Black & White Stills Practise: Ladsies

Image:

Actor/model thing: Lukey

Original image:

As you can see it was really very dark.

Here it is greyscaled without any further editing:

So I cheated and used Paint Shop Pro's 'One step photofix'.

After 'photofix':

I think I might have removed some more noise as well at this point.

If we greyscaled it now it would look like this:

I thought it might be able to cope with a bit more contrast:

More contrast: Also I thought it looked quite cool in high-ish contrast colour:

I shall relate this to the main idea in a minute or so.

Practicing Black & White Stills: Girlies

Today I took some shots of Saxon (who was nearby at the time) and some of Luke so I could fiddle around with contrast and effects on Photoshop, partially just to practise using Photoshop as thusfar I have only used Jasc's Paint Shop Pro 7 & 9. It was also intended to investigate how to create the black and white filmic effect crucial to create the film noir aesthetic.

Edited shot:

Original shot:

What I did: I cropped the image, airbrushed it a wee bit, used the 'despeckle' tool (in order to remove some of the noise that I found showed up more once the contrast had been upped), and then I increased the contrast and brightness and then greyscaled the image. I also added a gaussian blur effect but cannot remember when I did this.

What I think about the end result: While possibly a bit striking the image is far too... grainy? Basically its very blotchy and not at all like the smooth, flawless images of the films we are trying to imitate.

What I think went wrong: There is probably something technical that would help this or that I should have used, but I think the main problem lies in the poor lighting of the original image. I think it needs to be brighter, less diffuse light (this shot was only taken by a window on an overcast afternoon).

---------------------------------------------------------

Later today I took some shots of Cat, seeing as she's the actual femme fatale.

Here is one of the original shots:

First attempt at editing:

What I did: I removed some of the noise to try and make it look 'smoother', upped the contrast and greyscaled it.

What I think: I think it's better than the last attempt as Cat was standing closer to the window. I think it looks a little bit strange in the way that the shadow falling over half of her face is in almost an exact half and half line, but maybe that's just because the light was still quite diffuse?

The Third Man

amazing shots, aesthetics etc.



some good ideas for location?



loooooaaads of dutch tilts going on here

Film Noir Film Research

I've been researching film noir, specifically trying to find those films of the genre that are seen to be typical or iconic of the genre. This should help us when it comes to shooting the narrative sections of the video, with the iconography, visuals, acting, shot types, after effects etc.

I have been looking at websites, including http://www.filmsite.org/filmnoir.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_noir, http://www.imdb.com/chart/filmnoir. I have also been browsing http://www.amazon.co.uk/ for available film noir titles.

Titles I am probably going to try to view are:

• Double Indemnity- because it appears it has amazing visuals as oppose to just a good story. A quote from a review on it's imdb page; 'This is one of the best films of all time, not necessarily because of its story but because of the acting, direction, cinematography, lighting, and just the way that the story itself was told'. Sounds pretty good. Also has a classic femme fatale (Barbara Stanwyck as Phyllis Dietrichson) and development of relationship between her and her male 'victim'.
• The Third Man - being sent for rental by http://www.lovefilm.com/, how exciting.
• Deadly is the female (possibly)- because it features 'a nice guy who is led astray by the bad woman' (from the imdb review).
• The Big Combo- I really wanted to get hold of because it apparently produced some of the most iconic images of the genre (wikipedia) and some of the stills I have seen from the film support this. The male protagonist is also a detective in this title, who romantically desires the mistress of a big-shot criminal. Quite similar our initial idea for character types, I think. Unfortunately it doesn't appear that it is available in the region 2 format, but I might be able to rent/buy it used and play it on the dvd player of a computer of an owner who doesn't mind me changing their player to region 1 (apparently you can change these settings only 5 times before the drive locks).

Film Noir Films

To watch

Film Noir

Taken from website: www.filmsite.org/film.

Primary Characteristics and Conventions of Film Noir: Themes and Styles
The primary moods of classic film noir were melancholy, alienation, bleakness, disillusionment, disenchantment, pessimism, ambiguity, moral corruption, evil, guilt, desperation and paranoia.
Heroes (or anti-heroes), corrupt characters and villains included down-and-out, conflicted hard-boiled detectives or private eyes, cops, gangsters, government agents, a lone wolf, socio-paths or killers, crooks, war veterans, politicians, petty criminals, murderers, or just plain Joes. These protagonists were often morally-ambiguous low-lifes from the dark and gloomy underworld of violent crime and corruption. Distinctively, they were cynical, tarnished, obsessive (sexual or otherwise), brooding, menacing, sinister, sardonic, disillusioned, frightened and insecure loners (usually men), struggling to survive - and in the end, ultimately losing.

Storylines were often elliptical, non-linear and twisting. Narratives were frequently complex, maze-like and convoluted, and typically told with foreboding background music, flashbacks (or a series of flashbacks), witty, razor-sharp and acerbic dialogue, and/or reflective and confessional, first-person voice-over narration. Amnesia suffered by the protagonist was a common plot device, as was the downfall of an innocent Everyman who fell victim to temptation or was framed. Revelations regarding the hero were made to explain/justify the hero's own cynical perspective on life.

Film noir films (mostly shot in gloomy grays, blacks and whites) thematically showed the dark and inhumane side of human nature with cynicism and doomed love, and they emphasized the brutal, unhealthy, seamy, shadowy, dark and sadistic sides of the human experience. An oppressive atmosphere of menace, pessimism, anxiety, suspicion that anything can go wrong, dingy realism, futility, fatalism, defeat and entrapment were stylized characteristics of film noir. The protagonists in film noir were normally driven by their past or by human weakness to repeat former mistakes.

Film noir films were marked visually by expressionistic lighting, deep-focus or depth of field camera work, disorienting visual schemes, jarring editing or juxtaposition of elements, ominous shadows, skewed camera angles (usually vertical or diagonal rather than horizontal), circling cigarette smoke, existential sensibilities, and unbalanced or moody compositions. Settings were often interiors with low-key (or single-source) lighting, venetian-blinded windows and rooms, and dark, claustrophobic, gloomy appearances. Exteriors were often urban night scenes with deep shadows, wet asphalt, dark alleyways, rain-slicked or mean streets, flashing neon lights, and low key lighting. Story locations were often in murky and dark streets, dimly-lit and low-rent apartments and hotel rooms of big cities, or abandoned warehouses. [Often-times, war-time scarcities were the reason for the reduced budgets and shadowy, stark sets of B-pictures and film noirs.]

Some of the most prominent directors of film noir included Orson Welles, John Huston, Billy Wilder, Edgar Ulmer, Douglas Sirk, Robert Siodmak, Fritz Lang, Otto Preminger, Henry Hathaway and Howard Hawks.

Femmes Fatales in Film Noir:
The females in film noir were either of two types (or archetypes) - dutiful, reliable, trustworthy and loving women; or femmes fatales - mysterious, duplicitous, double-crossing, gorgeous, unloving, predatory, tough-sweet, unreliable, irresponsible, manipulative and desperate women. Usually, the male protagonist in film noir wished to elude his mysterious past, and had to choose what path to take (or have the fateful choice made for him).

Invariably, the choice would be an overly ambitious one, to follow the dangerous but desirable wishes of these dames. It would be to pursue the goadings of a traitorous, self-destructive femme fatale who would lead the struggling, disillusioned, and doomed hero into committing murder or some other crime of passion coupled with twisted love. When the major character was a detective or private eye, he would become embroiled and trapped in an increasingly-complex, convoluted case that would lead to fatalistic, suffocating evidences of corruption, irresistible love and death. The femme fatale, who had also transgressed societal norms with her independent and smart, menacing actions, would bring both of them to a downfall.

------------------------------------------------

This image is taken from the film 'The Big Combo' (1955)

New Track Ideas

I would really like to do a Spandau Ballet song.

The band could be a contemporary band who are heavily influenced by 80s music, particularly new wave and new romantic (such as Spandau Ballet, but we shall hypothetically have them not exist for the duration of this idea). It was good music, and I do sort of think new wave will comeback soon (though I do know that Spandau Ballet are new romantic).

They could also borrow from the very classic looks of the time: I'm thinking more thelook of Duran Duran really. A bit like these photos:

also a good inspiration for performance shot; very classic.

Perhaps less 'glam'-ish than in this shot. Slightly more masculine.

again, not quite as camp and 80s as in this image:


The Songs:

Gold

For the video I would have a balanced mixture of narrative and performance (about 50:50).

Narrative: late film-noir style clips imbetween music. Very movie like.

A very loose, typical film-noir style narrative. The actual storyline of this hypothetical 'film' is largely irrelevant. The impression is that the video shows only extracts from a longer, imaginary film alongside the performance (note: it is not suggested that this is a real film being used, it is definately specially shot for the music video). There shall be very powerful aesthetics (good if filming later in the year as well, or even if weather is hot and sunny there is no danger of it never getting dark outside). The conventional film-noir imagery and signifiers (costume- makeup- shot in black and white- detective and femme fatale characters). The main focus is on the female character.

Starting shot (of the narrative) could a big close up, so big that you can only see her lips or eyes, for example: this would be very enigmatic but also very scopophilic, providing almost sensual/sexual pleasure to the male audience. This sexuality of the character would also be conventional to the film noir genre. We would then follow her through the narrative as she meets with a detective or some such down a dark alleyway/ in a car (more difficult as would have to shoot it carefully as to not show that it was being shot in 20th century, if we wanted to make it look authentic) or even a cafe or bench [would fit with lyrics 'thankyou for coming here' at beginning]. The performance would be intercut with the narrative.

We later see her possibly sitting in a cafe but definately looking out of a window (cue typical genre signifiers- theres lots of this window business in film noir and detective films) , smoking a cigarette, looking almost sad. This is new depth to the character- she is vulnerable or unhappy, which fits with the general powerful 'inspirational' lyrics and melody of the song e.g. 'you are gold' 'always believe in your soul' 'You've got the power to know, you're indestructible'. (Almost as if the band/singer cares about her and is singing to her; will be like when you're feeling a bit down and pretend the singer of a song is singing about you to drive you on).

The detective can be the man who the lyrics 'the main with the suit and the face, remember he was there on the case, now he's in love with you, he's in love with you' are concerning. There can be shots of him maybe doing the typical film-noir thing of trying to get through to the femme fatale to admit she loves him or to 'let him in' (open up emotionally to him). He could be (silently to us, obviously) saying: tell me, tell me etc (or shaking her in that sort of way against a wall so we get the gist), and we see her mouth the words 'no, i don't' or 'i dont love you' in quite a cold way. he leaves her right away, clearly heartbroken. She is alone in the room, we see the door close in the background, and she falls to the ground crying or such.

Performance:

In a room very dark except for the quite low-key lighting, so we have some striking shadows (not ridiculously low-key with ghastly huge, detective-story shadows, just enough to be atmospheric and have aesthetic impact, and also partially to fit in with the narrative: i.e. link the narrative visually to the performance). It could be black and white, also, for these reasons. I think this idea is strong and interesting enough to captivate the audience's attention in black and white.

Some images of what I sort of mean:

(for more, go to http://images.google.com/images?ndsp=20&um=1&hl=en&rls=HPNN,HPNN:2006-30,HPNN:en&q=+site:www.newwavephotos.com+duran+duran for a search result that had alot of appropriate images)

There would be alot more powerful, direct address of the camera in close ups by the frontman, and I think James (who I believe we as a group agreed would be one of the lead singers in our other ideas as he (and also Luke) are good at performance and lip-synching) would look very good in the role.

He would be looking at the camera quite... seriously (though mostly for dramatic effect so not in a cold way).

A bit similar to the shots at '0.17' and '0.47' of this Franz Ferdinand video for 'take me out':

Target audience: I think this band could be quite comparable to Franz Ferdinand, who have quite a new wave feel which was different at the time. They had a wide target audience due to the appeal of their music, which was catchy and accessible. This is certainly similar to Spandau Ballet.

I think this song would be very good as it has alot of variation in pace and tune and rhythm, and I also think the lyrics and atmosphere tie in well with the visual idea.

I think the idea would be quite possible to do, as the performance should not be difficult, and will hopefully be possible to make effective, but I think it will be. The narrative shots, though more difficult, I definately believe to be possible. We can also build upon our prior knowledge of this genre of film that we have from our thriller project as AS level.

------------------------------------------

Feedback on the idea:

Hi Angelastart with the group blog 1st please. you will find a posting from me on there. I suggest as a group you sit down and read it together, then think about moving forward. the spandau ballet sound is problematic as it is so well known and any form of lip synching would be impossible. Ms B

Response: I do think that the lip-synching would be possible. There is already a video for the song in which they do alot of lip-synching (but it was made in the 80s and is very different to our idea so this wouldn't be a problem). We could also cut to the 'narrative' during very difficult vocal pieces.

Here is the video:

I also think that as we will be targetting a different age group (the contemporary teen-20s market) it wont matter that the sound is well known. Most of my peers I spoke to had not even heard the song or the band.

------------------

EDIT: 18th July

Ahh, I think I may have misunderstood Miss Bs concerns regarding the casting/performance part of the idea a little. She raised the good point that James could have potentially been unconvincing as the lead singer as the voice may not convincingly come out of him, as he is only 17 and the lead singer in Spandau Ballet has a very big, rich, mature voice. For this reason we needed to do a test shoot (see group blog) to ascertain whether he would in fact work in the part- if he had not then it could have led to a huge reduction in the quality of the video.

Following the test shoot it was decided by all that, fortunately, it was a convincing casting for the performance. Phew!