Animatic of the storyboard

28. Aural diagram

-00.02 two shadows (a male and a female), the male lights the female's cigarette
-00.04 the two main actors names come up on the screen next to each other (Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall)
-00.10 in "The Big Sleep" comes on the screen in very large characters.
-00.14 A Howard Hawks Production
-00.18 list of all secondary actors
-00.25 list of all secondary actors (others)
-00.29 Screen play by... and from the novel by....
-00.34 director of photography and manny other "titles"
-00.42 Music By Max Steiner
-00.45 Directed by Howard hawks

26. Narrative Theories

VLADMIR PROPP

Russian Critic and literary theorist.

He thins that it’s possible to classify the characters and their actions into clearly defined roles and functions.

Films such as Star Wars fit his model perfectly but a significant number of other films, such as Pulp Fiction, do not. The model is useful as it highlights the similarities between seemingly different stories.

PROPP’S CHARACTER ROLES

HERO: SEEKS SOMETHING

VILLAIN: OPPOSES HERO

DONOR: HELPS HERO BY PROVIDING OBJECT

DISPATCHER: SENDS HERO ON THEIR WAY

HELPER: SUPPORTS HERO

PRINCESS: REWARD FOR THE HERO, NEEDS PROTECTION FROM THE VILLAIN

TZVETAN TODOROV

EQUILIBRIUM —- DISEQUILIBRIUM —- NEW EQUILIBRIUM

ROLAND BARTHES

ACTION: Narrative device in which a resolution is found through action.                       Like a fight.

ENIGMA: Narrative device that teases audience with a puzzle to find the                        resolution.

SYMBOLIC: (Connotation)

SEMIC: (Denotation)

CULTURAL: Narrative device that the audience can recognise as a culture.

CLAUDE LEVI-STRAUSS

BINARY OPPOSITIONS

HOMESTEADERS     –     NATIVES

CHRISTIANS     –     PAGANS

DOMESTIC     –     SAVAGE

WEAK     –     STRONG

22.Warner Bros. Ident

19. Target Audience

I believe that our movie genre would be more liked by fashion people, specifically trendies, stylers and hipsters. As Film Noirs are very classy and trendy at times, people who are more into sport and action movies might not enjoy them as much, although some hardcore viewers could enjoy it because it contains guns, violence and alcohol consumption.

21. Producer, distributor and exhibit

Producer – e.g – Heyday Films Distribution – e.g – Warner Brothers Display – VUE, Odeon, Cineworld +Independents   I chose these because they are well reputed companies with good track records. Their names have been put next to some very good films and thy fit our genre and audience.

20. Pearl and Dean Audience

On the Pearl and Dean website, they categorize various types of audiences based on age, gender, whether they go to the cinema with the family and their class systems. On their graphs it shows that the 55+ age group is by far the one that "visits" the cinema more often. They also clearly show that when in case of a family movie, it is more often the mother who brings the kids to the cinema.
I think that considering that we chose Film Noir as our genre, we should try and make our film be suitable for both older audience and younger. Generally I would think of older people wanting to watch a film noir but there have been more recent film noir movies that had a huge success, such as Inception and Sin City.

18. Good opening scenes

- Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola
- 8 ½, Federico Fellini
- La Dolce Vita, Federico Fellini
- 2001: A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick
- Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino
- Inglorious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino
- The Shining, Stanley Kubrick
- Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick
It is really hard to state the characteristics for a good opening scene, in my opinion, there aren't any. All scenes can be incredible if filmed well and performed well by actors, the music is key to set the mood e.g. The Shining, in some cases, suspense is the key factor e.g. Inglorious Basterds. Sometimes directors take the risk, and attempt to create a mind-blowing start of a film e.g. 2001: A Space Odyssey, it is a risk because in the case of the audience not perceiving it the way the director wanted, this could cause their loss of interest for the rest of the film. Although in case of success, it produces something hardly reachable for anyone else.

17.Justification for mood board choices

We wanted our mood board to convey the imagery sent across in films such as Inception and The Dark knight because they were a resounding success. The ‘darkness’ and cold overall feel of the films create a long-lasting effect on the cinemagoer and add to the suspense and build up of the story lines. Film Noir often relies on some static pillars to establish the theme. These are often things such as: An Urban Location, A Bleak View of Humanity and a Smoking or Drinking Habit.

The films are dark, not only in composition but also in theme and style and leave the viewer with a distinct lack of emotion for the location and setting and leads to their immediate involvement in the story and action.

We wanted this effect in our opening as the location options are severely limited by where we live. (Boarding School)

13. Graphic breakdown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDpjSr9VhG0

I think this video helped a lot to realize how many titles are needed in an opening sequence of a movie.

15. 6 Screen shots of opening scene ( The Big Sleep)

 This scene is an example of a way to make the audience understand where this scene is located and it already gives a name of a character. We could use something like this to make it very easy to understand where the scene is taking place.

 As soon as Mr Marlowe (detective) walks into the house of General Sternwood, one of the 2 daughters of the general walks down the stairs and meets Mr Marlowe, she is very attractive and seems interested in Mr Marlowe.

 After a brief conversation with him, she deliberately falls into his arms. She seems to like Mr Marlowe and tells him that she finds him cute, her behavior is "wild" as Mr Marlowe later describes her (especially because the behavior of women was very marginalized at the time, 1940s).

 Mr Marlowe is at last allowed into a sort of greenhouse to meet the general, whom tells him to sit down and offers him a drink (cognac) and tells him he is allowed to smoke if he wants to.

 Mr Marlowe and the general start to have a bit of chip chat before Mr Marlowe asks the reason of his invitation. Mr Marlowe does accept the drink and takes a few sips of his cognac.

Mr Marlowe lights up his cigarette and answers the General's questions.

14. Opening scene analysis of Chinatown

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fpk3C3B68Ys
In this scene we get the first appearance of the main character (Jack Nicholson) who is showing one of his clients the photos he took. These pictures show probably the client's wife betraying him with another man. The man is obviously annoyed by the photos and Jack Nicholson offers him a drink. Although we are planning on a slightly more active opening scene there are a few things that we might take from this, like the use of Alcohol and Tobacco.

12. Key details that we will need for our film noir

To make our opening scene a film noir scene, we need to have very dark lighting, high and low camera shots, have a high contrast and try and make long shadows. we could also use extreme close ups to heighten the intensity of a scene.

11. Identifying traits of a film Noir

Identifying traits for a film Noir:

In order to be a real film noir, a film must have at least one criminal (bad guy), usually a murderer. An investigator (good guy), women are an essential part of film noir, usually there are women of both “sides”. This genre is easily recognizable due to its dark and oppressive lighting. These films are usually presented in urban cities. The characters usually consume both tobacco and alcohol rather heavily.

11. New York Confidential

This is a trailer to a film that we will use as reference and for inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcGhRTG1UXM

11. Beat the Devil

This is a trailer to a film that we will use as reference and for inspiration.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSdd0FuSr78

11. Laura 1944

This is a trailer to a film that we will use as reference and for inspiration.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGgvraXiSJU