It all starts with the death of a police sergeant.  The detective assigned to the case, Dave Bannion, thinks that foul play may be involved.  Bannion has reason to believe that a powerful gang of criminals has infiltrated the police force and bumped the sergeant off.  But the department’s higher ups force the case closed and one of the only witnesses willing to provide information is murdered.  Enraged, he insults the suspected mob boss only to have his wife killed with a car bomb as a result.  This puts him on a war path of furious vengeance as he swears to take the culprits down.  Using every method at his disposal and the help of the gangster’s girlfriend Debbie, he cuts a path of violence and anger through all the obstacles in his way. It was daring for its time and still shocking for those who watch it now.

The Big Heat poster

3- Pickup on South Street

On a crowded subway in New York , a small time pickpocket named Skip McCoy steals a wallet.  To him, it’s no big deal.  After all, it’s just another job for him.  Unbeknownst to him is the fact that the woman he robbed was carrying a microfilm of stolen top-secret government information that was destined for a group of Communists.  With the incredibly vital information in the hands of a common thief, both the police and the Communists start to track him down.  Too bad Mr. McCoy doesn’t care about the welfare of his country or his civic duty.  To him, it is an opportunity to make a bundle from the highest bidder.  As he slips away from the police and the Communists, it is up to Candy, the woman he robbed, to find him and get the microfilm back.

4- The Killers

The Killers starts with one of the most famous opening scenes in film noir history where two hit men invade a small town and kill The Swede. The Swede used to be a member of a gang of thieves whom he was pushed into betraying by femme fatale Kitty Collins Colfax.  Like so many film noir characters, the Swede is fully aware of his transgressions and knows that he cannot escape his fate.  And so he greets his punishment like a man instead of trying to escape from it, as so many other film noir characters would.  We then follow an investigator and a police detective as they struggle to track down his killers and bring them to justice.  The Killers is a powerful story that fully deserves it reputation as a classic film noir.

The Swede and a female actress in The Killers

5- Detour

Detour features all the great noir clichés: a down and out protagonist running from his past, a foul-tempered femme fatale, stylized dialogue, and a moody, bleak voiceover.  It deals with a hitchhiker played by Tom Neal.  He hitches a ride with a businessman one night who complains about his previous passenger, a crazy woman who scratched him.  Much to the hitchhiker’s dismay, the businessman dies.  He panics and throws his body into the desert and drives off.  Too bad his next passenger is a fiery redhead who asks him where the real driver of the car is.  She threatens to blackmail him because she knows that he has stolen the car.  In that moment, their destinies become linked and they plunge towards a tragic outcome that they cannot escape.  A filthy, messy production, Detour's flaws become its greatest strength.  It achieves a kind of transcendent power by wallowing in the filth of its story and creation.

From finding the plots of the best film noir films ever made I noticed that quite a few are to do with tracking down communists or showing htem as the enemy, as in 1950 America they were extremely anti communist and this is shown alot in the plots.

Some other things I noticed is that there are alot of criminals involved in film noir, many being the main characters. Along with criminals there are the detectives tracking them or solving the cases they caused.

Many seem to have a depressing plot with many people dying and without happy endings, but this is a good convention of film noir that makes it more realistic.

Source : http://www.toptenz.net/top-10-film-noir-movies.php#ixzz1jKlSywb7

Film Noir- Similar Products- Film Noir Conventions

Below are the Film Noir conventions I could think of after watching some trailers :

• Interesting Camea angles
• Black and White
• Narrator
• America
• Central City setting
• Filmed at night
• Minimal lighting

• No handheld shots
• Urgent tone
• Flirtatious, glamourous female actors

From analysing posters I found these conventions:

• Posters in colour to make it stand out
• Titles all stand out
• All have men and women in the poster
• Actors aren't looking at you, they are all looking away as if what they're looking at is more important.

Film Noir - Similar Products- Film Noir Definition

The definition I thought best fitted film noir is 'A style or genre of cinematographic film marked by a mood of pessimism, fatalism, and menace. Originally applied to American thriller or detective films made in the period 1944–54.'

Preliminary task- filming

 In my opinion filming went, it was quick and proffesional. Filming was well organised and the actors were focused and didn't really mess around. We finished filming quicker due to keeping it organised which gave us more time to edit our film. The only real filming problem we had was that one of our actors couldn't attend on the main day we were set to film on. This caused us to fall behind and when we did film it was slightly rushed. We did decide to keep this actor as they were well suited for the role, and just rearranged a new filming day.
In filming i was the cameraman/producer. I think that for the roles i had i did them well, i white balanced and manual focused every shot, which made the shots purer, more focused and less tacky. This made our film look more proffesional. As for the producer role, I was weaker at this as i've never done or seen it being done before, but i think i still did quite well. The main things i did for this was call action and count in to every shot. The swiftness of the filming shows that I did this role pretty well along with the camerawork.

Preliminary Task- evaluation

This is our evaluation for our production Gemini. For some reason when uploaded it was shortened from just under 6 minutes long to 3 minutes long, cutting out half of the important questions we had to answer. We have the original 6 minute version, however it is not on youtube. Embeded below is the evaluation that has been uploaded onto youtube:

Preliminary Task- Video and Poster

Here is the link to our video:


This is the poster me and Tom created together, we put the titles on the table to make them look like 3D:

Securing our location for 2nd december

Today i spoke to the teacher that was using the room we are filming in at the only other time we could have filmed. I asked him if there was any chance he could change room to allow us to film in it, as we've already filmed half our film in the room. So far he has agreed and will be sending my media teacher an email to confirm he will change room. This now gives up plenty of time to finish the film, letting us use the more effective angles as we will have more time to try them out.