Film Noir Practical Task Reflective Analysis

For this task we had to take 5 shots of film sequence that was in the style of 1940s Film Noir. We had to include conventions of film noir such as the venetian blinds, shadows, and low angles. We also had to include a voiceover and flashbacks. During pre production we had to make up a story and plan what camera angles/movements we were going to use and we took a long time to do this because at first we couldn't think of any ideas, but after a while we started coming up with lots of ideas. My part in the production of the film was mainly filming, Rebecca edited it and we both directed it and helped each other with our roles. James did the acting and the voiceover. For our story we used a circular narrative in which at the end of the film we went back to the start and the middle of the film explained what was going on. In the first scene there is a birds eye view of the victim and it goes from an extreme close up to a mid-shot which we did so the audience focuses on the victim and also the birds eye view is used to show that they are a victim. Then we used a dissolve transition to show that there is a flashback, which goes into a long tracking shot of James' character walking down a street and at the end of the shot the camera tilts upwards to a spooky looking tree just to add to the mysteriousness. Then the next shot we did was a close up of a sign saying "strictly no admittance" which we used to show it was a crime scene. After that there is a shot of James looking through some venetian blinds, which are a convention of film noir. The last scene goes back to the start where there is a birds eye view of James but this time we go from a mid shot into an extreme close up as at the end his character dies so we wanted the audience to know this by zooming in on his eyes closing. We also recorded a voice over as this is also a convention of film noir and it helped the audience to know what was going on as it was only a short film sequence. In the end of the film he realises that he was the murderer because he has a split personality and he kills himself because he feels so guilty. During the making of our film the things that went well was the editing because me and Becca worked together but when we were trying to film it took us a long time because James kept walking off and chatting to his friends and we couldn't film anything because he was the actor in our film. So in the future i would work with Becca again because we work well together but James is too unreliable.