The End :)

Final Post:

Now I've finished my blog i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who helped us, both our teachers and the media department, the drama dept, the art dept, The George the fourth pub, Rob the technician, the school offices, Antonia's dads office, the three extras and everyone else who helped out. I have honestly put so much work into this project and am now really proud of it, us as a team and myself for this long blog you'll have to read (Sorry :P ). I hope you like the film, there are a few bits even I'm not keen on and i made it but i have learnt for next time :) Thank you for reading and watching!

Ellen xxx

Evaluation! :)

We had certain questions that we we asked to answer about our project in our evaluation:

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

We decided as a group from the beginning that we were going to make a really conventional authentic film noir movie because we believed that this type of movie was the most effective towards an audience, and they could really pick out the interesting pieces of the film. We chose to set the film in black and white because we wanted to make the film look as if it was shot and made in that time period, and not just a copy of what a film back then might have looked like – most of the films from this time period were straight after the tragedies of the war, meaning that
cynical views, death and corruption was a hot topic of that time. We really focused on films like ‘Double Indemnity’ because it had inspired us a great deal in the planning stage, we tried to use some of the same conventions they had, however obviously couldn’t add them all because we had to work with an approximate time limit of about five minutes, therefore had to keep it simple –simple story line (so the audience could know what is going on) and simple conventions (because if we added too many in we felt that the film might seem cluttered and it would draw the audience’s attention away from what was actually going on in the film. The characters presentation was a main point that we wanted to make sure was true to all of the conventions; both men were wearing suits, this is because they were both business men and in those days if a man wanted to look professional he would wear a suit – we have seen this exact look in such movies we have studied like Double Indemnity, The Black Dahlia and L.A. confidential, all the detectives/main male characters would wear suits and hats exactly like our Detective Carter (grey suits, white shirts, black ties, black shoes and a hat) we made sure that it all matched up, also like said in a previous post we looked deeper into this character before choosing the right actor the present him: He had to be tall, not fat, clean shaven, short hair etc – this is because we knew this
character would be the main focus of the piece and therefore had to be the most conventional. Our mob boss, Bobby Dents, also looked similar – short hair, well dressed, clean shaven because we wanted to show him as almost the same type of person as the detective, just on the other side of the law. Our femme fatale was another extremely conventional character, we wanted her to be a mix between Phyllis from Double Indemnity and Laura from Brick – she needed to be a strong powerful woman, who seduced men to get her own way. At the beginning the first shot was her head before she entered the room, the first thing an audience would notice is her red lips and big curls, this would have been very suggestive in those days, we took inspiration from Phyllis and teamed it with pale clothing (to overall signify innocence with a hidden passion and lust.
Later on as her secrets and mysteries are reveals she changes to red, first showing a sexual power she has over the other characters, but also warning the audience as they realise that she is the dangerous character. In that era of America women were becoming a lot more powerful and independent, Bonnie Kensington would have fit right in and although deviant, many women of that era would have probably idolised her to being able to fool the men and get her own way – the amount of fur she wears throughout the movie also signifies wealth and power, both of which she has by the end of the film - this also challenges the male gaze theory that women in movies are powerless and 'needing to be rescued' because while our femme fatale pretends to adopt this role at first (asking the detective for help) we soon realise that she is actually the one is control of the situation and have played both men off of each other. We decided to challenge a few of the basic conventions in the editing stage, the main thing we wanted to work on was making sure people understood that the film was being told as a flashback, although conventional to have the male characters voice over parts of the movie, when watch double indemnity we were at first confused as to what was going on – we do not have time for our audience to be confused in our five minute piece therefore we added the effect ‘ripple’ to show it going into, and coming back out of the flashback. Unfortunately we a breaking a few conventions of that time period as they would probably not have had undated effects like ‘ripple’ in those days, however we felt that our film needed this to be really understood. Another thing about our movie that is not so conventional is the music in places, for example the office scene (scene five) I believe that we could have made this music slightly more time period accurate, as I believe electric instruments were used/that hadn’t been invented yet, and therefore something slightly more classical could have really given this scene the music edge like the first scene and the restaurant scene. We also wanted to make sure that (like most films of the time) it challenged Torodov's narrative theory, meaning that we did not want a restoration of the state of equilibrium - because films of this genre were made to have sad/unhappy endings and we wanted our film to be the same.

• How effective is the combination of your main product and ancillary texts?

I really like the combination between my main products and ancillary texts, i chose to design a poster for the film for one, and then chose to do a film review. The poster at first was an interesting task, all members of our group decided to have a go at designing their own poster, some of us in the group have obvious better skills on the software photo shop that we decided to use - the best one of us is Toby which we realised right away as he is a photography student and therefore uses it all the time. To get a good understanding of posters i looked and analysed a few from both films Ive seen and films i haven't to get a view of how a poster really sets the audience up for the film. Then we all had a go at producing our own posters, to really help myself i not only analysed my own poster, i analysed posters made by Antonia and Toby to make sure we all had the same feelings about what we wanted the poster to look like and how we wanted our film represented (The analysis is all the the blog post below on what i like and dislike about the posters) - i also added a practice poster of mine that i used to get a feeling of how i wanted the film poster portrayed, this helped me with the colours and photos i might want to use for my final poster. My final poster really indicated what the film was about, as the film was in black and white i thought that it was only natural that the poster was too - however the 'Lustful' part is in red in both the film and the poster which really brings them together nicely. However if i was to do my poster again i would probably try and make it less cluttered as i believe there is too much writing on it. Putting the poster into modern day settings ways also really interesting, i decided to put my poster on a train station advertisement board and a bus stop advertisement section, these may have been better if i could have used proper photo editing software but i was on my home computer so had to make do with the bare minimum. As an after thought i also decided to tweak one of Toby's posters and then edit it onto a billboard which i also like the look of, it is very similar to the Spanish poster of Black Dahlia that i analysed. After all of this i decided to make a second selection of posters because i really believe that the poster that i produced didn't show my capabilities within this section to their highest form, therefore i decided to make a selection of posters using the software photo shop to create professional looking film posters for our movie...and then added a few of them to a bus stop.

My Other ancillary product was a film review, i first wanted to do a bit of research so i knew what to add into my reviews - the main website i looked at was the website for Empire magazine which was perfect. I decided to create my own web pages, from the made up site called 'ellenbradfordreviews.co.uk', which made each review look like it had been selected from a list on a previous page - i analysed the formatting stage on a previous post. I decided to first do a film review for a classic film noir movie 'Double Indemnity' and then a slightly more modern neo noir movie 'Brick' this gave me practising time, letting me put my own flavour on the writing (plot and review sections) and adding links to ratings/videos/other pages/twitter and having a star rating, then all the film information and poster. (All analysed on a previous post) Then i went on to review our own film noir, this gave me a chance to critique my own work and let the audience pick up on points they might have missed - I think this is an extra bonus to the film because an audience could watch the film, read my review but also have their own thoughts about it, so it really makes them think.

• What have you learned from your audience feedback?

We had lots of very helpful feedback from a variety of audience members, our YouTube video has had over 105 hits! That's a lot of views and therefore a lot of people to help us view their comments. Both good and negative comments help us, we know that the film isn't perfect but we really want to see the views of people that haven't done all the research, planning and seeing it take form step by step. I am going to list some of the main pieces of critical feedback (as this helps us the most) and then what we learned from it :

1. Sound of the female actors - they couldn't be heard a well as the male actors, so some key lines may have been missed.
We realised in some places you couldn't hear the girls speaking, especially the scene between Scarlett and Carter on the doorstep - this is mainly because Antonia had a sleeping baby in the house behind her so didn't want to make too much noise, in the post production process we attempted to make it audible by turning the volume up on that specific clip, however because we were filming outside it makes a really loud back ground noise. In future we would pick a location where we could be as loud as we needed to, so we could shout if we even wanted too. This was the same in the office at the start, the camera picks up Carters voice well but not the softer voice of Bonnie.
2. Scene one was a bit jumpy, and the characters were out of the frame at some points.
Unfortunately we didn't have much space to work with so a lot of our footage we just couldn't use, therefore when it came to the editing stage we were limited to what we had to edit into place. This has to be one of my least favourite scenes because it is so jumpy, though personally there's not much i can do because i wasn't the person shooting. If i did have to do it again i would opt out of being one of the main characters because then i could have much more input of the camerawork of all the scenes and not just the ones I'm not in - then i could have worked with my two group members to get that perfect shot, even though we were rushed for time on the day and the office was too small for what we wanted but we made do and did the best we could.
3. Restaurant and doorstep scene was at night, yet it was obvious that the office scene (scene five) was filmed in the day time.
This was totally our fault, unfortunately we couldn't get the office at night so we had to make do with having it in the day time. What we should of done was darkened the picture in the editing stage, which we had planned to do at first, but in the rush to get it finished at the end we forgot about it and left it how it was filmed. We should have planned all the editing tools that we will have needed to do before editing so we could tick everything off to make sure we didn't forget anything.

4. It could have been a lot better with a better camera.
We can easily see that this is true, at times the camera we were using goes out of focus which loses the energy of the film. Also we used about three different camera overall, one of which broke meaning that we lost everything we had filmed on there so it was a bit of a disaster! If i was going to do it again i think we should have got the best camera we could find to make it seem a lot more professional and realistic.
5. You can have used a few more interesting angles.
We wish we had, usually the reason we didn't was because we were under time constraints at every location we went too, also we couldn't put too many in because it may have made the film even longer! I wish we had used some more interesting angles however the main scenes that i personally shot was the doorstep scene, and Bobby's office scene - i put a lot of work into those two scenes on the filming and editing side of things (with Antonia) and I'm really pleased how it came out.
However we also did get a lot of amazing feedback; with people saying that they loved the characters, the setting and storyline. Also the costumes were a huge hit, which is nice to hear as we put a lot of time into it. We also had a lot of nice comments on the editing, saying one scene flowed nicely into the next, especially the doorstep scene where Carter walks from behind the camera and down the path - with the camera positioned very close to the floor. Also there were some nice comments on the acting, especially about Ed and Ben, the accents were apparently spot on and the whole film really felt like the 1950's era, which is exact;y what we wanted so we are very happy with those comments.

• How did you use media technologies in the construction and research, planning and evaluation stages?

The main media we used was previous film noir movies that were professionally made, we watched these in class but I also researched them online so i could get a complete understanding of what was going on and what conventions they were using. These films really inspired us as film makers to see how directors have put these together, many film names are mentioned throughout my blog as i show which inspired me to do which sections. Directors like Rian Johnson of the film 'Brick' was really interesting to research, as normally you don't notice the amounts of work actually put into just once scene until you analyse it completely and then try and make your own. The characters and the storyline were always a big part of the film for me, I think that is why we focused on the film Double indemnity so much - because there is a relatively simple story line, and each character is strong. We chose to give each of our own characters an analysis and a back story, just so we knew what we were doing with each character when it came to writing the script and filming. Researching online also gave me little details about some of the movies that i didn't notice before, it really came to me that the details were the most important, that's why i insisted on all the archaic props (which were mostly supplied by me or the props cupboard) because the audience really has to believe where and when the story is taking place for it to be real.
Planning came down to our story boards, we each took a section: Antonia - first office scene to outside the restaurant scene, Me - doorstep scene to just after the gunfight, Toby - end of gunfight to the end...we all worked on the story boards for our sections adding in details about the lighting, camera angles and music etc - then we each scripted our sections, then all reviewed each others scripts to make sure we were all happy with everything.
Creating the film and editing it was a lot of our own inspiration with hints from certain movies, and i really think it shows the authentic conventional nature that we were so desperate to achieve. We used the Mac computer software Final cut to edit the video, this was good as it is semi-professional software - editing was hard because we didn't know where to begin, between editing clips, transitions, effects, lighting, colour, adding text, music, sound effects, voice overs (there was a lot we had to do using this software and not a lot of time to do it in) - and for photo editing we used photo shop on the schools CS3 computers. The ancillary products also needed a lot of media research, I had seen many film posters on bill boards and train stations, however i thought it best to research and analyse specifically film noir based poster to get a dark feel to it and then set about creating my own. The film reviews again took a lot of online research, going on to different film review based website to see what kinds of language they used and what information they added which really helped me a lot when creating and writing my own ones. Unfortunately as i was at home i could use photo shop to produce a magazine page film review, which is what i originally want to do - however i overcame this by spending a lot of time on Microsoft word and producing the web pages on there, which took a long time to achieve but at the end of the day i am very happy with it.
Putting the movie online was relatively easy for me, I Uploaded it onto YouTube and within a couple of minutes (more like an hour) the film was able to be watched by anyone in the whole world with Internet access, this is an amazing achievement and this kind of 'we media' also helped us out in the feedback stage. I advertised our film to be watched on both my face book (tagging both other members of the film group) and my personal tumblr blog, we just wanted to get as much feedback as possible which we got. We got likes on both the face book video and YouTube video and comments on both which really helped, also it meant we could log onto any computer and show people our video to get extra feedback - this is so much better than how the Internet used to be as our video is now everlasting and an unlimited amount of people can see it completely free and without the need of disks! Finally the last piece of media technology i used was this blog to document all my work which has been very useful as i can change things, yet still have everything in chronological order.
Conclusion:
In conclusion i am very happy with my blog and film, i do believe there is a lot we could have changed, mainly within the filming section - however I'm afraid that we did lack team work, meaning that a one of our team members did not keep up, and work as hard/up to scratch as the other members of our team (this has also been mentioned by the actors and teachers who helped us.). Me and Antonia did most of this movie and worked extremely hard, practically carrying Toby (who only got involved in the photo editing side of the coursework) - We did all the planning, scripting, filming and editing...at all points we tried to get Toby involved, unfortunately he did just not seem interested and lacked enthusiasm (sometimes not even turning up to filming shoots) - I have been advised to be totally truthful about the work ethic of our team members, and i believe that me and Antonia worked extremely hard and well together to produce almost everything - While Toby didn't help out much. However as a pair Me and Antonia produced some amazing work and i am really pleased with how it all came together.

Film Review for Lustful Injustice!

My film review for our own film, Lustful Injustice :)




If you can't read the writing:
Plot:

Detective Carter (Beard) sits alone in his office thinking on the week’s events, it turns to a flash back where tempting Bonnie (Bradford) offers him a dinner date in exchange for info about a drug heist. He ends up falling for Bonnie and goes to visit the Boss, Bobby, behind these drug
dealings (Humberstone). Things quickly spiral out of control as a gun fight breaks out and Bobby gets shot. Only to reveal that the Carters new lover was the one behind the heist all along and just needed to get them both out the way long enough to get away with the money.

Review:

A morally challenging yet hooking reenactment of 1940’s Los Angles - very conventional authentic film noir genre based movie however with a few ingenious modern unique twists. Outstanding performance from Beard and Humberstone, the characters nicely bounce off of each other on the screen which really captivates the audience’s attention. Watch out for the sound in a couple of places because you may have to strain to hear what each character is actually saying!! I would say that this film is definitely well worth seeing cause I really believe that each audience member will take home a different view from this film and be captivated from the very start – from the sexy temptress to the mind blowing shoot out to the major cliff hanger at the end…This film has
it all!

By Ellen Bradford

My own ideas about the review:

I really like the layout that i used for my film review page as i believe it is more creative than just a block of text, i modelled it slightly on Empire magazine's review section - However i made it slightly more quirky and relatable to the reader, which i really like about it.

I like how this one has turned out because in this format it really seems like it could be the same as any of the other film noirs that i have reviewed. It makes the reader interested, while being honest about the good and bad points - this shows that i can review my own work well and point out points which are bad (The only way to get anywhere with your own product is to be brutally honest), so if we were to make another film i could see where i went wrong and fix it.

Film Reviews - Double Indemnity

This is my double Indemnity film review page, i have used the same basic format and design and just changed all the details - this is as if it was just another review off of the site "ELLENBRADFORDMEDIAREVIEWS.CO.UK" because i really like the way it looks. It is hard to get all the information of the plot in to such a small space, however i didn't want it too long because i would want a reader to want to read the review - and if there was too much writing most people wouldn't bother. I found from my research that most reviews online are quite short and snappy specifically because of this reason.

Writing from my review that you may not be able to read:
Plot:

Walter Neff (MacMurray) is a successful insurance salesman, he speaks into a Dictaphone, clearly hurt – he is explaining his actions when the movie turns into a flash back.
Neff meets sultry temptress Phyllis (Stanwyck) when he tries to sell her husband car insurance, things quickly turn mysterious as Phyllis tries to take out life insurance for her husband without
him knowing – she is planning to murder him. There is then an unlikely whirlwind romance between the pair and Neff agrees to help murder his new loves husband and trick his boss. Things spiral as people become suspicious of the death of Mr. Dietrichson, Phyllis isn’t as loved up as she seems and they both pay a heavy price in the end.

Review:

Probably one of the most authentic and conventional movies from the film noir genre, this unrelenting cynical film gives the performance of Macmurray’s and Stanwyck’s careers and will no doubt catapult them into stardom. Stanwyck turns from pretty actress in previous films to a
red hot steaming sexy siren as Phyllis Dietrichson, seducing not only main character Walter Neff, but the audience as well. Writers/Directors Wilder and Chandler have really packed this movie with intense cliff hangers and a strong air of sexual tension, it really has every evil attraction and film noir punch that 1940’s film making would have to offer. A really good and interesting
watch, you will be surprised about who you route for in the end.

-I really like my review of this film because it captures the readers imagination and really makes them interested about the film. It also has a personal touch to it which i like to add to all of my writing, i think this suits the type of review website that it is (ellenbradfordreviews) as it shows that its not just cold hard facts, it will give the reader and actual flavour to the film they are planning to watch :)

Film Reviews - Research and Brick

Research:I first decided to look at the website for the film magazine 'Empire' as it would give me really good ideas into how to set out my film review and how to write it. I have decided i am going to be creative with the piece and create my own little page from my own (made up) film review website. The Empire website helped me decide what needed to go on the page (for examples actors names, directors, pictures, plot and review) - However i have put my own spin on it which took a while but i really like the end product.
One of the main thing i realised about all the film review websites is that they weren't too long, there wasn't pages and pages of text that may have been shown in magazines or website. I wanted to make mine short and snappy, not giving away too much (like in the Empire magazine website or the rotten tomato website) - therefore have taken inspiration from industry products to create my own film noir film reviews.

I looked at many different reviews and i chose bits that i liked and didn't like - then sorted them to decide what to add into my review. I designed a basic format for how i would like the lay out my film review and i really like the colours and designs as they make it jump off the screen.

My design:

First i made it into a simple grid format, i didn't want to over complicate it and make it look messy - then i chose the red background with the black font on top because i thought this stands out nicely, the fonts are Castellar, Cooper Black or Times New Roman as i want to keep it simple and easy to read (I have also added effects like shadow and reflection to make it seem more professional). I added the website name one side of the top then the date on the other side. To make it look like someone had really just clicked on this review off the website i added sections with blue arrows at the top saying "Back to Film Noir" and "Next Review" as if a reader has chosen this review from a list of film noir reviews on a different part of the website. At the bottom i have added a section for readers to write their own reviews (with the use of a hyperlink) and put a box where readers can go directly from this page to twitter - to tweet about the review/film, this is a very modern function that makes it slightly unique. On the left side of the page is where i had added all of the information about the film, the poster, a link to watch the film online, audience ratings so far (using stars) and a link for the audience to rate the movie in stars themselves. The right section is mainly made up of two sub-sections, the plot (what the movie is about) and the review (thoughts/good and bad points etc).

I then decided to do two film reviews on real film noir movies (I have chosen Brick and Double Indemnity as they are two completely different films in this one genre) and then go on to do a film review of my own movie, Lustful Injustice.

My film review for Brick:

If you cant read the writing i will copy it onto here:

Plot:

High school teen Brendan Frye, found himself at the center of a drugs war after pushing his way into the stoner cliques at his school to try and find out where his scared ex is…and then who murdered her. Two gangs become at war after Emily (de Ravin) was framed for stealing a ‘brick’ of Heroin, selling half, and then returning it filled with detergent. After many fights, shootings and sex with gang member, Laura (Zehetner) – the real killer of Emily tries to frame him, but Brendan already worked it out. Laura had set Emily up in the first place and had stolen the brick herself; he leaves a note for their principle to check her locker then tells her all he knows. In a final twist she reveals that Emily was 3 months pregnant when she died, meaning that it was his baby.

Review:

A very well written modern twist on the film noir genre, however it does take a little while actually to get into and understand the story, but be patient. The acting is done amazingly well and it has obviously had a lot of work put into it to make it look exactly how Rian Johnson pictured. The one thing they may let it down is its believability – not many high schools in America are drug gang lead with smooth talkers and gun fights every two minutes, however if you can get past that then it is definitely a film worth seeing. It is not authentic to the film noir genre however has hints of conventions here and there if you look closely, it has more of a neo-noir feel to it that I think most audiences will appreciate and find intriguing.

I think the piece is well written and in my own personal style of writing which gives it and relatable touch, i decided not to write too much for each section so a reader wouldn't skim over it and i am very pleased with how it came out. I think it looks professional which is really good because i could only use Microsoft word to create it as i don't have a photo editor like photo shop on my home laptop. :)

Our Posters in real life!!

My main poster (Along with other ones that i made):

I decided to add this poster on to a bus stop with a few other posters that i made (I made about five or six) and i really like the effect that it has made, unfortunately a few of the photos went slightly pixelated during the transition from editing on to this blog i still love the final outcome and i do believe that this posters really grasp the ideas behind the film rather than them being separate pieces.

My own poster imported onto a poster in a train station:
I decided to make both photos black and white and then added my poster over the top, the word 'Lustful' stands out really nicely and i think it looks quite professional.
There are many movie's and products that decide to advertise at train stations, this is because it is one of the most popular low fare forms of public transport - therefore many people see the posters each day and I believe that the poster picture and bold film title would hopefully catch a person's attention while they were waiting for their train, or just getting off a train. Also it is very close to where a person would be standing (unlike a billboard etc) and therefore our femme fatale's eyes in the photo could be the same level as a person which would really grab a potential audience member and hold their attention for long enough for them to hopefully make the impulse to actually go and watch the film.

Poster on a bus stop advertisement section:

This time i imported the same poster onto a bus stop poster section - I do not think personally that it looks quite as good as the first poster, however i still think it looks nicely professional even if a few of the lines don't match up perfectly. Unfortunately i had to do these on my home laptop meaning that i couldn't use photo shop - i think i worked round this obstacle quite well as they have come out nicely. Again like the poster before i chose to put the poster on a street level/eye level position, so the eyes and the bold red 'Lustful' will hold the audiences attention long enough to first, make them interested, and second read the text on the poster instead of just looking at the poster.

Toby's poster on a Bill Board with a few tweaks:

I used one of the posters that i didn't do personally to add a bit of variety, this one i used Toby's original poster - however i added the main actors/actress' names and to make it look more realistic i added "OUT IN CINEMAS NOW!!" as it would really grab a passer-by's attention as they walked past the picture and I am really pleased about how this one came out. I wanted to add the billboard to show that our groups posters worked both at street level and on larger advertisements like billboards - it is also not as close to the reader which is why i decided not to add anymore extra text as it would just be wasted as the reader as couldn't read it from very far away.

Some of our Poster designs

My Main Poster:

This poster i decided to use a simplistic theme to it, little writing (production company, names, title and tag line) because i really wanted the images to out. I love how each character is also looking directly towards the camera which would really draw in the audience's attention as they passed the photo. As like the film I decided to make the only colourful section the red 'Lustful' as it really brings together the meaning of the word and the meaning of the colour - it also links this ancillary product to the main film. I thought it would be a creative idea to only show half of the two male characters' faces because it keeps the sense of mystery..this is then matched by the photo of 'Bonnie' where half of her face is shielded with the black netting. The tag line 'She will make you weaker than you ever imagined' gets the audience interested yet confuses them with the picture as the white background (that has been feathered/faded out) makes the female character seem almost angelic and innocent - though this then contrasts with her red lipstick and dress which makes her have a dangerously seductive representation. I really feel that the costume and lighting of this piece really gives it that authentic edge to it and the black and white background would really take the audience back to the 1940s-50s era that this film was suppose to be set and filmed in. I chose to put the photo of Bonnie at the front because it is almost a metaphor for who has the most information (and therefore power) within the film - Detective Carter believes he knows what is going on until he is betrayed, Bobby gets shot and then realises he has been betrayed too...while Bonnie, at the front, knew what she was doing the entire time. It took a lot of work to create this poster, changing the separate photos before putting them together as one, using the desaturation tools to get the photos in black and white, blurring and blending the photos to make them look like they are from the correct time era, adding the different types of text in separate layers so different effects could be added (I chose the times new roman font for the main pieces of text as i believe it suits what fonts they would have had in that time, aka what font a typewriter may produce). I believe it works well as a professional poster and shows that i am capable of using the editing software of photo shop.
My Other Idea :)

This was another main poster that i made myself, i really wanted the femme fatale to be the main feature of the Poster. I really liked the Gilda poster so i used some of the conventions of it, for example the lady being the main character and especially the tag line at the top - which i have used a changed line from the script which is really important "She will make you weaker than you ever imagined..." - this stands out a lot and make the reader be curious towards watching the movie. I added the actors names at the side in quite a small font, i have also added quotes from reviews which makes it seem more impressive. I have also added the small writing at the bottom of "A TEA production, created by sixth form students for their A-level media coursework. Directed, shot and edited by student Antonia Hunter, Ellen Bradford and Toby Fitch. Made in the Spring term of 2012" - I think this makes the Poster look a lot more professional. All the text is in white or black except the word "Lustful" which is the same as in our movie which is also interesting as red symbolises Lust and the film title being the largest text on the page. The picture is also good because the character on the poster is looking directly into the camera which draws in the audiences attention which is another thing i really like about this poster.

Representation:

• Black and white photo, to show the time period that the film is created
• Only femme fatale in the shot, main character, most important within the storyline/twists of the film
• Female lying down - in a seductive pose, hair fanned out which causes the eyes to drift up to the face
• Black background show the dark and dreary film/hint of mystery.
• Direct posture, looking directly at the camera - therefore catches the readers attention.
• White writing, tag line (gives a hint of what the movie is about and interests the audience) quotes from reviews, and production writing.
• Red lettering for 'Lustful' brings the text and the symbolism of the colour together.
  
  
  A poster done by Antonia:
  
  I also like this poster that Antonia has done, however it would only look okay on a bill board, therefore unfortunately i prefer posters in portrait. However i like the tag line which is similar to the one in my poster, again in white on a black background, the black background being very conventional which I like quite a lot. I again like the red to white balance of the main film title , with this text being the largest one on the page, and the actors names stand out nicely in a white font at the bottom. One thing that could have been better about this poster it that the pictures could have been used in a slightly more innovative way as it looks slightly unprofessional however overall i like the look of the poster as it stands out quite nicely.
  
  Poster Done By Toby:
  
  I like this poster as it is similar to the poster of the Spanish version of Black Dahlia. I think this was very cleverly done with the use of photo-shop, however again i might have prefer the poster if it was in portrait instead of landscape. I also don't really like the photo of our femme fatale used as she looks too innocent for her mischievous character. However what i do like is the Film title again using the red and white contrasts on the words, but also the shadow effect which makes it stand out a lot more. However there isn't enough text on the page, there are no actors names, production company names etc, therefore i believe this looks good however is just too simple.
  
  
  One of my Practice posters:
  
  This is a little practice of mine, which i decided to do to see what looked good with the photos. I used this photo which we created at the start of the photo when we did our still photos at first, and i really like the fade out of Carter mixed with the photo of Dents. I decided not to add production company/actors names on the poster as it was only a practice one. I also added a different tag line than in the other posters above, "This Isn't Over..." which is the final line of the text and also one of the most important lines. It is also in white to make it stand out, however the background is also quite pale which i am not too keen on as it looks to bright for a dark film noir genre of movie. The lustful injustice title is larger than the other text and has the red to white difference - however the 'Lustful' part font colour is too bright, it should have been a slightly darker red. What i do like though is the the detective's character is looking straight towards the camera which really draws the audience's attention to the poster...I think with a lot of work this could have been made into quite an interesting and powerful film poster.

Poster ideas

Original Film noir Movie Posters:

Brick:
This poster is from quite a modern film noir so may not have the authenticity we are looking for. The poster is quite simple, the picture is a cartoon hand of an obviously dead woman lying in water. The simple colours of the picture, mainly white blue and green, gives the poster a really sombre image - while the bright blue bangles against the pale skin really grabs the audiences attention. The writing is quite simple and mostly all the the same white/grey colour, the movie title is in quite a simple to read font and is the largest text on the page which i think is really important to a movie poster. Also the smaller writing at the bottom has to be there usually for legal purposes, however the audience doesn't usually actually read this text so it is not as important that it is in a font needing to stand out on the page.

Gilda:

Now this movie is slightly older and i really like the layout of this poster. The tag line at the top "There NEVER was a woman like Gilda" really catches the readers attention and tell the audience that this woman is going to be a strong main character of the movie. I also like that she is the only focus on the poster which really brings out her dominance of the film. The white text also looks very nice and stands out against the black background to make it easily readable. However i also love the red text on Gilda and it really makes the title seem to stand out (also the title of the movie again being the largest text on the page) - this also matches the hint of red lipstick that you can see the actress wearing which (like our own film noir) is very conventional of the main femme fatale of a movie and brings a hint of sexuality to the film and therefore to the poster. It also has the actors and actresses names on the poster which i think is very conventional as an audience usually likes to know who is going to be in a film that they are going to watch.

L.A. Confidential:

This again is a slightly more modern film noir, and the film was shot in colour (dim colours) which is highlighted through the poster as they are photographs rather than cartoons. Again the main female character/the femme fatale is the main focus of the poster, the white dress really makes her stand out against the background and it matches the text on the page (which is all in a white font). All characters are looking directly at the camera which really draws a readers attention to the poster. The female character has on red lipstick, like in the 'Gilda' poster, which i again quite like as it draws attention to them. Like the Brick poster is also has the small hard to read writing at the bottom in white, this shows as films have progressed they have more laws about what to put on posters, like the production company names and dates etc. Also i like the men in the background as they are all in suits which is very much like our own film as it if conventional of this era and genre of movie. The poster is again mostly black and has the actors names at the top which gives it a hint of darkness around the actors.
Black Dahlia:

These two posters are from the same film, Black Dahlia, however the first one is the English version and the second one is the Spanish version (we know this as the main title has changed from 'Black Dahlia' to 'La Dalia Negra'). The first poster is very powerful and very simple at the same time, the black background like the other posters brings a darkness to it, but also contrasts nicely with the pale face of the lady. This lady signifies the femme fatale of the movie (as with LA confidential and Gilda she is also wearing the red lipstick, however in a darker colour which may signify death over lust) - she does not look straight towards the camera, has a white flower on her head and a paled over eye meaning the woman might actually be dead. The red and white text at the top of the actors names stand out really nicely and I really like the different heights on the page of the two lines of the film's title. Again at the bottom is the large amount of very small sized legal text which is (like the other movies) conventional of all modern movies.
This movie poster of the same film in Spanish is somewhat similar to the LA confidential poster with there being a selection of character on the poster, i quite like this idea and may play around with the pictures i have already taken to see if we can re-create this. It is obvious in the one that the main character is more likely to be the man as he is first, however both women look very strong (both wearing red lipstick, definitely signs of passion/lust). I also like the large title at the bottom, the red really makes it stand out from the white background - however the poster almost seems to pale to be for the dark film noir genre of movies so i will probably not use white as a background colour. The is also a photo of a scene from the film under the shots of the characters, it seems to be a murder investigation which gives the poster a slightly sinister touch to it. Again the actors and actresses names are at the top of the poster in a small yellowish font to make it stand out from the black background. The main male character is dressed very much like our own main male character (Detective John Carter), especially with the use of the hat. We will use this in our posters because it is a big symbol within our movie.

Film Feed-back :)

We received some lovely feedback and also some really helpful constructive criticism.
Some of the Comments:

• Like the idea, with a better camera and some more interesting/creative camera angles this could be super pro 4 days ago
• That's so good! Xxx March 30 at 7:43am
• The camera work/editing was good
• The boys can be heard more than the girls
• The ending seems slightly rushed

These were a few of the many comments we heard about the film, a lot of people really liked the storyline and the black and white setting which was really good. Three things that cropped up a lot was that the boys could be heard over the girls, which is true especially at the doorstep scene where Scarlett's words are barely audible. The camera quality, which unfortunately we couldn't help as we didn't have access to high definition or professional cameras. Finally the ending seemed to be slightly rushed, this is because there was originally suppose to be an extra section which we didn't have time for in the end. It is really nice to hear all the praise about the film and the criticism helps us because if we were to do it again we can take all the points on board to create an even better film next time - which is the whole point of getting feedback from a film :)

Our final film!

After a lot of extra hours and many tweaks, we finally finished our movie. There is a lot we hadn't done however we didn't have the time so we had to make do with what we did have. I really like our film and am very proud of it after all the work we put in, I also think we worked well as a team and it shows.

Here is a link to our final movie, it has had one comment, three likes and over 80 views in the last week, I also posted it on face book where we also got some really lovely comments about it so i am very pleased :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZh-Fug8c2o

We hope you like it :)

Showing of the films!

All the groups of Media A level all got together to show the films, there was a little audience and everyone got feedback on their films. Unfortunately, like a few other groups, our movie was not exactly how we wanted it at the time of showing, music was difficult to import, we didn't have all the sound effects that we wanted and we still needed to sharpen up a few of the cuts. We showed our film anyways and we warned the audience that it wasn't finished yet. We still was immensely proud to be showing our movie on the screen as we all worked very long and hard to get it finished.

Editing- Final section and credits.

Final Section + The End + Credits

This section is after the ripple effect to get Carter back to his office. Unlike the first section we decided not to add a voice over of the detective's thoughts and instead we thought we should stay from one camera angle and have the actor turn to face the camera, and speak his lines directly to the audience which was a nice twist. The line "This isn't over" also sets the audience wondering if there will ever be a sequel to the movie so it is a bit of a cliff hanger. To finish instead of just cutting away from the scene we thought it would be a nice twist to have the actor put his hat over the camera to finish the movie - as it has been the main symbol for the whole film. I like the effect this has made because it is unique and different. We had to cut the sound from the footage just before the hat hits the camera because it made a large noise, however we had the music on quietly for this whole section which really gives it that slightly somber edge to it.

When the picture does black out the words 'The End" come up on the screen, obviously the signify that it is the end of the movie. This was done using the text tools again and i decided to put this text in the same font and format as i had the original production text appearance (However i chose not to use the typewriter setting) - using the same white text and black background keeps the look of the film noir as it is not fancy bright colours as i do not think it would have looked very professional. The sound for the section was recorded by me using the school's wind band, as they were doing a medley of songs from Chicago which i thought would fit perfectly with the time period that our movie was suppose to be set in. I at first wanted to use the trumpet solo at the beginning however on the tape it sounded too happy for the type of film we are making. Therefore i chose to just use the end section on this part as i believe it fits nicely.

The credits are an important part to any movie, we used to same music in the credits as the (The End) section - recorded from the wind band as i think it fits in nicely. The text again is white with a black background as we wanted a pattern running through the film and it is very conventional for most films. We played around with the name order and where we wanted the actors names and the characters name to be...we chose side by side because we thought it looked the most professional. We listed all the actors involved including the extras and listed the directors/scripters/cameramen (a.k.a. me, Antonia and Toby) - then we gave thanks to the people that had helped us out, including the pub we filmed in and the departments around the school. Finally at the end I wrote "Thank you for Watching!" which i thought was nice because people who watch our movie would be really doing us a favour. :)

Editing - Scene Five (Part two)

Detective Carter first meets Bobby Dents as Scarlett is made to leave the room:

This scene begins with a shot of the fan in the room, i liked this shot because you could see a blurred view of Bobby in his chair on the mirror section of the fan. This then cuts to a clip of the Detectives feet as he walks up the stairs which then cuts to a close up of the door handle as he opens it. I edited and really like this section as i had a clear view of what i wanted to do with this section and i love the different clips. We also added music playing over the top of the clip which Antonia chose and i believe it really works well with the video, we had to slice the sound and fade it quieter when the actors started speaking because we didn't want the music to overwhelm the action. The main part begins with an establishing shot of Bobby at the desk as Scarlett walks past the camera and sits on the desk, it is obvious that he is the main focus as the camera never moves off of him - even when he tells her to leave..the camera stays on Ben as Antonia walks back past it. This is when it cuts to a close up of Bobby as he starts speaking directly to the detective, the cuts are long because we wanted the cuts to get faster as the action progressed. It then cuts to Detective Carters short monologue which we used a few different cuts and angles to piece together the sections that we wanted and it took us a long time to get it as sharp as we wanted it to be. We also zoomed in on the original footage in some parts just to get a few more interesting shots, However we had to be careful as the actor moves around a lot during his speech so we had to make sure if we zoomed in that he wouldn't step out of frame.


Things begin to get heated between Carter and Dents:
As the conversation between the Detective and Bobby gets more heated the clips become shorter and snappier to emphasise this. As you can see in the picture to the left there are some really nice shots from behind the Detective looking towards Dents. One bit i really like is where Bobby is counting down from five and the camera cuts to a different angle in the middle of it - but it does it so smoothly that the audience doesn't realise the change in clip. Also when the guns are brought out i chose specific angles for the camera - so you could look down the barrel of the gun. when the fighting starts the camera cuts to behind the Detective and then behind bobby so you can only see there guns which i really like. Also we had to put sound effects over the clip as we didn't have really gun noises, so w turned down the volume of the original footage and added gun shot sounds using the other mac and the voice over control. When Bobby gets shot it cuts to a clip of him falling into his chair (obviously wounded) - then when Carter is beating the information out of him we had to use another sound effect as we couldn't have the actors actually hitting each other in the scene. We imported these sound effects onto the computer and made sure the sound matched the timing of the action perfectly.

Cut to Change-over Scene:

After Bobby reveals it was Bonnie that was setting up the drug heist the scene cuts (using the cross fade tool) to a scene with her, the music fades back in as we turned down the original sound as we thought it would be more intense if you could only hear the music. It starts with Bonnie walking across in front of the camera, then cuts to her walking up the a mysterious man from behind the camera. This works well as you never get to see his face, and she actually seems to acknowledge the camera at the end which makes the audience be directly linked to the character as she is looking smugly straight at them while they do the changeover.

Cut Back to Carter:

The camera cuts back to Carter at this point with the music fading down so the audience can hear what the character is saying. We did want to add slightly more on the end however we just didn't have time to film everything so we left it with just this last line ''Chester get him to the hospital, I've gotta get after that bitch" - this was done with a close up of the Detectives face as you can see the pain and anger very clearly. As in the first section we then used the ripple effect at the end as it cuts back to him sitting at his desk...like at the beginning so the whole movie was like a flash back. This I think works very well to suit this specific genre of film - but also makes it unique and more innovative than other films as we have not just copied the story line of a real film noir.

Editing - Scene Five (Part one)

Detective Carter goes to Bobby's house and meets Scarlett Jones.

We used an interesting camera angle at the beginning of this section, it was a very low establishing shot so the Detective walks past the camera and up to the house where the audience sees is shadow against the light of the window in the door - which gives him a very conventional Hero like feel to his character. We then used an over the shoulder shot of him knocking on the door - because we didn't want to knock on the actual door (as there was a sleeping baby in the house at the time of filming) we had to get the knocking sound onto the clip separately...we did this by again using the voice over tool as i operated the mac while Antonia knocked on the table in perfect sync to the clip. It looks really authentic to the clip which is exactly what we wanted.

One thing i really don't like about this section is the sound, unfortunately being outside at night time created a lot of background noise on the piece and you can only really hear Ed talking. We tried to solve the problem by turning up the volume but it just made the background noise worse, this is why we couldn't have any music over this section because the speech is hard enough to hear without more noise over the top.

What i do really like about the piece is the editing of the clips, it starts with a mid over the shoulder shot where the porch light creates some beautiful shadows across both the actors faces (especially the detectives hat) while they are speaking. It then cuts to a slightly closer side on shot of both characters - because the Detective has the height advantage he towers over Scarlett giving him the power in this scene, especially when he shows her that he has a gun. While he is waiting it cuts back to the shot from behind very neatly until he steps into the house and the picture fades out. I am really happy with how this scene looks as i was the main person behind the camera (which included me half standing in a spikey bush/tree for half the filming) - Me and Antonia worked hard to make the editing really sharp as we need it to be perfect because we knew the sound wasn't too great.

Editing - Scene One, Two and Three

This section is where Detective Carter first meets Bonnie Kensington so it is an important one. Antonia edited most of this section, however when we came to filming we realised that we couldn't use a lot of the footage we had shot because the camera was too shaky.

In all of our film clips we decided to use the 'DESATURATE' tool to make the picture black and white. This made the film longer to render however we felt it gave the film the perfect authentic edge to suit the genre of film.

We decided not to put any music on top of the action here (therefore we faded it out at the end of the beginning section) this is because some of the script is hard to here. We chose to work in an office which was good for our setting however bad for the sound because there was a busy office next door and some of the noise from there is on the film sound. This however could be seen as a good thing because in a bustling police office it wouldn't be silent. We chose to zoom in on some occasions in the editing process to make it look more professional (so we weren't using the same angle the whole scene) - I don't like some of the clips as Bonnie is cut out at the top, but it is the only good ones we had to work with unfortunately. What is good about it is that in parts you can only see her lips which keeps a mysterious nature about the character.

One thing i do really like at the end of the first scene is the cut to the point of view shot on the archaic telephone (we decided to use this one because if it was a modern phone it wouldn't have create the right atmosphere for the time period). I think it works really well as the audience doesn't get to see the reaction of whats happened on Carter's face, but he is obviously interested as he gets straight on the phone as soon as Bonnie leaves. The one thing that could have been better is the camera work as the picture goes in and out of focus a few times during the clip which makes it look really unprofessional.
This next scene is the restaurant scene, it first begins with a fade in followed by a pan up starting at Bonnie's red heels to an over the shoulder shot towards Carter. This suggest Bonnie has something to hide as you do not see her face, yet you can see all of Carters reactions. We used a few different angles in this scene to create the right atmosphere - there is a cut to a close up of Bonnie drinking but her eyes flick back up to Carter giving him a very flirtatious look, there is also a cut to a long shot where you can see both characters from the side (and the diners/extras on the table next to them) which then cuts to a close up of Bonnie's hand lightly stroking Carter's hand. These sharp cuts reinforce the suggestive flirtatious ways of Bonnie as you never see her face on to the camera, it is always the side of her face or from her point of view. There is also a voice over on this section from the actor Ed Beard as we wanted the audience to know what he is thinking during this, we also didn't use the original sound footage and added music (in a minor key) over the top as to add drama and suspense to the piece. There are many fade ins and outs of the the sounds and clips as you can see in the picture above.

The next scene is the kiss scene outside the pub, unfortunately the dialogue cannot be heard as we were right next to a busy road. We decided to quieten down the actual sound so there is still a bit of noise with the dialogue because they are outside and you would expect some noise - however me and Ed had to do a voice over for the dialogue which was difficult as we had to get the sound to fit with the actors lips moving on the screen. I like how it had turned out though because you can really hear what the actors are saying as this is a crucial turning point in the film. There is also a cut to a close up when the characters kiss, this is definitely lead by Miss Kensington and you can really see the passion being the characters, from this angle you can also see Carter's reaction to the kiss when Bonnie walks away smiling afterwards (she knows she has got him right where she wants him) - the editing really reflects what is going on in the scene and i really like this scene (restaurant and outside) as i believe it suits our film perfectly.

First section - Editing

When we started edited we were a bit cautious at first as Antonia was the only person who had used the movie editing software before (Final cut on the Mac computers) - so at first she was teaching and helping me and Toby understand. We at first decided we needed a name for our film (Lustful Injustice) so we chose Toby to go and create this is photo shop which we would overlap part of our film to introduce it. We chose to put the name near the beginning which is conventional, however we layered it over the close-up of the photos that Detective Carter is looking at. I did the editing of this section and put all the text onto out film. I had to fade out the name of our film slightly because it had a white background that i couldn't remove at that part of the process. This is why the background has a slightly pale tinge to it, however i actually quite like this effect as it gives the picture a slightly misty look to it - this suits the mystery needed for our film.

The next part that i did was adding the actors names over the first section (intro) of the movie,

this is conventional of most films (not just in the film noir genre) as the audience like to see what actors are going to be in the movie they are about to watch.

I achieved this using to text icon under the filming tab. This let me drag and drop any text i wanted onto the movie. (The video line above the main movie as shown in the first screen shot. I added cross fades in and out of the text, which means the text fades in to the picture then out again. This makes it look slightly more professional than the text just popping up. I then moved the text to the upper left hand corner or lower right hand corner which really suits the different angles on the camera. We took out the original sound and added some music to overlap this section, however it dies out when the voice over comes in. We had a bit of trouble we the voice over as we first tries to use a microphone because of the noise in the mac room but the mac computers didn't work properly with it so we came back when it was quiet and recorded it straight onto the film. I like how it sounds and think it works perfectly with the clips. (Thanks to main actor Ed Beard for the number of takes we had to do).

The intro to the piece was unfortunately not how we planned it. (We did want to use some proper animation) however i still like the way it turned out. We were really rushed at the ended so i had to do it quickly, i used the typewriter text setting to create the production company intro and put the text as white on a simple black background - I thought this would compliment the rest of the film nicely. To get the proper type writer effect i decided to use the noise of a real type-writer over the top. At first we couldn't find a website that would let us download the noise so i decided to open the site on the computer next to it and use the voice-over icon on our computer to record the typewriter sound as it was playing on the mac next to us. I then cut it so it fit the text on the screen and i really like how the final result came out.

We used a few different shots on this first section but i really like the fact you can never see the whole of the detective's face in any of them. Me and Antonia worked to make this section perfect as it is the first thing the audience would see of our movie. Using the over the shoulder shot was good because you could almost see the pictures from his perspective as you hear what he is thinking. The other view from the side i also really like as you can only see his hands (picture above) which keeps an element of mystery about the character.

Change-Over scene :)

One of the first scenes we actually shot was the change-over scene between Bonnie and a mysterious character, this is happening while Detective Carter is questioning Bobby Dents about the heist that Bonnie told him about. We set off first thing in the morning (with me driving and Antonia directing) until we came to this gorgeous little road just outside Bygrave, a small village near our home town. What was great about this day is that is was really foggy which gave the setting/background a really ominous feel. This is pathetic fallacy of the scene's events, and it gives a perfect mysterious feel to the scene which is exactly what we wanted as it suits the conventions of the film noir genre.

This photograph is of Antonia directing me, it shows that we are working well as a team to get the perfect shot that we need to try and make it look professional. Unfortunately we used two different cameras on the day of shooting because one ran out of battery, however when using the the other camera we found afterwards that the camera's SD card had become corrupt meaning that we couldn't get any of the footage off of it. (Major panic for us) Luckily the first camera had a few shots that we could use, otherwise we would have either had to either re-shoot or cut the scene all together. You can also see Bonnie's outfit from this picture which is mainly a long red dress, this is important as she does have to pretend to be innocent any longer - her mischievous and lusty side come out. She also has simple conventional femme fatale make-up on (eye-liner, blush and bright red lip-stick) and thick curls to bring out here sexual features. She also is wearing a faux-fur shawl to signify wealth/power, which is like the fur jacket she was wearing earlier in the film, the fact she is wearing less fur and showing off more of her body is showing she wants to be seen as a more sexual figure to the audience. She also wears black heels to contrast with the red, and a hat with a netted veil covering part of her face, the fact she is now wearing a hat first shows she now has the power in the film and second the veil shows she has something to hide (She is not all that she seems).

We had two main props, one envelope that i found at home, it had many stamps on it meaning it could have been important/from overseas - in this scene it would have maybe had a check or cash in it so bonnie gets away with the money for the drugs she hands over. She hands over the drugs (Smack) in a small brown leather case. We found this case in the school's drama cupboard and thought it so perfect for the scene, it is classy enough for Bonnie to be carrying - however the leather and the style is authentic enough to be from this time period. This picture also shows me and Toby posing in a jokey way to show the close friendship everyone in our group has. Toby was dressed in a suit like all other men in our film as conventional of most film noirs. Me and Toby also did almost like a vlog post, describing our filming on that day...i couldn't get it onto my blog because of the camera deleting we couldn't transfer it so here is the link to Antonia's blog post... http://antoniafilmnoir.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/film-noir-changeover-scene.html :)