FMP Practitioner research

 

For my Practitioner Research I have decided to look at a wide range of directors form old time Film noir and the new form of neo- Noirs.  The Directors I have decided to look at are Alfred Hitchcock, Ridley Scott and Brian De Palma and these three directors have made classical noirs old and new and added something to them.

I shall began looking at the old style of noirs and talking about some of Hitchcock’s works like Spellbound and Stanger’s on a train.

Alfred Hitchcock Bio

Hitchcock wanted to join the army but they felt he was too big to fight in the world war so he took an interest in filmmaking and it was the only way he could be paid. His early works aren’t really as good as his later work.

But since Hitchcock started making movies he cameos in almost all of his films.   His first notable feature was a film titled the Lodger from 1927 and based on Jack the ripper. Most of the films focus on the Rich being strange and are thrillers and he  was known for overstepping the mark a few times during his career like in Psycho where he was not allowed to show someone being stabbed.

His  legacy in filmmaking will last forever.

 

Spellbound 1945

Spellbound is a psychological film which stars Georgy Peck as John Ballantine, Ingrid Bergman as Doctor Constance. The film is set in a mental hospital for ill minded patients. Doctor Constance is one of the better Doctors who understands and tries to see things in different ways. But she does not seem that happy.

The Hospital then recruits a new Doctor in John Ballantine who everyone is shocked at how young he is and knows so much about mental health. He starts to get warm towards Doctor Constance forming a relationship. But when all the Doctors are performing Surgery John breaks down and everyone around him becomes a bit puzzled and it turns out he isn’t the real John Ballantine and they think this imposter killed him. But Constance thinks he is innocent.

This is a prime example of a Hitchcock plot of everything begins quite nice and you think everything is going to work out, but after about 25 minutes or so he flips the switch and everything becomes that little more interesting.

This film is not the best example of a classic film noir but it does have some strong elements with only some dark lighting when in the patients room creating a sense of dread and fear and some discomfort . It seems to me it might have worked better at the time, some of the sound is quite poor and there is not a lot of music during the film so it is quite quiet.

This could mean that Hitchcock was trying to make this film more suspenseful or could have the opposite effect of trying to bring more of an impact during bigger scenes. But Hitchcock put this at a third dimension because he thought it might bring more attention to towards the scene, so that people could question it and really think about what he was doing.

Ridley Scott

Scott loved watching films as a child and by the time he reached College he pursued a career in film making. He helped to establish the film department at the  college of art in London and his final project here was a short film titled” Boy and Bicycle. His brother starred in the film.  After College he when on to become a trainee set designer and he lead a lot of popular programmes.

 

Blade Runner 1982

A master piece in  film  and a change of tides of neo noir and a Sci-fi revelation. This story is set in 2019 and in a future Los Angeles, where technology and everything has gone up and developed, where there are genuinely engineered Replicants which have been banned and   Rick Deckard [Harrison Ford] a former Blade runner is called back into action by his former boss to track down four replicants.

This films is a film noir to the core the only difference being it has been set in a futuristic setting all the key elements that make a noir are there. Rick Deckard is a character who is not a hero, but he only wants to do what is right.   We have a Femme Fatal Rachel [Sean Young] who Deckard meets during his interventions and begins a relationship with.

The scenery and landscape of the scenery surrounding this film are spectacular and it is a film that stills stand the test of time today. This film is like an action thriller with lots of twist of turns.

A particular highlight is when Deckard is interviewing Rachel to see whether she is a replicant or not and her answers are the same as the rest. Deckard is sceptical to the idea because he has started to fall for her. The film leaves you with many questions and you will only find out the answers by which cut you watch.

This was one idea I had for my final major project but I didn’t because the film would be too confusing and I wanted to try and keep it simple.

 

Brian De Palma Bio

Pamla became interested in film after viewing Citizen Cane and Vertigo. He began working with Robert De Niro  from an early career on the Wedding Party. Palma later when on to make better stonger films such as Carrie, Scarface 1983, The Untouchables, and Mission Impossible.

 

 

The Untouchables 1990

The Untouchables is a crime drama and was directed by Brain De Palma. A group of police officers gather up evidence to arrest Al Capone and stars Kevin Costner as Eliot Ness, Sean Connery as Jim Malone and Robert de Niro as Al Capone.

This film does not have a lot of noir elements but all the things from a themes from a noir are in  it. Unlike most noir movies this film is based on real events and the film is very strong in its visuals styles and performances from all actors involved. One of the more famous scenes is were there is shoot out scene in the subway and Eliot Ness is trying to capture Al Capone’s accountant and uses a baby in a pram.

 

In order to get away and the baby falls down the stairs and the scene moves in slow motion making every moment terrifying. This scene since then has been parodied several times since this film came out.

Another reason why this film works is the great dialogue because there is a line Sean Connery says that you can never forget “He sends one of us to the hospital, we’ll send one of his to the Morgue”. Having lines like this can be memorable and people can quote them and that’s one of the things that I want in my short film.

Later Brain de Palma went onto to create other notable films such as the first Mission Impossible film in 1996.

Practitioner summary

From looking at these practitioners  I have learnt how to tell a more interesting story from a different perspective and captivate an audience in a different way, to understand a more tragic way to tell a character’s downfall. This has helped my storyline to end on a more impactful and interesting way.

The visual styles from all these directors have inspired me to look at film in  a different way and helped me think of ways in which I am going to create particular shots within my film that little bit better.

 

 

Competition and Audience research

For my Competition I am looking at some of the other films that were in the Oska Bright festival which is the festival I may put my film into.

Their films seem only to be short and not very long. This might be because some of the audience are people with learning difficulties and most don’t really have the greatest attention span when watching longer films and they may not expect a film that is maybe longer than fifteen minutes.

Most the films are not relevant to what I am doing because none are in the same style in what I am creating and most of which seem to be animation and documentary. Or films purely focusing on the visual sides of film making.

Most of the films are very hard to watch, in they aren’t very good and it looks like most of them were rushed.

The Shadow was a film entered in 2009.

I like the concept and idea because it was a bit similar to my idea with the Vigilante apart from it when more with the Zorro idea of an old time Vigilante. Apart from it was very confusing and did not really make sense and trying to be more like a comedy, which I did not really find  funny because the acting and the delivery was extremely poor and it looked rushed to and I wanted to switch it off half way.

 

The second film I looked at was a film called the Sea Reminds Me. It was mainly a visual film and it does not have any dialogue in it and it is very eye appealing. It has relaxing music and when watching you generally feel like you’re having a joyful time, like being at the sea. The film is carefully edited and moves smoothly from scene to scene. The only issue is, it’s a tad too long and it’s not very appealing to me because it has no story to it and apart from visuals it was not very good.

 

The third film I looked at was a film called Super Fast which was a short animation. After looking through too many films that frustrated me I had just given up by this point. The Animation was simple but effective enough to work in the films favour. It didnt really have much of a story because it’s tone was quite simple and I only really think it’s centered around people with learning difficulties.

Looking into the competition was interesting but I have felt quite bored looking at all these low budget films. I don’t like to beat up on any film that is made by  anyone independently. But I think I can provide much better quality than this.

 

The awards are

Best Animation

Best Newcomer

Best Story

Most original film

Best production

Funniest film

By looking at these awards I could go for the most original film because I think my film will stand out and there will be nothing else at the festival like it and it will be more impactful than most films there and I hope to get good feedback from it.

Audience demographics

This information  has been sourced form Yougov.com where I looked at such films as Blade Runner, The Matrix and Batman begins

Blade Runner 

Age range: 40- 54

Gender :Male

Social grade :ABC 1

Other films they are interested in.

The first two Terminator films, Star Wars the Empire Strikes Back

The Matrix 

Age range: 25-39

Gender:Male

Social grade: ABC 1

Other films they are interested in.

The Matrix Sequels, The first two Terminator films and the Fellowship Of the Ring

Batman Begins 

Age range: 25-39

Gender: Male

Social grade: ABC 1

Other films they are interested in,

the rest of the Dark Knight trilogy.

This website is not very exact on its figures, but it gives a clearer indication on who my audience  is and what kind of people they are. One thing that I have noticed is that most of these films have the same results and the age range depends on how old these films are, and not necessarily about how old these people are, because they are the same, they are just of different generations.

I  now know I have a clearer idea of the kind of audience I am aiming for and it is an age range of 25-55 and they are mainly males form the social grade ABC 1 ,who enjoy these kinds of films.

 

Survey results

Do you understand the term film noir?

4 people said No

6 people said Yes

A film noir has themes of lone male/ Anti Hero, Femme Fatal, Moody dark, crime/Investigation, do you watch these kind of films?

5 people said yes

4 people said sometimes

One person said no

 

Are you familiar with the term Neo Noir?

5 people said yes

5 people said no

Neo noir can be for example Blade Runner or the Matrix. Do you watch these kind of films?

4 People said no

6 people said yes

 

Some noir and neo noirs can be violent, is this something you enjoy and something you are ok with?

6 people said yes

4 people said no

 

Would you be interested in seeing a 20 min short neo noir? With a Vigilante?

1 person said no

5 people said maybe

4 people said yes

Does a 20 min film seem too long for a short film? And would you watch it?

1 person said no.

9 people said yes.

 

If you do watch these sort of films where do you watch them?

1 person said Film festivals

2 people said Netflix.

1 person said the Cinema

5 people said YouTube

The audience survey did not really prove much, but I was surprised by how many people knew what film noir was and that people are ok with all the violence that I want to do. I did make an error in the survey in question seven and I should have split it up into two questions, because yes it may have been too long, but I did not manage to get the second half in and I still don’t know if people would be happy to watch it.

 

 

Concept research

History of Film Noir

A  Noir is a stylistic film which mainly focusses on dark or bright lighting that makes the film look like a comic book. Most noir’s are crime dramas with their leads mainly being harsh characters who are specialist to deal with that kind of case. Unlike most fiction stories noir’s can be very realist, they’re never over the top villains and they will spend the film being quite serious.

Film noirs were created from the 1930’s until the 1950’s the first film which is Doubt was a Proto noir. This was before they even knew that style was a film called Underworld released in 1927 which is a silent crime drama and starred Clive Brook as the main lead. The first talkie was a film called Thunderbolt.

Some of the best noirs did not come just from the US, some came from others parts of the world. Such as the film titled M, which was directed by Fritz Lang and starts Peter Lorre a child murderer, going through things in his head, leaving an M in every murder. The film is not a straight noir,b ut it does have some elements.

There are certain  rules in order for a film to become a noir.

This list come from the BBC documentary Rules of film Noir from 2009

It needs to be a fallen world, everyone is no good, even the hero has demons of his own.

There needs to be female fatal, a beautiful female who the main character is interested in, but cannot trust.

The Anti-hero is the person who the story focusses on and who is not a hero and just as bad as the bad guys, but knowing the good way.

Make it any colour as long as it’s black. What they are stating is creating the black and white adds towards the dark atmosphere and the nature and surrounding towards the characters.   The music they build for the scenes for the characters mainly the killer, Murderer or Villain and speeds up whenever they enter and sometimes foreshadows events.

It ain’t what you say it’s the way that you say it

In the 1930’s the film companies created the Hays code which films at the time had to follow certain rules which meant showing no violence and sex or sex references  but the film makers at the time would slip little lines in that the adults in the audience would get. This is a key part of film noir of hiding many sexual innuendos, by remaking and talking about foul play without actually saying it.

When noirs would use violence they would usually cut away and you would sometimes see the characters in shadow, because technically they’re still following the code of using no violence, because you know what’s going on,  you just can’t see it.

These are very clear ways of getting around things when filming or toning down a films violence.

The creation of Neo- Noir’s 

Neo noirs are the modern equivalent of film noirs. They will have certain theme from film noirs such as the anti hero, the femme fatal and the gritty reality of harsh worlds. But is mainly set in US and in other parts of the countries.  It is hard to narrow down when these films first came into creation.

The earliest Film noir is the film Chinatown from 1974 which is set in 1937 and stars Jack Nicholson. During the film events Nicholson’s character Jake is hired to solve a case, but it all ends up being false and a ruse, but all the elements from an old time film noir are there, still within the traces apart from the tone has been modernised.

Neo noirs have a more stylised and cleaner look than older neo noirs, they do not have the restrictions that the older Noirs had and are able to show high detailed scenes of violence, with such films, LA Confidential and Sin City which do not go without one scene of violence.

This form of newer Noirs bought a new life towards many characters and one of these is the film Batman from 1989 which changed the face of Batman forever. No longer was he a goofy character he was dark and serious, Batman is one of the impressions for my Vigilante and building a gritty world around the character and stories.

Neo Noir was always great at putting comics to screen in such films as Dick Tracy, Sin City and Watchmen where at certain times you feel you are watching a real comic books.  Dick Tracy from 1990 which stars Warren Beatty as Dick Tracy. It is more of kid friendly film and the violence is cut back but all the visuals around it create a very neo noir feel and tone. Dick Tracy was written around 1931 just when noirs were starting out. This film puts the old and new together making the best of both elements.

What I hope to create in my Neo- noir by using a little bit of the old and new styles of noir to pay tribute and make my own twist upon film noir and Neo noir.

 

The Vigilante and Storylines

My Final major project main theme is that is has a vigilante character named Kyle Hawk or otherwise known as Nighthawk.

The story line is not like most superhero origin stories, my storyline more bit like Batman Begins where there will be long flashbacks where you see the character staring up.

There will also be a narration where you hear the character talk in long monologues. I got this idea from the film Watchmen, with another Vigilante type character called Rorschach. In the film it follows his journal and talks about the crime and events on that week.

The story’s main prime focus is on revenge and anger. The best development  in any of these superhero films, especially in Spiderman where he contently remarks that with great power comes great responsibly which is a code almost every hero learns.

If they were to beat someone up with no rhyme or reason they would just be as bad as the people they were fighting, which is one thing I want to try and tell within the story and is something even the main character will learn by the end.

The Character is kind of a cross between Batman from DC comics and the Punisher from Marvel comics, but unlike the punisher my character does not go that extra mile to kill someone. He is more on the side of Batman and has a code not to kill because the character beleives he would just be a bad as them.

The backstory is similar to Batman with that his family was killed by a bigger higher power. The difference is that my character came from the bottom of the pile and was not rich and famous and had to train on the streets in order to survive.

And also like Batman my Character will have someone aiding him like Alfred, but very different in the things that he can do. This character will provide Nighthawk with all his gadgets and tech and also does all the clean-up work after so that Nighthawk’s alter ego will have reason to be out every night.

Following the more traditional film noir and neo noir elements there will be a Femme Fatal character as well.  If  I were to sum up her character I based it on Cat Woman because she always had a love/ hate relationship  with Batman and I kind of wanted my own. However, unlike Cat woman this character suffers from a mental illness and manic depression. This was to make it more interesting and a way that the police could capture her.

Like most of these movies there will also be the opposite to a hero in form a supervillain, for this character I didn’t base it on anyone from comics, expect maybe Kingpin, a Spiderman and Daredevil  villain, who looks fat but really isnt and his body is full of muscle.  I based his character on  the American mob bosses but put up to level ten because he would beat people senseless until their head cracked.

To make it more interesting however he will have some form of suit because in my film he makes internet broadcasts on people who have double crossed him so that he won’t be arrested.

The last major thing in the story is the police who are also big features in superhero movies and crime films. The main police officer in my story is Sgt Smith a high ranking officer and detective, but unlike a commissioner Gordon form Batman who is the side and always roots for him. My character however will be a dirty officer who arrests the wrong people and the main bosses stooge and wants to capture the Vigilante for his own game.

I am planning to have a confrontation scene similar to Batman the Dark Night which is something we remade earlier this year and now that I learn form that I could do it better. The difference will be that the Vigilante will escape the room and hold the officer to ransom. In real life this would never happen, so I am going to add a line where the main officer says he thinks he can handle it.

 

 

Legal and Ethical research

What are the rules of being a Vigilante?

 

We all know that holding the law within your own hands is illegal and against the law but if someone was to become a Vigilante for real what would happen.  If you got arrested what kind of ranking officer would you see?

 

Number one: What is a Vigilante?

A vigilante is another word of guardian or watchmen in and is someone who is outside the law and fights it by themselves or is in within a group.

Vigilantes are better known within the film and TV world with such Robin Hood, Batman, The green Arrow and the punisher who are also comic book characters.

Vigilantes have been around since the late nineteen hundreds with such groups as the Bald Knobbers  who began appearing in 1880 who were retaliated against invading marauders at the time a film was later made about their exploits in 1919 in the film the Shepard of the Hill.

This seems to be quite tame by today’s standards and not all Vigilantes are like you see in the movies.

 

Research sourced form http://www.oddee.com/item_99099.aspx

Number Two: Why become a Vigilante?  We have all seen superhero movies and think we could probably do that, but in the real word that would not work.  For one thing it seems to be a bigger deal in USA with them even letting some Vigilantes carry on what they are doing.

Case and point “Phoenix Jones”, who only started crime fighting after one of his friends was assaulted, put a Ski mask on and decided to get justice for his friend.  He later adapted his suit to include a bullet proof vest and started his own group of superheroes.  They would chase away car thieves and break up fights.

The group has since disbanded and it seemed to be a group for fun. I don’t really think it was ever serious because looking at articles Phoenix and other members of his club never got arrested.

It seems that in other countries, however, they treat vigilantes differently and the laws may not be so strong.  In Mexico 2014 a group of vigilantes decided that the police were not enough and took control of their town once their leader was killed. This group consisted of 1500 members who would stop drivers from bringing weapons and drugs into their town by forming check points on the roads.

It may have been that police had been trying to do something. They may have been stopped by the Cartel who may have threatened their families to make sure they did not do anything to oppose them.  On the other side of the coin you may have had the police siding with the Cartel in order to be in their good books or take money from them or just because they were scared.

The fact that the Vigilantes arrested  twelve police officers and a former director of public security who they claimed were responsible for their leaders killing, shows they didn’t trust the police in their town.

Some members of the group killed two tourists who refused to stop at one of their check points.  No actions were taken during this incident.  This shows there is no law or justice system because in our country there would be an investigation to find the culprits. However, the Mexican officials were aware of their existence and they tolerated them, because they felt they had a lack of officers for rural areas.

 

Number Three- What happens to a vigilante if you get caught?

It really depends on what level of violence they do.  It’s like with any crime that anyone could break. It is the shame charge of assault you may be given a warning and no more but if there injury’s involved the sentence could be mush worse and you could serve time in prison.

A vigilante may have a good reason to break the law. But in the police’s minds it is not justified because a Vigilante will never think straight and may only do these things for revenge or for their own ends.

 

And with any crime it depends on if the police have enough evidence against because they could simply arrest you without any reason they need warrants for arrests and if the Vigilante would wear a mask they would have to lead an investigation and have many leads in suspects. So it would take a while for a Vigilante to get caught but in time they would get you.

You would most likely be interviewed and it would clearly be a more experienced officer and they would most likely have back up if the suspect was known for violent because unlike the movies they would be aware if they were that well trained then they would have to have others waiting in.

In film I plan to have my Vigilante caught and interrogated I will not follow all of these rules because it would make it too hard for the character to get out again.

Regulation

There will be violence and a lot of blood and some scenes that could be gory and will show some specific detail.  Form the BFCC guidelines it seems not to very clear on where my film would sit at either an eighteen or a fifteen.

If was going to show it at a film festival I would have to clearly show what age range it was.

 

VISUAL AND TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF FILM NOIR

Film noir has always have a strong visual style and dark lighting and dark shadows that reflect the characters and the tone of the films. This term is called chiaroscuro. This is the Renaissance word of the different between Light and Dark.

My idea will be in colour and there will be some shadows shots but I do not want too many. Most of the shots will take place at night, so I am going to go and do my location Recce at night so I will have a clear idea of what the scenes will look like when I costume and make possible test shots testing the lighting process.

I want to have some Dutch angles within my film to create a bit of tension and not to be normal and outside of box to create fear around the Vigilante and if that costume does not quite workout I will darken the scenes to cover up a lot of the detail.

They used to use this in old Noirs this lighting because of low budget and film noirs were very cheap to make.   Because it would hide all the cheap sets and the film makers would have to worry about the detail, the dark would hide in shadows.

I am also planning to have a city skyscraper scenes and shots and planning to use green screen in order to create shots, which they would use in modern noirs like Sin City using it to create the comic backgrounds.  But I plan to do test shots before I use the green screen so I can make sure it works effectively because I had only used it on a small scale, then I will bring into final cut pro to learn how to work green screen effects on there.

I will also be using electric effects on the Vigilante’s gloves he is wearing in certain scenes, and will fight with them. I will get these effects form YouTube and learn how to rota scope frame by frame whilst the fight scenes are going on.

This next information comes from

https://school.rocketjump.com/learn/directing-container/intro-to-fight-choreography

I am also going to learn how not to hurt people  during the fight scenes, for I am going to have to safely rehearse the scenes multiple times before getting the scene right. The tone of fight has to be right and at the right pacing and most include

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwMLs3sek6Q

 

Fast and frenetic, or slow and dramatic

Non­stop onslaught, or clear pauses and breaks

Constant rhythm or varying speeds

Decide what pacing will best fit your story and characters and to make sure that the music matches with the fight and get it a steady rhythm and so that the audience can feel adrenaline and feels what the character feels.

 

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

A example of this is in the film Hannah form 2011 where a fight scene builds up slowly and the character is getting ready for a fight and you as the audience can feel his heart beating, as he is nosing his is being watched around him and taking notes of how many there are. The music helps to create this until the fight starts and he clam and ready and takes everyone out quickly.

I like the one take shot and it might be something that I want to try, because it looks smooth and I want to try and make people think that it is not a one shot take.

 

 

 

BUGET AND PROPS LIST

Filming equipment

Camera- Nothing

Tripod- Nothing

Filming lights- ????? Online sources £40- £70

Spear battery?????

 

Props and costumes

Vigilante Costume

Motor bike Jacket or armoured online sources £30-£70 pounds but I may find one in a charity shop or borrow one form someone I know.

Eye Mask £3

Eye makeup- Nothing

Gloves- £5- £8

Boots- Nothing

Wires- Nothing

Wallet

Fake guns

 

The villain’s costume

Mask or ski mask

SWAT vest

Fake Knuckle dusters

 

The Fame fatal

Leather jacket

Eye mask

Stick