Top 10 Movies

Freeze Frames

Freeze Frames
Our teacher wrote out a short noir opening scene. She then asked us to re-create it using freeze-frame images for each scene in any order we liked.

Buster Rayburn is in a prison cell His voice over can be heard 'Here I am again. They said I wouldn't make iton the outside. If only i didn't meet that dame'

Flashback to buster walking out of jail

Buster is drunk in a bar on his own when a gangster who says they have a job for him. Buster turns the job down

The gangster's girlfriend Lacey Lane appears. Buster can't take take his eyes off her 

Back to buster in jail. Voice over 'if only I had walked away when i had the chance'

Buster is back at the same bar drinking bourbon. Lacey lane walks in a whispers seductively in his ear

Lacey gives buster a gun and a kiss

Buster shoots the gangster as he leaves his house one morning

Buster and Lacey meet in his dingy hotel. She thanks him and says that she will run away with him that night 

Buster waits for Lacey at the railway station. The cops turn up and arrest him. Lacey can be seen in the background. She has obviously reported him to the police 

Buster quickly grabs a police mans gun after a struggle, manages to fire a shot which hits Lacey and she dies 

Back to buster in jail. His voice over can be heard 'You see dames always bring a man down. She wont hurt anymore suckers now'

Media and Me

Media and Me

This is a vlog about how i sue media and how it affects me. This is my first blog on this blog so I wasn't very confident and I stuttered a little

What is Film Noir?

Film Noir is a type of film that appeared around the 1930s. It originated from American and is a dark and mysterious film. Noir brought the standard 'gender specific' roles to TV and film. These included the Everyman, Femme fatale, henchmen and the villain. Film Noir became popular during and after the war, this was because everyone from the war had become to used to death that people decided to make films playing around with death. And this was ok because the war was a depressing period for everyone watching.

MAIN CHARACTERS

Everyman

The Everyman is our main protagonist/narrator. He is as his name explains, an every-man, he has a normal job with a normal life. He was designed this way to be relatable to anyone watching the film/show. He is usually at the wrong end of the stick when it comes to being betrayed and ending up being killed at the end. This is in most conventional Noir, but sometimes he survives or just get sent to prison. Although sometimes the Everyman survives, otherwise all the 'real everymen' would dislike the fact that the character they relate to, always dies

Femme Fatale

The Femme Fatale, this is always the woman to seduce the Everyman, normally she is asking him to do a favour for her and uses her seductive ways to convince him. The Femme Fatale was created, because during the war women had started to help in the factories. With this they gained authority and so Noir was made to give the Everyman authority, and the woman to just be seducative and causing all the problems.

The Villain/Big Boss

The Boss is a character, normally presented as the Femme Fatale's husband or employer.  He is the general  bad guy, he has lots of wealth and dangerous henchmen to do his bidding. This character of Noir normally end up being killed or sent to Jail. This was for everyone watching to get a sense of justice, rather than the villain prevailing. Although in some Noirs we see out of the Boss' perspective and feel empathy for hi, rather than the Everyman



OTHER CHARACTER (could be included)

Henchman

The Henchman are usually employed by the villain, this could be to keep the identity of villain secret. They usually come in a group of two or more, otherwise they tend to be assassins rather than a Henchmen






The Girl Next Door

The girl next door tends to be a false attraction from the Femme Fatale. When the Everyman has been broken, due to the Femme Fatale causing the problems, he goes to the Girl Next Door and she helps him

Examples of Film Noir

Research Into Film Noir

What Is Film Noir

Film Noir can be a black and white Thriller from the 1940's, the reason I say 'can' is because there are now more recent ones, called neo-noir, where there are the same type of movies but in colour. These films could be violent and sometimes graphic, the reason for this was because the war was happening and people were used to the idea of guns and war meaning they wont find it as distressing, due to them coming to terms with what was happening.

Generic Conventions

Camera: Lots of different camera shots were used such as panning, close shot, zoom and many others. For example; In 'The Killers' a man is running to warn his friend. He is running down the road and jumping over fences, all the meanwhile the camera keeps level and follows him, this is called 'panning' The composition of the camera means what is inside of the shot and how it is arranged. Another example would be; If it was meant to be a scary shot of a house, the camera would be quite low giving the house a towering, menacing feel. And it would be very shady or have lots of shadows so that people wouldn't want to go near it if it was dark

Editing: Editing tends to happen when all of the movie has been shot and it just needs to be put together in the right arrangement to tell the story correctly. In normal films you would have the default story and then the reveal at the end, but with film noir they can tend to start at the end so that you now want to know why it has happened, rather than how it happened. If a film is changing scene a classic way to edit it would to be cutting to another scene, but some films, like star wars, use fades where is fades from left to right or vice versa. 

Characters: Noir's tend to include classic characters; Everyman (anti-hero), Femfatal, Villain, Henchmen/man. The Everyman usually is the main character, but on the occasion the Femfatal or Villain can be the main character, and he is the one being twisted by the Femfatal to do her biding. This was portrayed by the Femfatal seducing the Everyman and asking him to steal or do something to annoy the Villain. In the Killers, the Everyman is Swede and the Femfatal is Kitty, she asks Swede to help her steal a load of money from her lover. Swede gets the money for Kitty but then she runs off and leaves Swede in trouble, but in most film Noir's the Everyman tends to die and the Femfatal dies or gets punished in some way. Finally is there is one more character who can be included, The Girl Next Door, this is the woman who is in love with the Everyman but he doesn't love her until it all goes wrong and he turns to her for help at the end. An example of this is the Black Dahlia where Bucky turns to Kay when he has no where else.

Sound: Sound can cover many different things but the mains ones are; narrating, voices/conversations and music/instruments. The music matches the scene happening, so if a car chase is happening the music will  be quite frantic and go to the speed of the chase/scene. If the Femfatal is trying to seduce the Everyman the music could slow down and start playing smooth Jazz of some sort of 'sexy' music. Finally the narration could be a crucial part, the narration tends to be from the Everyman/main character and they could give some backstory or dialog to sum up what is happening or how they are feeling about the situation/scene

Home Alone Sweded Trailer

Home Alone Sweded Trailer: Summer Project

Our Assignment

Over the summer holiday we were assigned work to make a sweded trailer of any film we likes withing the past thirty five years.

What a Sweded Trailer Is

First you have to pick a trailer withing the past thirty five years, we picked home alone. Then you have to re-make the whole trailer using your own camera and no budget. It has to be all filmed so no getting and sound effects from the internet or adding in music over the top, it would have to be all vocal or done by an instrument played by yourself.

Who Was Involved

Me, Jack Cullum and Fabian Harrison chose Home Alone, we used Fabian's camera, Jack's idea and my house for the filming. We had help from four others; Mitchell, Greg, Max and Thomas who were used as other roles we couldn't play or extras.

Extra Notes

It was all filmed in one day, and this is fine because the assignment said it has to be cheap and cheesy, meaning we weren't expected to spend week or two on it.

Welcome To My Blog

Welcome to my Blog,

This Blog is for my AS Media Studies in Sixth form.
I will be posting things such as blogs, videos, links and anything else that is related to media and i can upload


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Jude Clark