Evaluation Question 4

Evaluation Question 3

Evaluation Question 2

Evaluation Question 1

Final Film

Dark Night Productions Cont.

The next step was designing a logo to go at the start of the film. We did have much time so weren't able to use an original photo that we hadn't taken ourselves and instead used Google images. The image we wanted was of a Victorian style lamppost preferably in black and white or a dark photo.

This is the image we selected in the end as it gave us what we wanted and more. It's in black and white and is of a lamppost but also it is off centre, which meant we had space to put the name of the company in the picture and it is at a canted angle which is used in film noir, further linking the company to the genre, and creates a disorientated effect for the audience.
Now we had our picture we had to add the text to it, to do this we used LiveType. LiveType allowed us to create effects with our writing so it wasn't just a still image. This made it look much more professional and realistic.

These photos show us using LiveType, adding our title and choosing the effect we wanted. We chose to use the effect Flicker as it related to the photo. Once we had done this we added it to our film on Final Cut and put the text in front of the picture. This is our end result, I think making it was very successful and it looks very good and professional at the start of our film.

Updated Poster

Creating Our Own Production Company - Dark Night

We needed to create our own production company for our film, this included a name and logo to put at the start of the film.
We wanted the name to be related to film noir so it looked liked this was the type of film that this production company would make. We had a few ideas but in the end we settled for 'Dark Night Productions'. To get this name we used things we had seen in other film noir films as inspiration, this way we knew it could be easily linked with film noir. For example in the film LA Confidential the coffee shop at which the murders take place is called the 'Nite Owl'.

This name has connotations of film noir as a convention of film noir is the night time and shadowy and dark lighting which the 'Nite' word covers. Therefore we also decided to use this word somewhere in our production company but we spelt it the correct way as you can make a more obvious link to film noir.
The other part of our name is also obvious, 'Dark'. It links to film noir in the same way as the other word does with the dark and shadowy lighting. Dark can also suggest evil, gloom and villains.

Double Page Spread

Production Companies Research - Focus Features

Focus Features is the speciality films or art house films unit of Universal Pictures. It both produces and distributes it’s own films. It was formed in 2002. They have made films such as Brokeback Mountain (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005) and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011). However the most important and relevant to me and my group is Brick (2005). Brick is a neo noir that we looked at as a template for our own film. Brick is a modern film noir which we wanted ours to be, it is all in colour which ours is and it is set in a school, like ours. I think using Focus Features as a production company for our film will be good idea as they have produced a similar film before.

Developing My Poster

Poster First Attempt

This is my first attempt of a poster for our film. Now I have completed one, I will look to add small details that will hopefully make a lot of difference and make it much more realistic. For example I'm yet to add our production companies logo.

Target Audience

Poster Research

This is the end result of the line I created for my poster after seeing the American Gangster poster. I think it has been successful and looks good on my poster. It fits well with the type of film and as most of my poster is black or white it makes the title stand out more.

Viewing Feedback

Font Analysis

Font Analysis - Double page

To get a better understanding of the fonts style and size on my double page spread I've been looking at a number of copies of Empire Magazine.

These four double pages act as more of a title page before the review of the film rather than the actual review. In my own one I'm likely to include a main title like these so this is still useful. In each one the style of the writing links to either the picture also displayed on the page or the genre or type of film it is. The picture for the Ted review is of him in a bubble bath and the colour or background of the font is also bubbles. This is the same in the Spiderman review but much more obvious with the writing in a spiders web.

I'd like to try something quite extravagant like the Spiderman one however it'd be quite time consuming and take up a lot of the room on my double page, which would make it difficult as i have to have actual reviews on my own. The actual fonts of the other three pages is quite simple, the colour of them seems to be the bit that has the most impact and they are all very big and cover a lot of the page.  

Double Page Spread/Film Review Research

Poster Research

To make my film poster as realistic as possible I am trying to mimic as many aspects of previous posters as I can without completely copying them. Something noticed on all the modern posters I've looked at is the writing at the bottom where it lists the production companies etc. is always in the same font.

Therefore I wanted to use this on my poster, however it wasn't one of the fonts that came with my computer. Instead I used dafont.com to download it and eventually apply to my own poster.

Production Company Research

This table lists film noir films produced by three different production companies. These three have produced quite a lot and when deciding what production company to use on our film this could be helpful.

Poster Research

 

 Whilst researching Film Noir posters I also looked at other genres of films. American Gangster isn't a film noir or neo noir but I thought the effect used on the poster would look good on a film noir poster. When creating my own poster i tried to mimic some features of the poster, in this case the red line between the title of the film.

To make the line I used Adobe fireworks. Firstly I inserted a plain red line onto a blank document, I then used the paintbrush tool with the splatter and pastel effects to make it look like blood at the end. The end effect is quite good but not as neat as the one on the American Gangster poster. Once I've added the line to my actual poster I'll have a better idea as whether it looks good or not.

Making Our Own Cupboard

Whilst filming the final scene for our film we wanted to include a shot of one of our actors taking a glass from the cupboard. We wanted the camera to be inside the cupboard so when he opened it you could see his face. After watching back our first three or four attempts we realised it wasn't going to work because there wasn't enough light by the cupboard and the shot didn't look very good. We tried having the lights in the room on instead but this would have caused continuity problems and if the whole scene was in the light we wouldn't be able to create shadowy effects which is needed for film noir. We therefore decided to construct a new cupboard closer to the light already being used.

Music for Opening Scene

We have decided to include music for the opening scene and the titles of our film as this is common in most films of any genre. The opening scene is our main character at a graveyard looking at his fathers grave and we wanted the music to fit with what is happening. Therefore we wanted a song in minor key as the character is mourning his father and would be sad at this point. Another point we considered was our film is set in the present day and the storyline is based around 18 to 19 year olds. So we thought a modern song would be appropriate, this is also good for our audience as they may be familiar with it.

We choose Intro by The XX as it fits all the requirements above. It also doesn't have any lyrics which means we will able to use sound from the actual video or voice overs at the same time without it sounding indistinguishable. 

Day 4 Filming

Pub Scene Script

Our scene at the pub is quite a vital one as a lot of the storyline is explained to the audience through the two characters lines. As well as this it tells the audience what is coming up and what the hero/main characters objective is going to be. Therefore we decided to write out a script for this scene so we were certain we included everything needed to. Also it was a lot of help for our actors as it helped them give a good performance in this important part of the film.

Editing - Day 2

Editing - Day 1

This is almost like a video dairy of when we are editing our film so we can keep track of our progression.

Filming - Day 3

We didn't plan to film at the pub again however after watching the shots back we realised we needed to go back. The first time round we got shots of the two characters talking but didn't have much variety in our shots. This time we focused more on getting close ups and different angled shots so when we put it together it's much more interesting to watch.

Summary of filming days 1 & 2

This video is an analysis of what went well and what didn't go very well from our first two days of filming.

Day 2 Filming

Character Costumes

When deciding on our characters costumes we had to take into careful consideration the style and colours. I’ve learnt from previous films that I have researched, such as LA Confidential (1997) and Pulp fiction (1994), that the clothing can say a lot. For example in both these films the femme fatale wears white which symbolises innocence and purity, perhaps not what you would associate with a femme fatale usually.

  

For the main character, Jake, we wanted him to look a bit scruffy and simple, so it would seem he hasn’t put a lot of thought into what he was wearing or he doesn’t care at all. Therefore we chose a grey jumper, this is simple, slightly dull and doesn’t make him stand out which is how we want to his character to seem to the audience at first. However when the story develops they will discover there is quite a lot to know about him.

  

We have included a scene where Jake meets with the femme fatale at a pub. We chose to style him differently so it shows his character is developing. He will be wearing jeans and a shirt to show he is starting to make an effort and he has put some thought into what he wears. It also suggests that he is trying to impress the femme fatale and he is beginning to like her. 

The femme fatale’s outfit for the bar scene is a red dress, tights and a leather jacket. The colour red symbolises love and lust but also danger and blood, I think this says a lot about her character and what she is like. When thinking of this outfit we considered Laura Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze and therefore left some of her chest showing. However we didn’t want to reveal too much so it would almost tease the audience, this is why we used black tights and the black jacket. Black also represents death, which could foreshadow events in the story.

For the school scene we thought it would be unrealistic if the femme fatale was wearing a dress like the last outfit so tried to dress here down but still keep that seductiveness. We chose a red long skirt and a black sleeveless top, the colours are the same because they represent her characteristics well but the style is much more casual and more likely what she’d wear to school.  

We considered using this last dress because it was similar to one in La Confidential however we struggled to find a scene that we could use it in. Therefore we decided to leave it out for now but if something came up we’d use it.