killing conscience

First draft coursework evaluation

How we used Noir conventions to influence our film.

Film noir is a type of film that arised in the united states in the 40's and became very popular in the 40's/50's. The themes of film noir were made of conventions like paranoia, despair and bleakness. The films emphasize on cynical attitudes and the sexual motivations, especially by the women. Noir openings tend to be very secretive. They tend to start at the end of a tragic happening in which the audience doesn't really understand how any of it has really happen which intrigues them to watch more and to find out what has happened. The story lines tend to have many twists in turns in which you would never expect. We had to challenge these conventions for our noir because we had to make it contemporary and suitable for our target audience which was around our age group. So taking the knowledge we knew about noirs we incorporated it into our narrative, by using the 'whodunnit' concept. [which is the same enigma as film noirs] but we based it in a typical teen environment. A house party. Something that teens can relate to, but we just exaggerated what would really happen by someone dying, as this makes the film worth watching. We also used MES to get the tone of Noir across. The moody strange feel where the audience isn't to sure what is to happen next.

Double idemnity, directed by Billy Wilder in 1944.is one of the most popular classic noirs to date. The film opens with a man walking in the dark with smoke embracing him. He is on crutches for reasons in which we do not know. A car drives franticly in the dark streets. He goes to a hotel, finds a room and sits down with beads of sweat down his face,looking stressed. He then records a 'confession' He admits killing a man. After that it leads into flashbacks.

This is a typical noir opening. It has every convention they could possibly need to make a confusing yet interesting start to a film to keep the audience interested and wanting to find out more. This film opening in comparison to ours is rather different. It still has the confusing element and the who has done what question. Our opening starts with a male who wakes up and realises a girl is dead next to him. He then paces his room wondering [with the help of voiceovers for the audience, which is one of the conventions we used from typical noir films] how this could of possibly happened. Our opening is different in the fact we have snippets of flashbacks from the night before in small chunks giving the audience a bit more of a sense what will be contained in the film. But not enough to find out what has happened to the girl in the bed. In which they would have to watch on for to find out. This approach is good as it stays to the conventions of noir, but strays enough to make it a contemporary noir.

As we were making a contemporary noir, we had to make sure we put the noir/neo noir conventions in there, but also mix it up enough to appeal to our modern audience. We used the typical conventions like flashbacks and voiceovers [mentioned previously] Both of these conventions give the audience a snippet of information that will get them involved into the story line. Voice overs tend to let's the audience into the mind of the main character so they can understand even more the story but from their perspective. We also had to think about thinks like:

Mise en scene

For this we didnt want to make the characters to typically noir, so we put a modern twist on things. For example the femme fetalle wouldn't be dressed in a tight long black coat and heels, as people don't tend to wear that anymore. So we stayed with the black and white theme, and some red lipstick and red nails for a noir flair. Same with the male, we stayed with the black and white theme, but just in the form of modern teenage atire. The props aswell, There was no typical guns and old fashioned cars. It was all about the simplicity. Like cigarettes which is still a cool noir convention, but a lot of teens do that now still. We had to capture the essence of noir but still keeping to a modern feel. As the art director, I was in charge of the props and costumes used. I looked at teen programmes now, like skins, inbetweeners etc. Then at noir films for example Sin city. A contemporary noir. I had to make sure I got a happy medium because we still needed the eerie feel to be there but with a modern look.

Cinematography

For the shots we made sure we tried to keep to some of the noir feel. Like dutch tilts for obscure shots. High and low angle shots to make charecters to seem more or less vunrable. And close ups to show the emotion. We kept to this is one of the noir conventions we could keep to to give a seedy, moddy tone to the filming. The Dutch tilts and askewed angles are perfect to give a confusing atmosphere in our filming. It keeps the audience on their toes. The close ups used mainly for Kira and Bens shot's to show the emotion in their faces because they're the main characters so you want to see how they're feeling. To distinguish the difference between reality and the flashbacks we used different kind of shots. We used jolty akward shots for the flasbacks to make them seem less familiar, like he is piecing them together one by one. Whereas the reality shots are all smooth cuts with continuity.

Lighting

Lighting was something we we're going to make a big deal out of. We borrowed a huge filming lamp as we were potentially going to have lots of shadows and lit up faces to make it seem more edgy and cool. In the end, for the time we were given [as we had to reshoot we were on a very tight schedule] We didnt have time for this. So the only time we used lighting at is best is the example of the light shining on ben at the high angle shot of him on the bed. This makes it seem like a spotlight. Like all eyes are on him. He's under pressure to try and figure out what happens before he gets caught.

Sound

Sound was an interesting one. We kept to the typical noir in the sense that we used voiceovers. But the music we used for the background wasn't typically noir. It was more neo noir as it had a seedy undertone to it which is perfecct for a noir feel. But a modern one. Obviously you wouldnt find that in a classic noir film but for our audience we've chosen it fits really once. It's one of the biggest compliments we had when we screened our film to everyone for the first time. So we have challenged the noir codes and but made sure we stuck to the important ones we needed it to be put in the noir genre.

Editing

The editing was really important for, once again our flashbacks and reality shots. Our best shot we used was the cross fades we used fo express the passing off time when ben is pacing the room to make it seem as if he was pacing for a long time. Also to make the flashbacks seem more jolty we cut certain shots in the middle and then put them together so there were quick cuts in between them.

Representation of characters

The people we represent in out film is teenagers. It's all about the modern teens who get drunk, party with friends and generally mess around. The typical sterotype of houseparties and going nuts and not remembering what happened when you wake up in the morning. We havent got anyone over 22 in our film because we wanted to appeal to a younger audience as we've taken the simple idea of partying teenagers and added the extremity of someone dying giving it the drama and more interesting so they'll watch on. Plus the younger market tends to go to the cinema. We two main people we have represented in our opening is the hero and the girl, Ben and Kira. Kira is portrayed as the typical girl who will go for anyone and passes herself around a bit. No one cares about her because of what she is seen as, basically a typical bitchy whore. We portrayed kira like this because we wanted to make it so anyone could have a motive for killing her if no one really liked her. We portrayed Ben as a typical average joe, just wanting enjoy himself at a party but keeps getting bugged by kira who just won't leave her alone. He's not the sort of person who would get into any trouble. Which is why we used portrayed him in this sense because it's more interesting when someone who usually stays into trouble gets into the trouble.

In our opening, we portrayed teens as party animals who get themselves into trouble. This is a true and false view of them. Because not all teens go to house parties and get drunk and can't remember the night before. But for our age group we were trying to target it seemed perfect, because as this ag they do go out drinking and going a bit crazy. We thought that by using this image of teens they could relate to it.

Who would distribute our film.

Our film would be classed as a typical British film. Low – budget that wouldn't have much advertisment or a big cinema release. But That's the sort of idea we went for. A Company like film four to produce or fund it. Because their films can be revolutionary, for example slumdog millionare. Wasn't tipped to be that important of a film, very low budget. But is now a worldwide hit. It's a chance we would take. It's the sort of film that would be advertised more by word of mouth, small ads on internet websites etc. Which is fine because the way people can watch films these days have expanded much more from just the cinema. Internet, Phones, Mp3's etc. So watching a film in the cinema [as nice as it is] isn't the most important thing anymore. Which means potentially our film could still earn enough money to break even. It deffinitly wouldn't be the typical hollywood blockbuster. But alternative films are on the rise of popularity as time goes on, which would be perfect for our film. If it became popular enough it could go on to DVD or even film festivals to win a minor award.

How did we attract our audience and how does it represent the age group we chose.

We our trying to attract a young audience with our film opening. We did this by using young actors that teens can appeal to and relate to in the film so they find it interesting. It was easy to know how to attract a younger audience because we're all young ourselves so we knew that a house party would appeal to people are age.

Costumes and props were very important to make it appeal to our audience. The clothing was all very modern, all stuff from the highstreet that they could go and buy / or could own themselves. Everyday casual wear. But keeping to a black and white theme to keep it to a partial noir convention. The props used were really imprtant. Cigarettes, tobacco, condoms , lighters etc. All the contents of a teenagers handbag really. Even though it's a noir we needed the props to be modern because having the typical noir props like a gun wouldn't be realistic for this modern day and age.The theme of partying and having a good time is attractive to young adults and that would attract them instantly, as they would relate to the experience. We've used the sterotypical representation of the drunken youth when it comes to the social groups. It shows teenagers lives to an extent and gives an overview of the type of things that can happen. But this stereotype isn't such a bad one. Skins is a very popular tv show filled with teenagers doing drugs, drinking and other anti social behaviour, and that's one of the most watched TV shows in britain. [which our film coincidently was compared to, skins with a noir flair] It's hard to put our film in a gender specific group. It may sway more towards Males because [typically] men like thriller type films with men as the hero. [Whereas women are typically meant to like romantic comedies] Though it isn't particiulary advertised for men, women could just as well enjoy the film too. It represents middle class typical teens, having a good time. The BBFC would class this as a 15 because of the slight swearing that is in our narrative and the mild horror which would be contained througout the rest of the film.

The two main people we have represented in our opening is the hero and the girl, Ben and Kira.The preferred meaning of Kira is portrayed as the typical girl who will go for anyone and passes herself around a bit. No one cares about her because of what she is seen as, basically a typical bitchy whore. We portrayed kira like this because we wanted to make it so anyone could have a motive for killing her if no one really liked her. We portrayed Ben as a typical average joe, just wanting enjoy himself at a party but keeps getting bugged by kira who just won't leave her alone. He's not the sort of person who would get into any trouble. Which is why we used portrayed him in this sense because it's more interesting when someone who usually stays into trouble gets into the trouble.

Our text especially focus' on gender. In the opening Kira is the one following everyone around begging them for a chance from them. Ben stands her up and doesn't want to know her. And at one point, cameron actually pushes her to the floor. We represented gender in this way because we wanted kira to seem like the weaker more vunrable character. And having men, especially, pushing her around it makes her seem sterotypically weak. A woman who can't last on her own. So you feel sorry for the character. Especially because in our opening we haven't confirmed what she has done so it seems everyone is doing it for no reason.

The opening sets a dark mood which gives it an eerie feel of 'whodunnit' We would need an active audience who would want to participate in the storyline. Because noir's tend to be quite complicated, if you miss one slice you could be confused for the rest of the film . The crime thriller type has to have full attention to it so you can understand the plot as it slowly unravels itself.

Looking back, what have I learnt

Our preliminary/exchange sequence deffinilty help build up skills to the point of our final end product of our film noir opening. They are all very different productions. The preliminary, the first ever try of filming and editing, was used to help us find out way round a camera and an editing machine. The exchange was like a mini version of our film opening . Because we actually had to think of an idea and use get to grips with different camera angles and sound and costumes etc. The important elements of noir. So when it came to our final we had pretty much covered everything so we were ready to make a proper start on a real contemporary noir opening. We had to make sure that week by week we had completed another task or we would get behind with the filming. Which in the end we had to refilm twice as our first shots did not came out how we expected. So we had to catch up a lot of our work afterwords, but luckily got everything done just in time. Things like rule of thirds where you frame a shot I also learnt of as well. Different angles and shots, things i've never really thought of before. I never realised how a type of shot can perceive a certain character in a particular light. I personally have found a way of using ECMS to create a meaning in the film. For example certain things people wear can create a certain mood in a film. The errors made in our previous excersizes were corrected to. For example in our exchange sequence we had a problem with continuity, so with this film we made sure each time all the shots joined to give it a realistic feel.

What I found out about technology

In the early stages of resarch the opening I found out about some brilliant internet blogs and sites that write about noir characteristics which was really helpful to get some information about the conventions we should use for our opening. Youtube was great to look at some film openings to give us an idea of what kind of thing we had to make. When producing the opening I found out a lot about final cut pro, the programe we used to edit the whole thing. Garage Band, is a music programme which we got lots of ambience sounds off and also edited some sound clips together in which we needed. We added reverb and echos to the voice Ben hears in his head. This gave it an eerie tone which we needed for that particular scene. I'd never used either programe before but both helped tremendously for our finishing process.

We used a Canon HV30 DV camera. Which once you get used to it, was very easy to get around. We were still learning things about the camera towards the end of the filming process! We only realised at the end there is a light attatched to the camera which we used for the scene with ben sitting on the bed to give a spot light affect. All eyes upon him. We had to get to grips with auto focus to make sure the scenes were as clear as possible, especially as we were using a dark room. The Yoga shotgun microphone and boom was very helpful. We had a lot of speech and ambience we had to record. We learnt how to use the mic in different situations. For example when it was speech we'd use the boom to get a clearer sound. But for ambience we could place the microphone where we needed it and it would give a perfect ambience effect. [we did have problems with the boom being in the shot occasionally, something we learnt to look out for as the filming progressed.] We used a Velbon DV – 7000 tripod. This was very handy. For our pans especially. It gave a smooth movement instead of a jolty hand held shot we got using it freehand. [which sometimes we needed for the flashbacks but the real time shots we wanted flawless movement] This was especially useful for the shot when ben is pacing. We placed the tripod and camera on a cabinet and without that we couldnt have got such a still, high angle shot so perfectly. We used the usual programes like Facebook to keep in contact with each other. Google to research noir information we needed.

p.s the layout is'nt working properly which is why there's large spaces and different size font.

Editing techniques

Here is a video our editor made [Ben Halliday] about the type of editing techniques we used in our sequence

A killing Conscience, the whole story.

The film opens with a girl, kira and a guy, ben in bed. The guy awakes, opens the curtains and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He sees blood. And wonders where it could possibly have come from. He looks behind at the girl he woke up next too. He takes a closer look and realizes she is beaten and bloodied. He paces the room franticly, what can he possibly do? What is going on? He sits with a cigarette at the end of his bed and starts to think.

He gets a flashback of the night before. The party. He tries to piece together different parts of the night, but they all merge into one. He comes back to reality and starts to think. Once again, he goes back into a flashback and tries to remember everything that happened that night. When he comes back into reality again, he hears footsteps and the door opens.

It's one of the girls from the party. Sarah. She walks in and sees Kira on the bed. Ben slams the door shut and covers her mouth before she screams out in terror She wants to know what's going on. But the disbelief of Sara makes her escape, run down to the rest of the drunk teens and tell them what has happened. She tells Ben to wait where he is. But he's frightened. Frightened he will get the blame. He climbs out the window, down the trellis at the side of the house and gets in his car parked outside and drives away franticly.

He's so confused, why did he drive away? He's got nothing to feel guilty about. But he's already gone now so what can he do about it. He stops at a red light and lights a cigarette to calm himself down. The police, parked a couple cars down, notice his tail light is broken. They drive after him to pull him over. But Ben panics. Have they called the police on him. He doesn't know what to do! So he stupidly tries to outrun the police. It turns into a mini police chase. Ben outruns them. He knows he can't keep in his car now though. They would have his registration. He finds a river close by and dumps his car. By this point he feels as if he has gone mad. He had just dumped his car! So out of character. Why was he making such a big deal out of something he hadn't done. He starts to walk away and as he does he has some more flashbacks.

This time more specific ones of kira and who was at the party. What everyone was doing and how they were acting towards her. He remembers that one boy, Curtis is pushing her around and making her feel bad. Ben tries to stop this, which is what made her so clingy to him all night. Which he suddenly got sick of and angry. Back in reality, remembering this he wonders, 'maybe it was me who killed her' He looks at his phone, 8 missed calls. Mum 'the police called round, they are looking for you, please come home. I don't understand what's happening. No one will explain but please come home. Oh and some people from a party called, some guy Curtis in particular. They said it was urgent.'

Ben throws his phone in anger. One night of being drunk, and all this happens. Why, why him. The confusion of everything begins to get overwhelming. Could he face being in jail for murder. How could he cope without any support. His mother would never talk to him again. If she knew. He was starting to doubt himself at this point. He walks to a bridge, walks amongst the cars. Maybe this was his fate. His future. Maybe this was as far he'd ever go in life. He'd never been religious, but he started to prey. Prey to the heavens that he didn't sin. As he finishes his prayer, he jumps off the bridge, into the water below.

He slowly drowns, and as he does, he gets his last flashbacks. They all piece together now. He sees kira getting into a fight with some girls, which makes her all bloodied and bruised. He then sees curtis selling her drugs, drugs she wasnt prepared to pay for. It was strong stuff. He threatens her for money. But she declines. Which is when Ben stepped in to try and help the 'helpless' Kira. She drinks more out of everyones way and goes upstairs. Ben so drunk, goes up to find a place to sleep, and hardly notices her there.

By the time he realises it wasnt his fault. It's to late. He's to weak and fragile to swim his way to the top. He dies in the water. They attend Ben and kiras funeral. While the reverand makes a big speech about morals. And how they had not deserved their fate surely. But what happens in life cannot be stopped.

The end.

by kira knight

screening feedback

A few points made from the screening feedback:

People thought generally our video was to a good standard and fitted our teen target audience well. They liked our jerky jump cuts for our flashbacks. And our normal tripod shots for reality. They liked this because it established a difference between the flashbacks and reality.

They liked how we used point of view shots to show bens perspective on the night when it came to the flashbacks. They also liked how our scene ended with a cliff hanger. You didn't know what to expect next. Which is what film openings intensions are. To keep the audience that are watching wanting more.

They liked how we used close ups for emotion. The one of kira on the bed dead and the one of ben when he sits on the side of the bed thinking before the flashbacks. They liked how it portrayed the emotion.

The bad points they mentioned were mainly to do with our titles. They didn't think our titles and opening music suited the kind of film we had made. Which we then took in to account and changed. Our first opening titles were very bright and polished with a optimistic tune accompying it. Which we then changed to a bleaker look with a less cheery song as we wanted to set the correct tone to the piece that matched our opening.

They thought the music used in our piece was very effective for a very contemporary seedy piece of sequence. And the editing, especially the pacing at the start and the flashbacks, were brilliantly put together.

They also mentioned how they wouldn't be too sure if kira was actually dead or not. That we should of had a shot of Ben feeling her pulse or something of that description to clarify she was dead.

We took into account what they said and changed some things around to make it more appealing to our audience.

by kira knight, credited ben halliday for the scan picture

The main focus of this post is to justify the sound and music we’ve chosen for our Film Noir Opening piece. We’ve chosen a really soft, downbeat piece of music that still has quite a dark quality for the titles that sound-bridges into the first scene. This, in my opinion, creates an effective juxtaposition of sorts between the heavy, electronic, upbeat music used for the flashbacks that people won't expect. I used a royalty free sample courtesy of Apple. I added; a bitcrusher, distortion, reverb and an echo to create a really nasty sinister tone to it whilst keeping that really tragic kind of melody it has. In my opinion, it does sound really noir, but updated, which is essentially the key to our entire piece of work.Next, we have the voice-overs. The reason we collectively decided to include a voice over is because we felt that the audience may be slightly confused and needed some insight into the character’s mind. I think the way it turned out is really effective. It compliments the scene, clarifies what’s happening, sets the audience up for the flashbacks and improves their relationship with the character. The voice-over of the girl is one of my favourites though, and the way it’s edited, in my opinion is really effective. We applied heavy reverb to her voice and added delay and a really eerie echo which is not only frighteningly ghostly, but makes the audience wonder why the male character is hearing this and makes them question his innocence.Finally, the music we used for the flashbacks, is a piece by an artist named Peaches. The music had a very grimy, seedy electro feel to it and we liked that it had very subtly appropriate lyrics. The line; “seems you got a little bit more than you asked for” also builds the sequence up and builds suspension and awe, things we definitely wanted to create in this opening body of work. Unfortunately, the music, named ‘More’, we used for the flashback sequences is not royalty-free so we will have to research how to propose to XL Recordings/Kitty-Yo, the owners of the song, for permission to use the material, organise to pay royalties, etc.
By Benjamin Halliday, editor

Editing update, Titles

For A Killing Conscience, our Film Noir Opening Sequence, we've chosen a really simple typeface and layout that clearly displays all information whilst keeping that noir feel.
First, we experimented with flashy reflective titles that whooshed, spun and flew across the screen with white backgrounds and modern black, glossy text which we all thought looked amazing, not stopping to think; "does this have anything to do with our noir?". Well, after screening our opening sequence to an audience, we realised that the glossy, professional titles don't work with our piece - some actually said they were confused because the titles set the film up to be something
it's not. We couldn't help but agree and swifty deleted the title sequence in search of a new one.

Old Title:

Collectively, we sat around as I went through title ideas
I thought would be appropriate and we ended up finding a really sleek, simple, noir-themed one which is dark and shady and it fits out work perfectly. On a black background, the text appears to be typed as letters appear one-by-one on screen. The typeface and colour we decided to use is white Gill Sans which is a modern approach to the old noir typewriter style typeface. Information such as the production company, acknowledgments, and name of our film are displayed seperately, which I really like; it gives the audience time to digest and fully-read the information and looks a lot better than trying to pack everything on in one go.

Here's a screen-shot of the title style we've decided to go with:

By Benjamin Halliday, editor