Preliminary Task - Shooting Maps

This is a shooting map of our preliminary task, our preliminary task follows one lad (Actor 1) on his journey to find a suitible comic book to read in his spare time, his quest leads him to the library were another boy (Actor 2) is indulging in a rather cool looking comic, however the only one left for Actor 1 is "bunty for girls", unhappy with this comic Actor 1 asks Actor 2 if he is willing to trade however Actor 2 is happy with the comic he has chosen... In the end however Actor 2 is so annoyed by the presence of Actor 1 that he leaves the room, leaving Actor 1 with the comic book he wanted all along.

In this scene we can see Actor 1 coming up the stairs and around the coridoor to the doors of the library. The camera uses a panning shot to follow his progress.

In this scene we can see that Actor 1 comes throught he door into the library to sit at the table. After a brief discussion with Actor 2 about comic books Actor 2 leaves the room. The camera usus a panning shot to view Actor 1 to the table and uses one continual shot to follow the coversation between Actor 1 and 2 with close ups at specific points to show particular facial expression and to draw focus on specific objects that the Actors are using.

It was important for us to mak these shooting maps so that we knew exactly what we were doing when we filmed our preliminary task, without it it would have taken us far longer and the finished production would have been alot less smooth.

In out production we had to keep in mind the "180 Degree Rule" which means that when filming the two Actors talking we couldnt move the camera more than 180 degrees oposite to were the discussion was taking place, this is because if we did it become confusing and disorientating for the viewer because it would appear that the Actors have switched places and will break the flow of the scene.

The Opening to Sin City -Re Posted-

Straight away we can see how vast the setting is by the long camera shot. The director uses this to empaphise, through the contrast between the organic shape of the woman in the foreground, set against the angular man made metropolis, a sense of exreme lonliness and vulnerability. We can also see hundreds of identical lights which the director uses to create a sense of conformity between the people in the city. However the railings infront of character show that she is seperate from the sea of people. The theme of vulnerability is also highlighted in the colour of her dress, sharing its conotations with blood and passion, which seperates her from the masses; prehaps she has chosen to live apart. These themes of seperation are implied by the director to give the character a sense of exsistential alienatoin from her settting. The characters skewed perception of morality in an underground world which does not allow a conformative value system has lead her to be alone in both worlds. The director uses this idea of darkness with the iconic and steriotypical neo-gothic city to produce strong conotations of Film Noir.
In this shot we can see the building behind the character, with the use of an intresting camera angle which faces the woman, but also allows us to see clearly behind her. This camera angle emphasises the action of the woman turning her back on the light flooding out from the party. This highlights the theme of isolation in the film, as she is set apart from the light exuding from the building behind her.
The director uses lighting in this shot to show how glamorous, attractive and alluring this world must be, yet the woman is able to turn her back on it, with what appears to be a vulnerable and withdrawn body posture. The director hints to the audience through this use of lighting that she is distrusting of the scene behind her, and that her aloofness and isloation from it are her choice. Her indifference is momentarily lifted as she acknowledges the presence of the male character coming up from behind her, indicating that she must still have some attachment to what is behind her. As the male character makes his way from teh party inside towards the woman he narrates to himself. "She shivers in the wind like the last leaf on a dying tree.I let her hear my footsteps. She only goes stiff for a moment." Right from the outset the dialogue is heavily styalised in the tradition of film of Film Noir, and because the director has made the description of the woman from the perspective of the male character, the audience gains a sense of mystery and unknowing about the female character. This adds to the overall theme of mystery that the director builds on in this opening scene to draw the attension of the audience. This also adds to the idea of Film Noir by portraying the female character as a femme fatale.

When the male character reaches the female character we become awear of strong shadpws on their faces, this keeps the dark themes of running, adding a sinister edge to their convosation. The Female is wearing bright red lipstick which stands out strongly along with the dress against black and whiteness of the film, the lipstick indicates passion and mystery which identifies her again as a femme fatale, giving more connotations with film noir.
The man is dressed very formaly in a suit with black tie, the darkness of his suit creatges mystery, another running theme of the film. The male character invitres the female character to smoke a ciggerette with him, this acts as a social ice breaker between the two characters and shows flaws in the lifestyle they both lead. This also lets the characters portray these flaws to each other establish a common ground between them whilst exersising their social style and grace. These ideas rest firmly with the ideas of Film Noir and create themes of darkness, passion, intimacy and a slight sense of risk in the film. After the male character has has explained that the things he sees in the eyes of the female character make her everything a man could want, she takes a drag on her ciggerrete and as she does so her eyes flash green sudenly, this indicates extra layers in the character, hightening the sense of mystery and increasing the idea of her being a femme fatale.
The female character then asks what it is he sees in her eyes, to which he replys "I see a crazy calm, you're sick of running, you're ready to face what you have to face. But you don't want to face it alone." The two characters now embrace, whihc as they do the picture changes to an almost monoprint coloures as the two characters become grey silhoettes infront of the city skyline, this connotes the idea of togethernesws and intimacy between the male and female as they kiss, highlighting the themes of passion we can see in the film from this opening shot.
After the chacters embrace we can once again hear the narration of male character. "The wind rises electric, she's soft and warm and almost weightless, her perfume is sweet promise that brings tears to my eyes, I tell her that everything will be alright, that I'll save her from whatever she's scared of and take her far far away. I tell her... I love her, the silencer makes a whisper of the gunshot, I hold her close until she's gone, I'll never know what she's running from. I'll cash her check in the morning." As he narrates the situation he shoots her unexpectadly, this adds again to the film's themes of mystery, danger, passion, and darkness; Sumerising the theme of the film in one contradictory action.

Heroes And Femme Fatales In Film Noir

There are many factors that make up a film noir, be it setting, props or lighting, but one of the features that jumps out most is the sheer flaws in the characters that are in them. In many films today the characters are too polished, either good or bad, when in reality dealing with dark situations like the scenarios in film noir can give anyone two sides to their moral psyche. It is this edginess and unpredictability that make the characters in film noir so memorable and interesting to watch.
The male heroes in film noir are almost always flawed in some way, they often display connotations of alienation and moral ambiguity often because of the events that they experience or have experienced in the film. Some of the examples these flawed heroes are characters like Walter Neff from Double Indemnity, although this character is the hero of this film noir we find out that he has helped kill the husband of the woman he is having an affair with to claim his accident insurance money. When we think of heroes and protagonists in film noir we strong images come to mind, they are usually seen in suave suits and jackets and often portrayed with cigarettes which have more metaphorical connotations with the idea of anti-heroism because they are classy yet destructive.


We can see from Double Indemnity that the situation to cause Walter Neff to turn to the dark side was a woman; this is true to many films and especially with film noir. The seductive yet destructive women seen in film noir are known as femme fatales; the phrase itself comes from France and means literally a fatale woman. A femme fatale is a woman of great seductive charm who leads men into compromising or dangerous situations. The femme fatale in Double Indemnity is called Phyllis Dietrichson; her raw seductive charm affects Walter Neff in such a way that he is compelled to join her in the act of killing her husband. Femme fatales in general are pictured to be very sexually attractive and in film noir you will see them depressed stereotypically in 40’s and early 50’s clothing styles as this was the time period that classic film noir was filmed in. The way that the heroes and femme fatales of film noir perceive the dark situations give the film a afar more edgy appeal, they allow the story line to be dark and twisted while maintaining the classy slickness that everyone associates the films with.

This is England Presentation

This is England is an indipendant British film written and directed by Shane Meadows, set in the 1980's it follows a young boy and his experiences and envolvement with a group of "skin heads". The film looks at issues to do with racism, culture, and british politics at the time.

Production companies invlolved with the film:

Big Arty Production

EM Media

Film4

Optimum Releasing

Screen Yorkshire

UK Film Council

Warp Films

Advertisement campaigns

These posters use steriotypical British imagery, depicting strong connotations of 1980's Britain.

The film also made a website which again uses strong brisish imagery such union jacks and bland building structuctures which give a strng themes of the working class within the film

Cost and Gross
Cost: 1,500,000
Gross Revenue: 8,069,240

Distribution
The film was distributed in cinemas worldwide and on DVD. It was also shown on Film4

Advertisement Analysis

Shockwaves Hair Gel

Cosmetic Advertisement Research

This advertisement campaign could help me quite alot because the imagrery used conforms strrongly to rock and roll clichés.

This Juicy Couture advertisement campaign uses strong imagery like the man and woman sharing the "juice", which ties in with the product and keeps it sexy. The clothes they are wearing are quite rock and roll, i.e. tattoos, fur coats etc.

This is Kat Von Dee's advertisement for her makeup, she is a strong iconic figure in rock and roll because she is a famous tattoo artist. In my advertisement i should use strong rock and rol imagery.

Film Noir -Re Posted-

Film Noir

The term film noir was first coined by a French film critic Nino frank, as you can probably tell it refers to a style of film that uses dark, stylish themes which although they are quite easy to define, although what can be done within Style of Film Noir are endless. This movement of filming was developed after the second world war, were a seemingly less innocent world was exploring its dark side, the traditional forms of film noir lasted from the early 1940’s stretching to the late 1950’s were the invention of colour filming took over the film industry.
One of the most definitive elements of film noir is the way lighting is used to incredible effect; this is largely because traditional film noir is shot in black and white, the way light can be used for creating film noir effects on black and white films are very diverse for instance because light can be concentrated to make the viewer focus specifically on a specific thing or place, there can be a high contrast in light and dark to give stronger connotations of good/bad places or people etc, shadow is also used extensively in film noir, to create mystery, suspense and dark style. the majority of the film noir however is shot in low-key light to give the dark and moody style that film noir is associated with.
Another key characteristic of film noir is the types of characters used. Because film noir is dark the characters are usually emotionally of physically flawed, even the main characters in the films who are usually supposed to be morally good often have flaws in there personality which adds to the moody, stylised themes of film noir, some examples of femme fatales and anti heroes found in film noir are Miss Ruth Wonderly, or any of her alias names: Miss Leblanc, or Brigid O'Shaughnessy, this characters deceitful nature led up to her untimely death in the film The Maltese Falcon.
An example of an anti hero would be Same Spade who is also from the film The Maltese Falcon, and played by Humphrey Bogart. This character is a hard-boiled detective with a dark story and has a startlingly flawed personality making him appear vindictive and lacking in empathy.
To further understand the connotations and implementations of film noir we can look at the directors behind the films, one director of note is John Huston, director of such film noir as The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), and Key Largo (1948). John Huston started his career as a screen writer and made films that were adapted from books or plays and developed a strong style with light, setting, and intense characterization.