CAMERA EFFECTS

because we are doing our short product in the film noir styley, we are going to put some effects onto our product to make it look more dark. I have been looking at films where they use colour effects in an interesting way. For example, the film Hard Candy, where the colours of the surroundings change according to the main character, Hayley's mood. When she is angry, the reds in the room become very exaggerated, like in the picture shown, but when she is calm, the rooms return to their normal colours. We will look to use a similar exaggerated reds effect on our product, but our budget is limited. This means we may just have to stick with changing the contrast on our product or start using final cut.

CONVENTIONS OF YOUTH DRAMA

Youth dramas often tackle youth issues, whilst trying to keep the porgramme lighthearted. These issues often include; sex, drugs, alcohol, romance, fashion, friendships, relationships and love. Examples of these programmes include: skins, shameless, hollyoaks, misfits, waterloo road, coming of age. trinity, waterloo road, being human, hex, grange hill and doctor who. These programmes often try to be provocative, and portray adults as 'the evil'. They are often very high-fashion and lead the way in relation to music. We will try to include some of these features in our product.

CONVENTIONS OF FILM NOIR

'film noir' literally translates to black film.  It was coined by French film critics and was used to describe how dark and moody many American crime and detective films looked at that time, around the 1940s and 50s.
Fear, mistrust, bleakness, loss of innocence, despair and paranoia are common themese in film noir, and the triumph of evil is also a common motif. Film noir often uses the 'anti-hero', a criminal, violent, misogynistic, hard-boiled, or greedy man. These protagonists were often morally-ambiguous low-lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing. It optimised a time of the Cold War period when many people thought the world was against them, and at the same time in ruin. The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femmes fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir wished to elude his mysterious past, and had to choose what path to take (or have the fateful choice made for him).


Invariably, the choice would be an overly ambitious one, to follow the dangerous but desirable wishes of these dames. It would be to pursue the goadings of a traitorous, self-destructive femme fatale who would lead the struggling, disillusioned, and doomed hero into committing murder or some other crime of passion coupled with twisted love. When the major character was a detective or private eye, he would become embroiled and trapped in an increasingly-complex, convoluted case that would lead to fatalistic, suffocating evidences of corruption, irresistible love and death. The femme fatale, who had also transgressed societal norms with her independent and smart, menacing actions, would bring both of them to a downfall. We will be using these three stereotypes in our own film noir production, but using the point of view of one of the female characters to put a new spin on it.

Source://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html

CONCEPTS FOR OUR PRODUCT.

My groupmates, Danielle Bissmire and Lydia Earl and me recently brainstormed ideas for our film noir piece. We decided we would combine typical conventions of film noir with conventions of a youth drama. Doing this would enable us to film our piece with a lot less difficulty. This way we could include people of our age in the product rather than having my dad in the starring role. It would also make it easier to come up with ideas, seeing as we know what popular teen issues are, but putting a darker, more dramatic twist on the typical youth drama.  One of our biggest changes to the typical film noir is that our main character will be most likely a girl. This will make it easier, especially when sourcing actors to star in our product, however, she will have the typical attitude of the protoganist of film noir, meaning she will be a loner, dark moody, etc. Our main poltline ideas are a love triangle, from the point of view of the femme fatale or the home maker. This will put a different spin on the typical concept,. However, as always in film noir, evil will triumph.

CINEMA LISTINGS:BRISTOL

Ms. Humpleby recently set us homework to pick a city and find out what films are showing there. I chose Bristol, which is home to NINE cinemas, of which about 2 or 3 show independent and cult films.
The Cinema De Lux, based within the Cabot Circus shopping centre is currently showing:

• Alvin and The Chipmunks 2: The Squeakuel
• An Education
• Astro Boy
• Avatar
• Avatar 3D
• Book of Eli 1
• Edge of Darkness
• Invictus
• Last Station
• Lovely Bones
• My Name Is Khan 12A
• Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief
• Ponyo (Gake no ue no Ponyo)
• Precious
• Princess and the Frog
• Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll
• Sherlock Holmes
• Single Man
• Up in the Air
• Valentine’s Day
• Wolfman
• Youth in Revolt

So, all in all, quite a few films, 23 to be precise. I decided to look at listings from an alternative cinema aswell - which I imagine will be showing a lot less films. I looked at listings from the Watershed House - which has been reviewed as 'an independent cinema that shows film that are harder to find'
 Here are the films they are showing over the next week:

• A Single Man
• Ponyo
• Food, Inc
• The Last Station
• Micmacs
• Capitalism: A Love Story
• El Mariachi
• Decalogue 2000: Dancer in the Dark

As you can see, the Watershed cinema is showing only 8 films, compared to the Cinema De Lux's 23. However, the Watershed are showing a broader range of films, including films from the oast, and subtitled films.

CONTINUITY TASK

Yesterday morning, we filmed a short piece which was to be under 2 minutes 30 seconds. We were asked to include the following; person A walks to the door, opens it, passes through it, crosses room, sits down and talks to someone. It had to be shot with match on action, 180' rule and a reverse shot in mind.
I worked with Danielle Bissmire and Lydia Earl; the problems we encountered were that our piece was quite boring; there was a section in which the main chracter was walking up a flight of stairs and seemed to last forever. We then decided to shoot this section from different angles, which helped to speed it up. We also found that the camera struggled to pick up our voices.        

SEMIOTICS

Semiotics is defined as the study of sign processes OR, in easier terms, the study of signification and communication - e.g. it is the relationship between signs and what effect they have on people.

This is my example of semiotics. Many people have two taps in their house, one red - hot, and one blue - cold. This is common in many cultures, but this picture takes that out of context, because if you look carefully, they are connected to the same water supply.

SOME IMPORTANT SEMIOTICIANS 

Jakob von Uoxkull: Uoxkull developed what we now call biosemiotics, the study of signs in biology, and he mainly studied the processes of signs in animals - for example, rabbits and hares and things like that have very big ears, and if they hear something out of the ordinary they thump their feet on the ground and let the other rabbits know. The thump of the ground will put the fear of God into the animals and there is your sign process.