The Matrix

This film is different from the rest of the neo noirs as it is based in the future in which reality is seen by humans as the Matrix: a simulated reality made by machines in order to subdue the human race. One man, Neo, who may be known as the protagonist, rebels against this thought and wants to free people from this 'dream world' and back into reality. This is a great futuristic neo nor. The colours are all dark greens and blacks and this theme runs throughout the whole film. It has the eerie feel and the unconventional story line which really brings out the classic side to this neo - noir.

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction is one of the most famous neo noirs because it literally is a noir but with colour. It is based in a new time, but it has the all the conventions. The femme fatale, the mixed up story line [Flashbacks in a sense] and the murders and the seedy happenings. It starts with two charecters in a diner talking. And then moves to different charecters story lines which all end up linking in some sense. The next charecters you meet are the two 'detectives' who work for the Marsellus. Vincent vega is constantly flirting with the Marsellus wife, mia wallace. He has to look after her while he is away, but knows if he does any more than Marsellus will kill him. So he has to restrain himself to stay out of trouble. The other narrative is Butch Coolidge who is a boxer and has to loose a fight purposly for the Marsellus. But he takes the money and tries to run away with his wife, in which Marsellus puts all his best men on to find and kill him. All in the all, the conventions of the dark places they go to, the cigarettes, the alcohol and the almost sadistic narrative. All racks up giving a perfect neo - noir film.

three neo noirs

Brick was made in 2005 it was written by Rian Johnson. The film is set around a detective story that is based in a highschool. A young boys ex girlfriend is killed, and when he finds her he deciedes to find the truth about who killed her and why. The plot is based around the noir 'harboiled' typical stories. It uses the 'whodunnit' storyline, just like a typical noir. It uses the eerie conventions to make it feel akward for the audience. Its brilliantly done and keeps to the conventions but with new elements.

the exchange

Peoples initial ideas is that they loved the location that we used. It was one of the main praises we got for the whole video.

For the cinematography they liked how we used our tilts and our over exposure. But somone suggested that we use more close ups to provide the audience with a sense of emotion of our charecter, which was a very good point and we would keep in mind for our next filming, which will be our contemporary noir opening.

They liked how we had edited our music so each individual charecter had their own tune in the short film. But they suggested our editing could have been a lot tighter with some of the cuts. Plus they believed we could have put in more noir stylistics. E.g. dutch tilts and other askwed angles. Which if we would have more time we would have slotted in to give it the noir feel, but it was a very tight shooting session with getting to the location etc, thus we didn't have time to get in all the shots and angles in we wanted to. So we went for what we could do in time, but still trying as hard as possible to make it look as good as possible.

They believed our narrative was easy to understand, and commented especially on our use of eerie stylistics. E.g. shadows and Silhouettes. But the only downside to this was they said some of our filming didn't have the correct focus to it. Especially the scene with the pan up of kira [me] as it seemed too over exposed when the pan stopped at the top.

They liked how the antagonist had a shady look and that you never saw his face. The protagonist was equally as shady, but you could tell he was doing it all for the femme fatale, like he was out of his elements. The femme fatale had the red dress to show danger and seduction.

They thought our fade away at the end took away momentum and the camera zoom was also a bit unstable. Which is understandable, it wasn't the best ending to the exhange. But we would have planned to take away a few of the shots at the end, but needed them in there as there was a standard amount of shots we needed in the small film.

All in all it was suitable for our target audience.

what is the exchange?

For this exercise we had to have people exchanging something of our choice, but we had to give it noir elements. So we chose our location, the dreary parts of christchurch park to give it the dark, seedy element that all noir movies have to them. Our story line was a guy meeting another in the dark tunnel of christchurch park and exchanging 'drugs' then sharing an approving nod. And one of the guy then goes of to meet a girl and they do yet another exchange and she walks off, leaving him looking rather sad as he expected her love in return.

We had to add the guy meeting the girl at the end as we didn't have enough shots for the first scene, and it filled it up perfectly, still keeping the noir feel.

We tried to place in noir elements as much as we could. For example we used silhouettes for the dark feel of danger. We dressed the femme fatale in a red dress to symbolize seduction and lust, her role was to get what she wanted of the protagonist, in which she did.

There are certain elements which if we could have achieved we would have done. For example filming at night, or having rain [if it wouldn't have ruined the equipment] But for what we had, i think we did a good job in capturing the feel of film noir.

preliminary excersize video

For our first video i think it turned out really well. We took turns on camera work and sound so both people in the group had a chance of trying out both so we could gain experience. It starts off with emily walking down a hall. We got an amazing shot of her feet as she walks. It was hard to get the camera to pan fast enough as she walked but after practice it was fine. We then had a close up of pushing the door open. This was also a tricky shot to get so we could still see the door as she was opening it but it worked out fine. The problem we had was keeping continuity when she walked into the room because her hands are at her face. This is something we didn't pick up on, but couldn't have really changed as it's the only footage we had, so we would look out for that next time. We got in one over the shoulder shot, which turned out well.

The sound turned out really well. For the feet we had to follow emily without getting the mic in camera. Which was complicated we just had to make sure the leads weren't in the way. The dialogue was fine, we just had to practice getting it close enough to their mouths, but not so it's in shot. Which took a couple of takes, but we got there in the end.

details of preliminary exercise.

This excercise was used to help us learn the tricks and trades of filming for the later filming we would do. We did it merely to help us improve the standard of our filming skills.

Our preliminary was for us to shoot six shots of a person walking into a room and sitting opposite another, and reciting a short script to one another. The shots were split up and we tried to use many different techniques for each shot. For example, long shots, over the shoulder shot and close ups. And most important of all when filming, is not to cross the 180 degree line, which usually causes confusion of the audience watching the performance.

First of all, before we even got the cameras, we had to do something known as pre-production. This is just organizing the production so in the long run it makes our lives a lot easier when we come to shooting. Pre - production includes writing a short script, doing a storyboard to document the ideas of the exercise. Sometimes even writing down who's doing which parts. Like sound, directing and acting.

We played around with the cameras using the zoom, auto focus and getting to grips with the tripod - keeping the camera steady at the right times when filming. We also got out the microphones and played around with the sound levels. Which is much harder than it looks. Getting the right sound quality, yet not getting the mic in the way of the shot.

After all the filming had been done, it came down to the editing. In which we logged all our footage onto the computer and played around with cropping the footage and adding in transitions. All very simple to start off, so we got to grips with the equipment.