From this survey I have learnt that the main reason people enjoy crime or noire thrillers is that they love the intense suspension and thrill. One of the most common genres that people cited as their favourite is action suggesting that in order to boost the popularity of this film I should tease some action. 66.7% said that they do enjoy film noir and crime thrillers which gives me the advantage of not having to introduce the genre to my audience. However I only had one person over the age of 18 answer my questionarie.
I contacted Garry Schyman a massively talented composer who worked on all of the Bioshock games sound tracks as well as the sound track for shadow of Mordor. Should he reply and allow me to use his initally wanted to "Welcome to rapture" that will be the music that will appear as the backing track to the film opening.
We intend to use a voice over to give the audience an idea of the story and introduce the main character and his love interest. This also goes for the criminal we however of course the narrator won't be giving the identity away but will simply describe the crime he committed as it is shown on screen. We hope to use ambient diegetic sound to help add some degree of realism to the opening this could include the soft sound of waves or water moving in general the sound of sea gulls foot steps and breathing. We hope to avoid dialogue to give the story a sense of mystery and make up for a lack of experienced actors. We are hopping to use a song from the game Bioshock's sound track as the backing music as it fits with are nautical theme and neo-noire theme extra-ordinarily well. Finally the voice over will be done ether in a gruff detective voice as if the detective is recounting the story as he knows it so far to the audience or as a 40's/50's radio presenter as if it were a radio show giving an over view of the case.
The ambient or diegeticsound that might occur during filming won't greatly affect the quality of the film opening but of course it is difficult to say any of this for a certainty. However it's best to avoid any potential problems by simply not using any diegetic sound and completely muting the video we take and using the sound track as the only sound in the opening.
The back ground noise when the music isn't playing at the very end along with the voice over has been a point that we've been discussing a lot and we've decided to use a rain sound effect to emphasis the dark and moody atmosphere.
For most of the opening shots or tracking shots will be done in the port marine area.
We will be attempting to do the shots during at dusk kind of time to give a slight more dark and brooding tone which is common across a lot of noire film.
For the shots in which we show the criminal walking away from the crime he just committed by throwing the dead body into the water.
This is the location for the first couple shots the angle and frame will also be similar to the one shown below.
This is the shot for the detective walking up the stairs and turning off to meet his lover.
Weather season: Autum/winter rainy/ foggy/ overcast Setting: Harbour Built up area Time period: Modern Characters: Grizzeled old cop Love interest criminal Moods: Dark Music: Bioshock Crime: Water based Drowning The opening will be cutting between the murder/crime and the present day with the detective arriving and looking at the scene.
Over all story idea: The over all idea for the film is a young but experienced detective has moved away from the city for undisclosed reasons with his lover. They arrive to work in a small fishing town far away from the loud bustle of the city however this town while appearing light and charming at day harbours a sinister underworld by night and our detective gets dragged into this spiral of crime that puts him and those he loves in danger.
The use of sound in film noir was wide spread as film was still in it's early years and of course with out the tech we have today they had to rely on more primitive methods of building tension and suspense. The easiest and most effective way of doing this was to use sound. One of the most famous uses of sound in early film to denote action without having to show it is the sound motif that accompanied a stabbing motion in Psycho. In the intro to a lot of the film noir that i've been researching it seems to be an almost universal theme to have classical sweeping orchestral music to accompanying the opening shots this can be seen in my opening shot analysis of Brutal Force and Turning point which both follow this theme. In scenes in which our hero, usually a private investigator or deceptive, is sneaking around mounting violins are used to build tension. This method has gone on to become almost a cliche in horror films. When our hero is investigating someone or something it is normally accompanied by a sound track of slow smooth or bluesy jazz giving it a surreal feel and everything feeling slightly off and strange. There is also a common use of voice overs and non-diegtic sound to allow us to hear the thoughts of the character without the actor having to do overly obvious actions to give us insight into his thoughts. Today this method has become out dated and we tend to leave the characters thoughts ambiguous to let the audience decide.
There have been many key figures and films throughout the history of film but in this case i will be focusing on iconic film Noir and the men and women that worked on them. Key largo is rated number one on IMDB's film noir listing and was filmed in 1948 it follows the story of a man going to honour an old friend's memory at his hotel when a group of gangsters take the place over and wait for a hurricane to pass. It starred Humphrey Bogart who starred in many film noir including the famous casablanca which has become iconic in its own right and Maltese Falcon which is also a well known film noir. It was directed by the ten times oscar nominated John Huston who also worked along side Humphrey Bogart on many occasion including their work together on the Maltese Falcon.
The killers comes in at number two on IMDB's film noir popularity listing. When two hit men kill and unresisting man detective Reardon uncovers the man's past involvement which the beautiful, deadly Kitty Collins. Ava Gardner played the leading lady of Kitty Collins in The killers come and embodied the strong powerful and controlling leading ladies of the film noir era. The killers was directed by Robert Siodmark who spent most of his film career making film noir pieces and was well known for blending german impressionism with american methods for film making giving his films a unique feel.
Finally in third place on the IMDB popularity list for film noir is Sunset Boulevard, set in 50's hollywood where a silent film actress who believes that she is invulnerability has turned her into a recluse. She now only lives in her old mansion on Sunset Boulevard when a young small time writer becomes her lover it leads her down a maddening path that will end in murder and deceit. Again this film reflects the strong leading lady of the film noir era
