Research - Analysis Three (Sunset Blvd) (moved after making typing corrections)

• First title to come up is over the image of a paving slab with the title of the film written on in (sunset blvd), The title to come up however is very unconventional reading "announcing, the most unusual motion picture in many years". This entices the viewer to stay and watch the film straight away, as you want to know just why its so unusual. Note, the camera tilts down and views the slab from a high angle shot. 
• Right from the fade into the picture there is a loud orchestral schoor of quite random music which helps engage the audience. 
• The camera then zooms out and tracks the ground, at the same time all the title credits appear. 
• This goes on for quite sometime due to the amount of people in the production.
• After this a voice over begins giving the plot of the film of a man found dead in a swimming pool (common theme).
• During the tracking of the police cars there are many cuts between shots and fast pans to emphasis the speed of the reaction of the police to the murder. 

Reasearch - Analysing clips of Film Noir from YouTube (moved after making typing corrections)

We decided to more closely at the beginnings of the Film Noirs because of the task set to produce the opening two minuets. To find conventions and similarities that work I will watch five different examples picking out key points of props, Mise en scene, plot lines (if established in opening), music, voice overs, character names and voice accents.

Before however I came across a YouTube clip of a film makers guide to producing a realisiticly produced film Noir.

Production - Test shots (stills)

Pre production - Wrecky before shoot

Production - Shooting

We are shooting our film tonight from 5pm onwards, we have the props we need, however we had to go to plan 'B' on the typewritter issue. To have obtained the type writer we would have had to help another group with lighting, but since im the only one with a lighting certificate i would have had to have done it. However i already had somthing planned for the night already. Besides, obtaining the typewritter wouldnt have been available untill the wednesday, 2 days after our shoot.

Production - Shot list

Fade In

Shot 1:

Opening shot of MICHAEL walking into the room shutting the door behind him self with a whisky glass in hand. MICHAEL switches on the light. He takes off his coat hooks it onto the back of the chair in which he is about to sit. (The shot is a slight low angle situated on the table, at the edge of the camera is the edge of a whisky bottle)

Shot 2:

Shot of MICHEAL putting down his whisky, the glass slides a little across the table (medium close up of glass)

Shot 3:

MICHAEL then peers down at the work in front of him; he picks up the glass once again, drinking the remainder. (As he analyses his work he drums his fingers on the table).

The shot is a low angle looking up at the darkly lit face of MICHAEL.

Shot 4:

Michael then circles some of the points in his notes with the fountain pen. He then clenches his fist and ponders for a moment before he starts writing. As he starts writing the (VO) begins.

This sequence goes from a medium close up of the sheets of paper then tilts slowly up and focuses on the type writer (when he lightly tilts his head up to observe the blank page)

Shot 5:

After the first few words are written there is a reverse shot (extreme close-up) of MICHAEL’S eyes. You see his eyes following the words. He squints.

Shot 6:

As he squints he curls his hand into a fist (previous shot cuts to his hand (close up))

He then relaxes, takes a breath and carries on.

Shot 7: the last line of the text is written is a close up of his face

Shot 8: cut to a low angled shot of him looking at the near empty bottle of whisky. He picks both the glass and bottle up, ponders putting it in the glass, but then drops the glass and finishes it from the bottle.

Shot 9: Slam of both bottle and glass on table. (medium shot) he also stands up and grabs the phone on his desk)

Shot 10: Close up of him diling a number

Shot 11: dialogue on phone (close up of Michael speaking)

Shot 12: Slow downwards tilt revealing a dead man (medium shot) a black silhouette of a man crosses camera

Fade to black

Production - Update

Myself  and Chris have managed to retrieve the props we need for our production, the shooting schedule, health and safety form and script have all been completed, Chris is just finishing off a story board to go along with out production.

Production - Finalised production schedule

Production Schedule 

Contact Numbers 

PRODUCERS

Chris Hales - 07543550041

Marc Timko – 07966380785

Behind the scenes recorder (Chris Maundrell)-

ACTORS

Actor One (MICHAEL LANG) - Kieran Parish

Scene Number – 1 and 2 (both in the same day)

Location - OFFICE

Shooting Begin – 5:50pm

Shooting Ends - 7:40pm (some extra time given in case of mistakes or unavoidable troubles)

Props needed for scene

Type Writer

Whisky Glass

Whisky substitute

Bottle of whisky

Medium sized wooden table

Small wooden chair

Paper

Fountain pen

Costumes Required

MICHEAL’S

Unironed white shirt

Black Braces

Black shoes

Black trousers

Long trench coat (Black)

- Start filming -

Scene one

(its best to film in chronological order due to little dialogue) 

Setting up shot for scene 

Allocated time - 20 minuets 

Walk through of scene with actor

Allocated time: 15 minuets 

Shot One - MICHAEL walks into room

Allocated Time - 10 minuets

Series of shots of MICHAEL at type writer 

Allocated Time - 20 minuets 

Series of shots of MICHAEL on phone 

Allocated Time - 20 minuets 

SCENE TWO

Actors in scene: KERIAN PARISH

                (and a shadow of Someone wearing a hat)

Costume/props

Fake blood

White Shirt

Braces

Black shoes

Two 1940s styled hats

Black Trousers 

                 

Location : Outside house (corner wall)

(only one shot of dead man)

Allocated time: 10 minuets 

Production - Lighting and Camera booked

Yesterday Chris managed to book the camera and lighting kit for the 14th and 15 of Feb, so now we can finalise our production schedules and plans

Production - Update

During last week i achived my lighting certificate so i can use the lighting equipment for our production, chris ha recently done some reaserch into prop hire and location finding whilst i have been working on producing some of the paper work including the production schedule and risk assesment sheets. i have also looked again on ebay at type writers however i have found that its quite hard to buy an affordable one which works. As a last resort me and Chris discussed about the journalist writting down his thoughts on a pad of paper and fountain pen. This, however would be a last resort as we want to keep the type writer convention within our production.

Production - Script draft 4

NEWS FLASH
By MARC TIMKO & CHRIS HALES
Script Draft 4

1. INT – JOURNALISTS WRITING ROOM - DAY


The room is dark with a Smokey hue, it's around 8 in thw morning.. In one side of the room there is medium sized desk with a classic type writer in the centre. Before the desk is a small wooden chair with an overly large coat hooked on the back, and besides the type writer, a used ash tray, a small note book and a fountain pen.


BEGIN TITLES – SUPERIMPOSE


A light from down the hall turns off, and after a few seconds MICHAEL LANG walks in holding a measure of whisky in one hand. He enters the room with an un-tucked and creased shirt with black suspended trousers. He appears to have a straight face and seems uninterested in his drink holding it a slant. He walks up to his desk, gets comfortable and prepares his type writer whilst taking constant sips of his whisky. Once ready he finishes his drink with a large final mouthful.

END TITLES

The First paragraph is written onto the type writer

MICHEAL

(V.O.)
It was the Seventeenth of September 1947 when a successful young man by the name of John Leyden was


MICHAEL stops wipes his brow and takes a obvious gulp

MICHAEL

(CONT’D)

Brutally murdered in cold blood by an unknown offender, reason unknown.

Again MICHEAL pauses; he squints his eyes a little and slowly clenches his right fist. CUT TO hand.

MICHEAL

(CONT’D)
And it’s my Job to find out why. Because the worst thing was, he was my friend.


He takes the near empty bottle besides his table and takes another large draught of whisky before slamming the finished bottle on the table, quickly standing; he grabs his old fashioned phone dials a number quickly.

MICHEAL

(Causual)Tell the Boss I might be late for work.

MICHEAL pause and listens to the man on the phone

MICHEAL

(ANNOYED)
And don't tell me it's the 5th time this week. Stories like this don't write 'em selves you know, you need some eager beaver like myself, to do all the work for you (40s Slang).




He slams down the phone, grabs his coat, notebook and pen and rushes out of the door slamming it behind him.

FADE TO BLACK

 2. EXT – MURDERSCENE OF VICTIM - DAY 

It is late afternoon. A young man is lying on the floor with his mouth open a little. He has three bullet wounds to the chest and an apparent broken nose with blood streaming from it. There’s a shadow of a man on the wall in the background holding a gun in his right hand and a cigarette in his mouth, he is also wearing a 1940s styled het. The man appears to look at his victim for a short while before the sound of (S.F.X.) sirens appears in the background; the man flees from the scene.

Production - Health and saftey form, still needs a few finer details

Health and Safety

Scene 1 – Location – Office, Chris's house

Hazard	Who’s involved?	Risk	Control
Light	Actors and filming crew	Light gets very hot quickly, so there may be the risk of an item setting alight if too close.	Isolate lighting rig away from any items at risk of setting alight. Remember to always use the serge protector
Wires	Actors and filming crew	Wires from equipment such as microphones and lighting rig may cause the risk of someone tripping over	Try reducing the risk by laying the wires flat to the ground. Also inform actors and crew about the possible risk.

Scene 2 – location – Corner of Brickwall (night)

Light	Actors and filming crew	Light gets very hot quickly, so there may be the risk of an item setting alight if too close. If raining do not use rig outside! (rig may get damaged or may cause a electric shock)	Isolate lighting rig away from any items at risk of setting alight. Remember to always use the serge protector If raining do not use rig outside!
Wires	Actors and filming crew	Wires from equipment such as microphones and lighting rig may cause the risk of someone tripping over	Try reducing the risk by laying the wires flat to the ground. Also inform actors and crew about the possible risk.
Passing citizens/children	Camera man Actors Director Other roles on shoot.	Children may mess around in front of camera, putting equipment at risk	Get a member of the film crew to seal down the area of filming so pedestrians cant intersect filming.

Production - Production schedule template ready to be filled out

Shooting schedule (Template)

Contact Numbers 

PRODUCERS

Chris Hales - 07543550041

Marc Timko – 07966380785

Behind the scenes recorder (Chris Maundrell)-

ACTORS

Actor One (MICHEAL LANG) - Kieran Parish

Scene Number – 1

Location -

Shooting Begin –

Shooting Ends -

Props needed for scene

Type Writer

Whisky Glass

Whisky substitute

Bottle of whisky

Medium sized wooden table

Small wooden chair

Paper

Fountain pen

Costumes Required

MICHEAL’S

Unironed white shirt

Black Braces

Black shoes

Black trousers

Long trench coat (Black)

- Start filming -

Shot –

Time Allocated for shot -

Production - Second Draft of script (Grammer improvements and name given to victim)

FADE IN

1.     INT – JOURNALISTS WRITING ROOM

The room is dark with a Smokey hue. In one side of the room there is medium sized desk with a classic type writer in the centre. Before the desk is a small wooden chair with an overly large coat hooked on the back, and besides the type writer, a used ash tray, a small note book and a fountain pen.

BEGIN TITLES – SUPERIMPOSE

A light from down the hall turns off, and after a few seconds MICHAEL LANG walks in holding a measure of whisky in one hand. He enters the room with an un-tucked and creased shirt with black suspended trousers. He appears to have a straight face and seems uninterested in his drink holding it a slant. He walks up to his desk, gets comfortable and prepares his type writer whilst taking constant sips of his whisky. Ones ready he finishes his drink with a large final mouthful.

END TITLES

The First paragraph is written onto the type writer

MICHEAL

(VO)

It was the Seventeenth of September 1947 when a successful young man by the name of John Leyden was

MICHAEL stops wipes his brow and takes a obvious gulp

MICHAEL

(CONT’D)

 Brutally murdered in cold blood by an unknown offender.

Again MICHEAL pauses; he squints his eyes a little and slowly clenches his right fist.

             MICHEAL

                (CONT’D)

And it’s my Job to find out why.

He takes the near empty bottle besides his table and takes another large draught of whisky before slamming the finished bottle on the table, quickly standing; he grabs his old fashioned phone dials a number quickly.

MICHEAL

 Tell Louie I might be late for work

He slams down the phone, grabs his coat, notebook and pen and rushes out of the door slamming it behind him.

2.     EXT – MURDERSCENE OF VICTIM

A young man is lying on the floor with his mouth open a little. He has three bullet wounds to the chest and an apparent broken nose with blood streaming from it. There’s a shadow of a man on the wall in the background holding a gun in his right hand and a cigarette in his mouth, he is also wearing a 1940s styled het. The man appears to look at his victim for a short while before the sound of (SFX) sirens appears in the background; the man scarpers from the scene.    

                                          FADE OUT

Production - First draft of script

FADE IN

1.  INT – JOURNALISTS WRITING ROOM

The room is dark with a Smokey hue. In one side of the room there is medium sized desk with a classic type writer in the centre. Before the desk is a small wooden chair with an overly large coat hooked on the back, and besides the type writer, a used ash tray, a small note book and a fountain pen.

BEGIN TITLES – SUPERIMPOSE

A light from down the hall turns off, and after a few seconds MICHAEL LANG walks in holding a measure of whisky in one hand. He comes enters the room with an un-tucked and creased shirt with black suspended trousers. He appears to have a straight face and seems uninterested in his drink holding it a slant. He walks up to his desk, gets comfortable and prepares his type writer whilst taking constant sips of his whisky. Ones ready he finishes his drink with a large final mouthful.

END TITLES

The First paragraph is written onto the type writer

MICHEAL

(VO)

It was the Seventeenth of September 1947 when a successful young man by the name of _______ was

MICHAEL stops wipes his brow and takes a obvious gulp

MICHAEL

(CONT’D)

 Brutally murdered in cold blood by an unknown offender.

Again MICHEAL pauses; he squints his eyes a little and slowly clenches his right fist.

             MICHEAL

                (CONT’D)

And it’s my Job to find out why.

He takes the near empty bottle besides his table and takes another large draught of whisky before slamming the finished bottle on the table, quickly standing; he grabs his old fashioned phone dials a number quickly.

MICHEAL

 Tell Louie I might be late for work

He slams down the phone, grabs his coat, notebook and pen and rushes out of the door slamming it behind him.

2.  EXT – MURDERSCENE OF VICTIM

A young man is lying on the floor with his mouth open a little. He has three bullet wounds to the chest and an apparent broken nose with blood streaming from it. There’s a shadow of a man on the wall in the background holding a gun in his right hand and a cigarette in his mouth, he is also wearing a 1940s styled het. The man appears to look at his victim for a short while before the sound of sirens appears in the background; the man scarpers from the scene.    

                                         FADE OUT

Production - Final Idea desision

Me and Chris sat down over one of our free lessons the discuss which of the two ideas we would like to start producing, we settled down on our first initial idea due to having a good idea and vision of what we wanted it to look like. We have also sat down and desided which roles we would take in planning the production. The roles have been listed and given out in the previous post

Production - Scripting Lesson

Within the lesson we were taught how to layout our scripts and  how to write them with correct avbreviations. We were also taught new terms and what they mean.

Perethetical - A discription of emotion, however only use if needed

(VO) - Voice Over
(OS) - Off Screen but still within the scene
(BEAT) - Tells the actor when to take a break in talking, for example a phone call which is only heard from one side --> Hello (BEAT)
(Continuing) - Dialogue between Scenes

Script Transitions

Start - Fade In
End - Fade Out
Dissolves
Cuts
Smash cuts - Action isn't sequential
Quick Cuts - Flashbacks and sudden close ups

How to write a montage;

(montage)
scene #
scene #
scene #

When writing a script you must give your scene numbers so you know when your shooting and what order the footage you have shot in.

Scene Discription

 (B.G) - Background
(CGI) - Computer Generated Image
(F.G) Foreground
(S.F.X) Sound Effect
(S.P.F.X) - Special Effects
(MOS) - Mute Of Sound
(POV) - Point Of View Shot

Production - Assigning roles

So far, between myself and Chris we have worked together on our plot ideas, and indevidualy on our research which we joined together at the end to discuss key atributes we would need to put into our film Noir.

Now however we need to spread the work load, however we need to keep in touch regularly to assess what each of us has produced. The Roles we have Assigned to one another follow below;

• Producing the story board - Chris Hales
• Producing the Production schedule-
• Risk assesment -
• Film Recce - Chris Hales
• DVD Box Cover - Chris Hales  
• Film synopsis - Myself
• Finalised Character Bio - Myself
• Script - Myself

Pre production - Characters needed for opening (Idea Two)

For the opening we would only need one Actor (The detective), the caller is not established due to the audience not being able to hear the other end of the phone call.

Detective

Name: Harry Marelowe (Reaserched Film Noir characters names and conjoined a popular First and sirname together)

Characteristics and Atributes

• He is a middle class private detective who lives in New York in a small flat
• Lives on his own
• Enjoys drinking spirits and smoking
• Flat is quite messy and disorganised

Props and costume

• Wears a shirt, braces and black trousers (wearing black and white)
• Before attempting to go out he puts on a trenchcoat and hat
• Owns a small pistol
• Usualy holidng a ciggarrette

Pre production - Plot Idea (Idea Two)

The secound idea me and Chris came up with revolves around a private detective who is trying to ultimately track down a Fraudster who ends up also being a multiple killer. The opening revolves around a Middle class male character waking up and getting ready to go out socialising down the pub, however just before he walks out of the door he is interupted by a annonomoys call from a wealthy upper class man ( You dont however know this), who is asking for his help in preventing a annonomous villain from stealing large sums of his money. The Detective reluctantly excepts his offer after saying "you will be paid handsomely" (the detective repeats this when said to him over the phone.

Pre production - Finer Details (Idea One)

Now that we have created a draft story board for our first idea we need to look into the finer details of the opening, mostly of which are props and editing.

Props 


The most important prop in my opinion (apart from the costume) would be the old fashioned type writer. I have looked on the internet for examples which are relatively cheap to purchase. I found the best place to purchase classic props are auction sights such as ebay due to there being a vast range of items for cheap prices.

Here's an example which costs under £20 (postage and packaging being the main downfall) Its also nice that its German, which would fit with the film Noir Genre

Other smaller props such as whisky glasses and blind will also need to be purchased/ used to create a real authentic Film Noir Feel. 

Pre production - Story Board (Idea one)

I produced the storyboard to help in planning the rest of our planning work, like the production scheduling and script. It will also help when we get to the editing of the final movie as we will be able to see where each of the pieces of footage should go in the sequence. Please not that this is not the final story board which is going to be used, it was made to help produce an idea for the first scene.

Pre production - Characters in opening (Idea one)

We only need two characters for the opening, the murdered victim and the journalist. Now, I am going to produce to Character Profiles to fit both of the acting roles. I created one, which i made earlier which still fits the idea in which we settled on, i still however need to create one for the murdered victim.


Newspaper journalist 


Name :Michael Lang - I researched typical names from the 1940s - 1950s and looked at popular names used in film Noir, of which included a regularly used name of Michael

job/occupation - A Newspaper journalist, who after discovering a murder of a close friend decides to use his journalism skills to help him self and the police discover who committed the murder.

Appearance and attributes

• low/middle class newspaper journalist who lives in a flat in new york
• Smokes 
• has no enemy's until plot unfolds and gets involved in discovering the murder 
• wears unironed shit with brown trousers and brasses 
• Appears quite lonely due to living on his own in his flat
• When out in the city, wears a large trenchcoat

The murdered Victim 

Name: James Short 

Job: A Young intelegent trainee who has a bright future ahead of himself, however gets involved in his dads troubles and gets murdered by a organisation to inflict as much pain as possible to his father.

Appearance and attributes:

• Wears a smart shirt, jacket and shoes with a casual hat
• When seen, he has 2 bullet hole wounds his hat has also fallen off and his mouth is open towards the floor 

You dont find out much about who he is personaly due to him being killed off very quickly, however from the way he dresses you can assume chracateristics.