Coursework Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

With the film noir that was set out to be made it was merely a development of the noirs stories of pessimism and the destruction of the male protagonist by the femme fatale which has been seen in so many past noirs narratives such as Double Indemnity directed in 1944 by Billy Wilder and the Maltese Falcon directed in 1941 by John Huston. Though our contemporary twist was taken from films such as Brick which was directed by Rian Johnson.

This film also inspired the idea to incorporate our previous work which was ‘the exchange’ and use it as the opening to our contemporary neo noir and act as the beginning to a flash back of events that brought our male character, Spencer to his end. This i felt would leave a fantastic enigma straight from the beginning of the film. usually, watching an opening scene it should enables the feeling of intrigue within the viewer, making him want to watch more and understand more about what this film is going to offer to them.

Our opening scene does just that. As well as this we also chose most of the film to be set in open spaces like those seen in Brick which is set within a school. I liked the idea of using open spaces because its very different to the small claustrophobic locations that were used in past film noirs. The incorporation of the previous noir narratives of femme fatales and unlucky/unwanted male characters was what we used as our main narrative.

The mise-en-scene in the opening scene see’s the femme fatale dressed literally ‘to die for’ whilst our male character is dressed simply but smartly with a pea coat and winkle picker shoes similarly like those in past noirs. The narrative was based around a desperate male looking to replace his pathetic life with something more exciting and is offered the chance to change this the femme fatale who lies in wait to toy with him and use him for her own sadistic pleasures with countless letters which unbeknown to him will in the end destroy him. The film follows a non-linear approach to things to make the viewer guess on what is happening and also to aid the confusion.

The opening is in black white to take into account the previous genre’s stylistics but when the story transfers to the flashback it turns to colour, maybe to confuse the viewer on what is real and what isn’t. the cinematography and editing of the first scene adds the disorientation/uncomfortable feelings felt from past noirs such as when the female character walks towards Spencer, the use of jump cuts distorts the females walking pace and the fade away of her character makes it seem as if she isn’t real.

(see the specific effect on the blog entry)

The film made was more of a challenge towards previous noirs in the sense that the locations used and the clothes worn were more of a take on modern noirs (apart from the opening scene) such as brick than those seen in the Big Sleep which was directed in 1946 by Howard Hawkes and the Maltese falcon, directed in 1941 by John Huston, like trilby hats and long silk gown dresses, though in some sense it could also be classed as a development on from the usual narratives that are usually used with film noirs such as those that evolve around the females being considered more powerful then the males.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?

Our film noirs represent feminists/strong females that can take control of a situation…which they may have chosen to cause. Who have power mentally/physically/sexually over the male protagonist Spencer, even though she maybe mentally unstable!

The locations that we shot in were firstly the college, which we managed to avoid being noticed and from the viewer perception it looks like an ordinary public place. It was chosen to use as our meeting place between the two characters with the sound used to be digetic to make this known and secondly we travelled further outwards towards a symbolic bridge within Ipswich. This was to not only play homage to the films British roots but also was a great location as it was down a dirty beaten track which is similar to those within noirs such as that seen in the Maltese falcon when P.I Sam spades partner gets shot.
The representations of our strong women is shown firstly within the mise-en-scene. The clothes at the beginning accentuates her sexiness which helps to empower herself over our male character as well as the pink envelope that keeps being handed to him by her.

The colour pink in some way expresses feminity as well as her trade mark red kiss print in the top right of the envelope. This take on women, not necessarily the tight dresses and the vast amounts of make up, but the power that they can posses over a male in some sense is a realistic portrayal of what happens in the world all around us. The ideology isn’t necessarily truthful from the messages that are portrayed within our film. That women are devious and are out to corrupt and demise any man that they can get their hands on but I feel in some way, the representation of previous noirs narratives were covered though thinking back, maybe a wider range of noir characteristics were missed such as low key lighting and angle of shots that were looking down upon the male protagonist to show the power that she has over him?

3. What kind of media institution may distribute your media product and why?

Our film should be distributed through film four or by between the eyes film production company and distributed by metrodome distribution. Reason for this is that they are small time British production companies (apart from film four) and our film isn’t exactly a big budget production looking for fortune. Because of its British heritage in the sense of locations and modern dress attire during the flash back, this may appeal to a broader range of audiences in England, especially to those that are interested in supporting the British filming associations as well as being firm fans off film noirs or contemporary twists of them.

Working title may also be an option due to them previously being a firm British production company until universal brought them in 1998. I say that this also could be an option due to their horizontal integration as well as their freedom of making films with a high payment to allow them to be made as well as the option of making 1 film which has risks involved. Seeing that it’s a film noir which usually isn’t something that is seen within the cinema’s on a regular basis. Though the cinemas where this would be distributed would probably not be any that are where big blockbusters are usually screened.

Maybe more art theatres or among the British film festivals that take place yearly.

Channels that would be screen our films would be BBC or channel 4. BBC have a close tie with metrodome distribution and channel 4 usually screens artistic cult films in the sense of Amelie and Les Triplettes De Belleville which was directed by Sylvain Chomet. this one at the caines film festival which lead to its global poularity thoughout. This is what i intend for our production. Try to gain its appearence within film festivals like the iris prize festival in Cardiff or maybe the The national student film festival in Bristol. reasons for these is that they are situated in large cities which would allow a greater population of audiences that will be attending. this could therefore equate our film to be seen by many which could lead to a word of mouth popularity increase for 'the dead letter drop'.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?

The audience that the film noir is targeted at is obviously those that enjoy the genre as well as those that enjoy a story of realism, one that doesn’t go past the boundaries of non-fiction and stay hard boiled and truthful, though aren’t always ‘solid fact’ such as ours which tell the story of a person’s demise through playing a game.

Its targeted at the lowest social grading of E all the way right through to A on the social economics. reason being is that film noir is realism. It tells it how it is though sometimes the stories might be slightly fictional but many aren’t, such as Brick which was directed by Rian Johnson which follows a teenager set out to find why the person he loved became mixed up with drugs and societal underdogs and how did she die.

Now, extreme cases cover death but the common occurrence of someone’s loved one taking the wrong path in life isn’t something unheard of and that’s why I believe our film can cover such a range of social economic/ demographical scale. Some people can relate to the overall representations and pessimistic narratives that are told whilst others who are far from ever experiencing such devastating things can watch and see how real something’s can get.

Our film isn’t as devastatingly real but it does withhold the meaning that it doesn’t always end well….things aren’t always a happy ending. So therefore I guess it covers from ‘innovators’ who are described as having high incomes who enjoy the finer things in life to the ‘experincers’ with the average age of 25 and the ‘survivors’ who have the lowest incomes.

The films rating or BBFC I believe should be considered a 12A. Our target audience is involved within this as well as anyone younger. Reason being is that it does promote hatred, psychotic, murderous behaviour/ intentions from the femme fatale which could be seen as a threat towards legal values I.e. breaking the law through murder. But due to the low bbfc classification because of the lack of scenes (none) of violence this means that its suitable to the age group of 12A and upwards and allows the film to be open to a wider range of audiences.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?

Our target audience was addressed due to the comparisons that they could make maybe in the ideology of events unfolding such as the unfamiliar unhappy endings, that not everything always ends up such as seen between the characters who both seem like ‘strivers’ (low resource group who are motivated by achievements) such as Spencer.

He is lonely, fed up of the mundanity of life and is after something/anything to awaken a new excitement within.

Whilst others could relate to our femme fatale not in the sense that she is murderously inclined…I hope, but in the sense that she is a sexual deviant who dresses in fashionable clothes, is powerful and confident in her own body and who can take control of situations. I believe females would be intrigued to watch this for that very reason. Some of the feedback from the audience we showed this too gave great acknowlegement towards shots used to define our characters. For instance, the shot of the femme fatale walking over the camera was liked by the females of the audience because it showed the power that that the femme fatale had over the male protagonist who was walking towards her.

The non digetic sound used such as the background music was a variation of modern music which divulged over certain music genre’s I.e. rock and hip hop which would be the type of music that our target audience maybe interested in.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of making this product?

Technologies used for the initial research stage on cinematography used and editing effects were that of popular search engines such as Google and you tube. You tube was used mainly for viewing opening scenes of previous noirs. It’s on you tube where our main idea to have the ending of our story as the beginning was seen. These were from opening scenes of the film Fight club which was directed by David Fincher and the 1950’s D.O.A directed by Rudolph mate. Facebook, the online community, was also another place which was researched to have an idea on whether any Film Noir fan groups had been set up and to see what these fans most wanted to see within a film noir film.
Technologies used in the planning stage varied tremendously during our production. To start with our camera used was a Canon HV30 DV camcorder. This was our piece of equipment which was used for the stages of filming. This was also used to record the voice over’s which we used to give a little more understanding towards the narrative of the film. The VELBON DV-7000 tri-pod was used to keep the camcorder steady ensuring that the filming was fluent with no shakes within it.
The YOGA shotgun microphone, boom pole and headphones were used in the scene inside the car. This way the conversation being filmed would again be fluent with no background noise and ensured the conversation being heard was clear and understandable.
Once the filming had been finished I edited the footage in final cut pro which was on the Apple Macs, effects used were also developed on final cut pro such as the fades between some scenes and the jolted approach from our femme fatale to our sitting protagonist male.

The titles were also developed on Final Cut Pro as well as compressing the files in the compressor so that we were able to make them into QuickTime files so that they could be smaller and more accessible on the web. This would allow it to be placed onto our blogs also.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?

Our final piece I felt had made a vast improvement compared to the original work that had been done. To begin with, the knowledge that I now know compared to the beginning is vast in cases such as editing and cinematography, being able to recognise shots that worked and shots that didn’t. this was a problem that seemed to keep cropping up during the final piece in which shots in the storyboards and ideas of shots looked and sounded great but it wasn’t until we started to film them that it would become apparent that they just weren’t working with the flow of the film.

For instance, our first meeting between the femme fatale and Spencer was meant to be in a corridor which would see the femme fatale bump into Spencer causing his books to drop but at the same time she would drop an envelope to the floor which he’d notice once the books were picked up. Now the main problem was how compact the corridor was and the shots we wanted were just to large for the area that we were working in. therefore it was moved to a larger area in a public meeting spot within a college.

Why this was chosen was because of the openness of the area and also it would be an easy place for someone to be able to creep up onto an unsuspecting person/victim in Spencer’s case. The importance within our time management was that it created a plan to run by, making sure that the filming wasn’t just by coincidence and that everyone had a role to complete which sped up the pre and post production phases, though to our groups bad luck myself and Rita were left to finish the post production by ourselves due to two of our other members of our team leaving college.

This caused us to become behind to begin with which lead to the editing being kept on hold but this didn’t prove to be a problem for very long.

My role was largely to do with editing, it was my job to piece together the shots we had achieved and make them flow due to continuity editing which was what our main target was instead of the non-linear editing which would be seen in past film noirs.

The reason i chose continuity is that it makes the film a lot more fluent and also it gives a little extra towards the contemporary noir 'take' that we were trying to get, though to some degree it can also be classed as non-linear due to the fact that our ending was at the beginning of our film and the idea is to try and relay how our male protagonist got into the position he was in.

Even though I was editor I also helped within decisions being made in what shots would be better to use and the obstacle that was needed to be ‘climbed over’ which was “what can replace the corridor scene”.

This was a large decision between, at that point, only three of the four members of the group.

My abilities that I have gained I would say have increased tremendously compared to when I first began AS media. During our pre/post production work the understanding of being organised has increased.

The change of mentality from chancing the productions has changed to what it was to begin with.

On our last media piece storyboards were one of our main focuses of pre production which helped because if we hadn’t then the problem with the small corridor could have been worse than it was and our post production emphasis was more towards the shot lists.

Making sure that each scene was logged and then the time recorded so that we knew when it begun and ended. This made it a lot easier for if we needed to go back to a particular scene which in one case we had too due to the college system causing clips that were being logged to freeze half way through.

The understanding of using a CANON HV30 DV camcorder and the VELBON DV-7000 tri-pod was another key element of our production that needed to be understood. Without the knowledge gained in using it would have made some of the scenes which viewed objects of interest like the ’radio’ being turned of would have proven difficult or the exchange of the letter at the beginning of the film.

Our SMART targets were generally all followed though sometimes we managed fall short just a couple of times such as on one occasion we were set to film during a weekend but for some reason the camera’s didn’t contain any battery packs and because of this we were setback by up to one week which wasn’t very helpful. The main problem that we came to realise was whether our goals were realistic and were they attainable in the time frame that we had. The answer again on most occasions was yes but there were times when the groups optimism may have been slightly too high as we found ourselves filming outside of college hours due to our time to complete gradually running out but this in somehow trained us all to cope with the stressful situations and find a way around them.

Those being represented within our film were strong females who didn‘t rely on what the male decided to but instead told the male what to do. This was the main representation that we were after as seen by many past femme fatales but with the slight exaggeration of our femme fatale being a tad bit crazy. It was made to be as close to a film noir narrative with the inclusion on contemporary aspects which included modern clothing and lack of private eye jargon that would be originally spoken in films such as the Maltese Falcon by Humphrey Bogart.

Our main target audience/ those who were most likely to be the viewers of our film were those who greatly admire the past and present film noirs. Whether it be for the realism with which the films portray or the power and intelligence that the women have over the male protagonist and the million other male viewers.

I feel that our film delivered this exact portrayal of those such stories that were loved by noir fans.

I think the ideology that may be made from someone who hasn’t really heard of film noir or now what they are about will view the film as a thriller in which a psycho female is out to kill a innocent male but to those who watch film noirs they will see different messages such as females are stronger mentally and physically then some would give them credit. Also that life isn’t always fantastically brilliant and that some people don’t have the benefits or social popularity that others do. This is where we were trying to portray Spencer as being someone who doesn’t have large social groups and is lucky with women.

After viewing the final piece of our media production and whilst editing I started to realise that in some sense this message wasn’t being portrayed as clear as I had hoped. Instead it comes across as a young male who is desperate for money which was a slight let down. If I were to film this again I think I would change the attire he was wearing and make it more towards a geeky, lonely, dull character with the inclusion of wearing boring colours and large glasses with an even more scruffy hairstyle then he has in the ‘dead letter drop’.

Our narrative I felt covered the main codes and conventions of film noir in the sense of a pessimistic storyline and the immediate downfall of Spencer as soon as he opens the letter, even though he doesn’t realise it at the time. The characters in which the film portrays are those that are generally seen in noirs such as Double indemnity directed by Billy Wilder or a more recent contemporary noir Body heat directed by Lawrence Kasdan in the sense that the male protagonist is always tricked by the devious Femme fatale who is always in the quest for power.

The genre in which Film noir is is that of darkness and realism with an uneven balance of pessimism and optimism with the outcome of the scales always weighing down on pessimism. I felt in total all aspects of this genre was covered within our take on it. The beginning sequence is black and white just like those previous noirs with the contemporary twist of it being colour during the flashback which in some way helps to add a decision making in whether the flashback is real time or not.

Our demise of a helpless male protagonist is a film noir classic and this is what we chose to use to tell our contemporary twist of a story but as said before, the inclusion of modern stylistics like clothes cars make up and modernised furniture (as seen in the first meeting between two)helps to give that contemporary feel.