My magazine review...

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

Throughout this process we had to use a vast range of different technologies in order to complete both the main task and the two ancillary tasks. The technology I used during this project was Blogspot, an HD video camera, Final Cut Express and Youtube. I had used most of these before which made the task easier.

Blospot
I used Blogspot in order to keep a record of my progress as well as a platform to display our film and my two follow up products. I enjoyed using Blogspot as it was easy to manage and great for keeping track of what I had done as well as what I had left to do. Its simplicity made it a joy to use and I would definitely think about using it again in the future. However I did have one very major problem with the site. I was unable to access my blog for a long period of time due to a problem with the site that I was unable to resolve. This meant that my work ended up being posted late and I was therefore unable to achieve my full potential.

Final Cut Express
We used Final Cut for editing our and finalising our film. We had very little experience with this programme so I found it quite hard to get to grips with at first due to its complex controls and vast features. The main problem we had with this programme was that it didn’t allow us to upload our footage at first, although this turned out to be a problem with the particular Mac we chose to use at first. Over the course of this task I feel my skills with Final Cut have definitely improved and I feel I have become quite adept at using the software.

HD Video camera
To shoot our film we used a Panasonic HDC- 1040 video camera in order to get great video quality. I had used this type of camera before outside of school to film various short films so I already had experience with its controls and its features. I found it to be a very easy camera to use, especially when it came to taking the footage off the camera’s memory card and putting it onto a Mac for editing. One way we could have improved our usage of the camera would be to have used a tripod in order to keep the camera steady during panning shots.

Youtube
We uploaded our finished films to Youtube in order for people to be able to watch them if they chose to. We decided to use Youtube as it is the most common video sharing website on the internet and our film would therefore be able to reach a wider audience. I have uploaded many of my own videos to Youtube in the past which meant I had plenty of experience using that and therefore had no trouble when it came to uploading our film.
 

                                                                            

What have you learned from your audience feedback?

Our film received generally great reviews from the people that watched our film however we did receive a few constructive criticisms which helped us realise what we could have done differently in order to make our film better. Below are some of the anonymous reviews we received after the screening of our film and what we took from each one.

“Fantastic opening worked really well” – We were very happy to receive this comment as we spent a lot of time on our opening sequence as we had to make sure it was able to catch the audience’s attention in order to make them want to watch the rest of the film.

“Good lighting in alley scene” – We spent a lot of time working out the best possible lighting situation when it came to filming this scene and we believe it really pays off, as this review shows, and I personally I believe it was the best shot of the whole film.

“Beautifully scripted and authentic” – This was by far the best comment we received as we spent a long time on our script in order to perfect it so we could make our film more authentic.

“American accents worked well” ­– We were very pleased with this review as we put a lot of effort into practicing our accents in order to get them just right. We wanted to make our film as realistic as possible and this meant having accurate accents which we were able to do.

'Good acting but maybe more emotions could be shown in death scene' – Although this comment makes sense we feel we conveyed the perfect emotions in our death scene. We wanted Sylvia to be unresponsive to the gunshot as we wanted to accurately convey just how cold and uncaring her character was and the fact that she was merely using Rex rather than having any actual feelings for him. In that sense I feel that scene worked exceptionally well.

“Music and sound effects were edited well” – We were very pleased to have received this comment as we spent a vast amount of our time in editing stage sourcing and obtaining authentic and accurate sounds and music that would enhance the emotion and atmosphere of the scenes.

“The ending would have been better with credits” – I wholeheartedly agree with this statement but unfortunately we ran out of time before we could add the credits into the film. This is my single biggest regret with our film.

I was very pleased with the reviews and feedback we received for our film as it showed us that all the hard work and dedication we put into filming and editing it really paid off. I’m thrilled that people enjoyed watching our film as much as we did making it.

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

I personally feel that my main task, the film noir, and both my ancillary tasks work incredibly well together. Making the film before creating either the poster or the review page was an intelligent decision as it allowed me to incorporate elements of the film, such as film stills, in the two ancillary tasks. My film poster is very well designed as, I believe, it really creates interest for the film without giving away any kind of plot or character details that might spoil the enjoyment of the viewer and therefore keeps the film shrouded in mystery and thus fitting in with the overall theme of our film. My poster follows some of the conventions of film noir, such as dark colours and urban landscapes, and the font I chose to use really fits with the genre. I chose to use a shot of the New York City skyline as that’s where our film is set. This is to only clue the audience get as to what to expect from our film.  Both my film poster and my review page use dark colours, mainly black, in order to fit with and relate to the dark, mysterious nature of our film and the genre of film noir. I used several films stills in my review page so that the audience would get a good idea of what to expect of the film but I made sure I didn’t choose any images that might spoil the ending or give away any of the plot twists. This meant I had to go through the film and carefully select which frames I was going to take a still of to use in my review page.  I have used a red colour in my film review page in order to relate to the theme of murder in our film. I did this as I wanted each ancillary task to focus on a different aspect of the film in order to have some variety rather than use the same ideas repeatedly. Overall I feel that the combination of my film and both the film poster and the magazine review page work really well.

In what ways does your media use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of film noirs?

Our film followed many conventions of classic film noir films and the reason for this is that we wanted to stick as closely to the original genre as possible to give our film an authentic noir feel rather than make it a more neo noir film.

The most classic convention we made use of was black and white. We wanted our entire film to be in black and white rather than have a colour film or a film that uses a combination of the two. The reason we did this was that the classic film noir films of the 40’s and 50’s, the ones we styled our film after, are all shot in black and white and thus we followed this convention in order to get the correct feel to our film. Our use of black and white also added to the atmosphere of the film as it made the film much darker and harsher.
 Another classic convention of film noir films which we used was Venetian blinds. These blinds were used in almost every film noir we watched as part of our research and for that reason we felt they had to be included, even if only briefly, if we wanted our film to have an authentic feel. Again this convention added a sense of atmosphere to the film as the blinds were used to create shadows on Sylvia’s face as she is looking out of the window before having an affair with Rex. This adds to the atmosphere as it gives the impression that the relationship between the two characters is shrouded in mystery which is exactly what we wanted to convey to the audience.

 The setting of our film noir was also very conventional. Film noir was an American film movement so it seemed only right for us to set our film in a America in order to fit in with the convention of the classic films from the 1940’s and 50’s. However we challenged this convention somewhat by having one of our main characters, Sylvia, be English. This goes against classic film noir conventions as the characters in classic films would have all been American due to both the setting and the fact that the studios would have chosen American actors. This worked well though as it gave the character an exotic edge that would have enticed the character of Rex which was her aim in the film.

 Another way we challenged the conventions of the genre was that we ended our film with no clear or resolved ending. In classic film noir films the stories are all wrapped up and everything is resolved with each character’s outcome clear. We decided to go against this and have a cliff hanger ending in which you don’t know whether Reece shoots Sylvia. The reason we did this was that we wanted to allow the audience to be able to interact with the film more by allowing them to form their own opinion on how it ended. This makes them think about the film and the characters more than if it was made clear to them by having a clear resolution. 
 Smoking plays a major role in classic film noir films with many of the characters smoking cigarettes or cigars and we felt this was a convention we needed to include in our film as we wanted our film to be a true classic noir film. It also allowed us to show the difference in status between Rex and Freeman as Reece is shown smoking cigars while Rex, on the other hand, only smokes cigarettes. This was so the audience could clearly see who the more important character was.
 Our characters were also conventional of film noir as we had an investigative lead character, Sheldon Rex, and a femme fatale character, Sylvia. However we challenged the standard character conventions by making Rex a journalist as most film noir characters of his kind were police detectives or private investigators. 
 We also featured many key themes of the film noir genre such as murder, corruption and salacious affairs. The camera angles we used were also conventional of film noir. We used canted angles, which are featured prominently in the genre, not only in classic film noir films but also neo noir films, as well as both high and low angle shots in order to display various shifts in power between characters.

Overall our film stuck close to the conventions of the genre while at the same time challenging them in some way as we wanted to make a film that, whilst staying true to the classic film noir films of the 40’s and 50’s, stands out as being different.    

My poster for our film...

Having completed the film our next task was to create a film poster to advertise it. This was a simpler task as I have a lot of experience using photoshop so making the poster wasn't too much hassle. I did a lot of prior research into existing film noir movie posters in order to get a better idea of how I wanted mine to look.

I looked mainly at posters for classic film noir films, from the 40's and 50's, as our film was intended to be a classic noir rather than a neo noir and I wanted my poster to reflect this. The majority of the posters I looked at all featured hand drawn cartoon like pictures of the film's characters rather than still images.

I chose not to go with a design like this as I cannot draw and the hand drawn look would be exceptionally difficult to replicate well using a computer. Also I didn't like how many different things were featured on these posters as it made them look cluttered so I decided to keep mine clean and simple. The final thing I decided to change was to not have any of the film's characters present on my poster as I felt the genre of the film lent itself to mystery and uncertainty so I didn't want anything to be revealed on the poster so that audiences would have to watch the film to find out what it was about. Also unlike these posters I added quotes from reviewers to mine to make the poster look more professional.

I did however choose to keep the old fashioned fonts and dark colours and I wanted to keep my poster quite close the designs of yesteryear as well as to feature some of the conventions of classic noir posters.

My poster for our film noir.

My film poster is more of a teaser, or advance poster, rather than a full theatrical poster. I decided to go with this style as it would allow me to give all the necessary information about the film without giving away too much information such as the plot, theme, and characters which was my intention from the outset. I have included many conventions of existing film posters such as the title of the film, the release date of the film as well as the names of the film's two main actors. The inclusion of reviews at the top from well known sources make our film stand out as being more reputable which is why I chose to include them on my poster. Another convention I followed was to have the name of the production company appear at the top of the poster. This is common on many pre existing modern day film posters that I looked at as part of my research.

I chose to have the title and actors names outlined by an eerie neon glow as it makes it look somewhat like urban street lights at night which is a big convention of film noir films. I chose to have my main picture in  black and white as well in order to go with the genre of the film. I chose a picture of the New York City skyline as the background image for my poster as that is where our film is set so it relates to the film. The picture, which gives a clue as to where the film might be set, is the only part of the poster that really gives anything away so the film is still clouded in mystery much like the characters and events of our film.

Our finished film...

Here is our finished film. I am extremely proud of our finished product and I feel it is a fantastic first attempt at such a loved genre of film. I would like to thank Ben Cartwright, Lucy Cunnington and Tom Batt for all their help and support during the making of this film. I would also like to give a big thank you to my partner Dan who without him the film would not have been possible.