AS MEDIA FILM NOIR

Killing Conscience Final Edit

'Killing Conscience' Evaluation

1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
Many film noir’s begin with a typically male protagonist, usually looking moody and hard done by, confessing or remembering a story that still ales him to this day; this is played out through flashback and voiceover. Double Indemnity is a classic example of this opening, as is Citizen Kane, although the protagonist Charles Foster Kane does not tell the story himself – the character Jerry Thompson does instead. The usual setting is outside on the streets of a city accompanied by the effects of darkness and rain, or within the city’s many clubs, bars or small apartment buildings. Theses sets are often decorated to look grimy and seedy. This is done by using illicit props like guns, bottles of alcohol, shot glasses cigarettes and cards and by miserable or angry looking background actors to help create a feeling of despair. The lighting is always dark and the contrast between light and dark is normally quite apparent as it helps to reflect the character’s mood and/or characteristics and also enables the set to look more dingy and claustrophobic. This is due to the constant use of key lighting. At the very start of ‘Killing Conscience’ after finding out that Kira’s character is dead, Ben’s character paces the room fervently before sitting down and going into voiceover. This is loosely derived from the opening to the 1945 film Detour. As both Ben’s character and Tom Neal’s character Al Roberts are frustrated with what’s happened to them, however while Al Roberts shouts at the man putting on a song at the jukebox, Ben’s character simply paces and tries frantically to search for a cigarette to ease the stress. The similarity becomes more apparent when a close up shows both men’s distressed faces, and the lighting changes from natural lighting to a spotlight, cuing the voiceover. The women in Film Noir are often femme-fatales such as Barbara Stanwyck’s character Phyllis Dietrichson in Double Indemnity. However rather than have Kira’s character purposely frame Ben’s character for murder through seduction, the modern twist is that Kira tries to seduce more than one of the male characters yet not one takes the bait and only through dying does it seem that Kira gets her revenge. Nevertheless in keeping classic Film Noir, every female featured in our film are seductive and/or amoral. For example whilst asking Ben to dance, Kira is pushed out of the way by Amy, and when Emily is seen throughout flirting with Cameron.

2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
‘Killing Conscience’ is based on today’s youth culture of drugs, binge drinking and apathy. The film’s characters try to represent typical late teens. Although this could be seen as a negative or stereotypical view of teenagers, our main aim was to create character’s as true to life as possible – realism was the key concept that we wanted to stick to, and only stray away from in a few instances when we wanted to use stylistics in keeping with film noir, such as the lighting or voiceover. Because the character’s speech was kept as realistic as possible, there is a lot of swearing, causing the film to be most likely certified 15, however this does not pose a problem as it is in keeping with the target audience of fifteen to twenty five year olds. The film’s motive is to shock young people into thinking about the dangers of alcohol and drug abuse, as the entirety of our film would show; that not only did a young woman lose her life but also Ben does when he is arrested for her death even though he can’t remember what happened that night let alone whether he killed her. We do this through basing the film around people of a similar age so that the chosen audience can relate to the characters. The women in ‘Killing Conscience’ are strong and defiant, which reflects the way women are seen in today’s society, however; in keeping with the film noir style they also use their sexuality and are all potential love-interests to the fellow male characters. The message that our film tries to convey to the audience is that the lifestyle of today’s youth can easily get out of hand through enough drink and drugs, and that it is not glamorous, as the film in it’s entirety is about a teenage boy who battles through a murder trial not knowing whether in fact he is guilty or not, all because of alcohol intoxication. We hoped that this film will act as a warning to the target audience.

3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
The most likely film company to distribute out film would be Working Title. Working Title is famed for making non-offensive romantic comedies such as Love Actually and Four Weddings and a Funeral which they see as ‘risk free’. However for every two mainstream films Working Title make a year they release up to two films that are realistic and unconventional such as Catherine Hardwicke’s 2003 film Thirteen and David Leland’s 1987 film Wish You Were Here, both film are about youth and deal with topics such as promiscuity and crime. Working Title is owned by the American company Universal Studios and must therefore ask permission to make any film costing more than 35 million dollars. As our film would concentrate solely on the story and therefore rely mainly on the acting and lighting not on effects, I’m sure our film would easily cost less than 35 million dollars, making Working Title a probable candidate for distributing it. I believe that the film would get its biggest cinema audience in the UK as statistics show that Britain has the third highest teenage binge drinking in the whole of Europe, meaning more young people will be able to relate to the characters and issues within my group’s film. Channel 4 is noted as financing and showing gritty, realistic British dramas and as this is exactly how we’d describe our film, this channel would be ideal to exhibit it.

4. Who would be the audience for your media product?
As mentioned in Question 2, the demographic that we aimed for to watch ‘Killing Conscience’ is fifteen to twenty five years old. This was because our brief was to attract a new audience to film noir and by just taking the stylistics and themes from film noir and putting them in a modern setting; it was already geared toward late teens and early adults. Taking into account that this demographic of people, both male and female, are the reason that TV programmes such as Skins and The Inbetweeners are so popular, helped us to know what type of entertainment they were looking for, and that they like to watch what they experience on a daily basis, just slightly more dramatised. We found this out in the primary research that we carried out, five out of the ten people asked said that they look for realistic characters above all other types. We surveyed five girls and five boys in their late teens about what they looked for in a film. The results vastly helped us to know what to include in our film. Through this we also found that only three out of the ten people knew what film noir was, indicating that they probably wouldn’t be very entertained had we simply recreated an old film noir. When we viewed the finished ‘Killing Conscience’ to our class, all of whom fit our targeted demographic, the reaction was positive. The biggest point that they made was they liked how our sequence doesn’t contain a gun, they said it seemed a lot more realistic and therefore scarier which was our desired affect. However many of them were confused as to whether Kira’s character was dead or just unconscious. If we were to go back and do it again I would make sure that Ben’s character checked Kira’s pulse so that it was obvious to the audience and wouldn’t leave them confused.

5. How did you attract/address your audience?
The opening to any film is the most important part to the audience and is usually the deciding factor on whether the viewer is intrigued enough to carry on watching or is bored and no longer continues. As a group we bared this is mind when coming up with our idea. From the start our tactic to keep the audience hooked was to shock them almost straight away. Taking into account that Film Noir is almost always involved around crime and also being aware that this film was to be a modern film noir, intended to appeal to a fresh new audience we decided to put a dead body in the modern setting of a party. In order to shock and specifically to appeal to our target audience through dark humour, our initial idea was: to have a party in full swing and one of the teenage guests not feeling too well heading to a bedroom and passing out on the bed only to discover someone already inside – a dead body. However on reflection we all agreed that this was leaning more toward teen-slasher flick rather than contempory noir. We arrived at our final idea which we used in the film by keeping the same concept but making Ben’s character wake up next to the dead body and not automatically realise, we felt that this would intrigue the audience more and even make him a suspect.
My job within the group was director/producer which enabled me to write the synopsis and screenplay and also gave me the role of overseeing the general filming. When constructing the screenplay I chose to make the speech between the teenagers as casual as possible in order to keep it as realistic as possible. I also chose to write an equal amount of males and females into the film as I did not want one sex to be more prominent than the other for we wanted this film to appeal to both sexes.

6. What have you learnt about technologies from the process of constructing this product?
I found setting up this blog very useful for keeping my work up to date and for sharing images and posts with the rest of my group. YouTube was also very useful for this as it enabled us to upload videos that we could then share amongst the group. Adding to this we used Hotmail on a daily basis so that we could keep in contact with each other in order to keep up to date with new drafts or versions of work that we had individually uploaded to the blog. In the production itself we used a Canon HV30 DV camcorder along with the Velbon DV-7000 tripod, which I very much enjoyed as it helped me to understand the importance of framing and to appreciate just how fluid movements must be when doing a tilt or a tracking shot. I had an extensive chance to use this camera when our cinematographer was absent during our final day of shooting ‘Killing Conscience’, as I took on this role when Ben and Kira were in shot. The light on the front of the camera came in very useful too as it helped to create a spotlight on Ben – which helped to make him seem guiltier, during his voiceover when he sat on the bed. This coupled with the Yoya Shotgun microphone and boom pole really gave a profession look, feel and audio to our film when we came to the edit, which for that we used Final Cut Pro by Apple. I had never used an editing programme before so I was surprised to find that it was relatively simple to navigate.

7. Looking back at your preliminary task, what do you feel you have learnt in the progression from it to the full product?
Looking back at the preliminary task I am happy to say that my camera skills have significantly improved. In the preliminary task we broke the 180 degree line rule which now seems impossible to do even if I tried. No such issues came up during the filming of ‘Killing Conscience’ as I was constantly aware of where my audience was whilst filming. My preliminary task highlighted how many of my shots were full of dead space. However my growth in film ability is evident in ‘killing Conscience’ as all the shots I filmed were tight and all objects in shot were slightly off center – the rule of thirds. Unlike in the preliminary exercise where the sound was crackly or too quiet or unfortunately quite a lot – or the boom being in shot, I have managed to learn to hold the boom out of shot but still close to the source of the sound and to keep it still. This makes for a much better audio when playing it back. I’d like to think that I have progressed a lot, I now feel very confident with filming and I hope it shows, as I am very proud of both myself and my group for ‘Killing Conscience’.

Initial Idea for My Own Film Noir

The scene opens in the early hours of the morning around 4am, in the front room of a house. From the various alcohol bottles and cans strewn around the room and young people in their early 20’s either passed out on the floor or occupying the sofa, looking ill, it is clear that there has been a party. A rather bedraggled guy called Dan gets up and tells the room that he is going to bed, as he leaves the room and descends the stairs, the camera follows him. He walks into the master bedroom, and falls onto the bed exhausted, but then realises that there is already someone inside so he pulls back the cover. A young man named Cameron lies inside dead covered in blood – he has been murdered. A close up of Dan’s reaction followed by a big white flash of light leads to a flash-back sequence of the party in its early stages and the possible killers and motives.

I'd want the overall story to be about the investigation into Cameron's death, as a key aspect of film noir is crime. I'd want all the characters that were introduced in the flashbacks to be the suspects that would be investigated throughout the film. All of which I'd want to be unsavoury and not very nice individuals, much like the evil characters seen throughout noir. I want a femme-fatale charcter too and I'd make sure that she was dressed accordingly; red dress, lips and nails, revealing dress and a bad, amoral attitude.

Primary Research

We asked ten random people, aged 15 - 21] their views of films so we could could an idea what would attract our audience for our film opening we are making. We found out from the results that horror and thriller put together are popular. Even though romance came out on top, together horror and thriller came as the next popular. They believed that an opening of a film is important and a cliffhanger ending is good. [which is perfect because this is what we planned to do] Not many people had heard of noir, which meant we had to cater to their needs more. For example giving in a very modern twist to noir characteristics so it was still interesting to the young audience we are trying to attract. Themes of film were all quite popular, but murder, parties and fights came out on top. Two of those, murder and parties, is what sort of theme we want to use for our film anyhow.
So from our results, the film we are planning to make should be perfect for the audience we are making our opening for.

by Kira knight, Art Director

Group Film Noir Script: Version 1

EXT. HOUSE. NIGHT
A row of detached houses all similar in appearance, sit side by side. They are old and run down, much like the surrounding area. It is the early hours of the morning so it is very dark and completely silent, the only light comes from the street lights standing in front of the houses and one solitary house which has all the downstairs lights on.

INT. HOUSE. LOUNGE. NIGHT
The room is large, with two large stained sofas opposite each other. It is clear that a family live here from the photo on the wall. However seven clearly intoxicated young adults lay around the room. Three of them crowd on one sofa while one very ill man lays spread out over the other. The rest of them lay or sit on the floor. Low diegetic music plays from the stereo. It is clear that there has been a party. Alcoholic cans and bottles litter the floor – all of them empty. One very uncomfortable looking guy named DAN, propped up against the side of the sofa, stands up.

DAN
(Irritably)
Fuck this; I’m off to find a bed.

GIRL ON SOFA
There’s no beds left.

DAN
I don’t care. I’ll push someone out if I have too. I’m not sleeping on that floor, someone puked on it – I can smell it.

GIRL ON SOFA
Well good luck, Dan.

DAN
Night.

DAN leaves the room.

INT. HOUSE. HALLWAY. NIGHT

DAN walks out of the lounge and stumbles up the stairs. The hallway too is littered with bottles and cans. DAN tries his hardest to avoid them on the stairs.

INT. AMY’S HOUSE. SPARE ROOM. NIGHT

DAN enters the spare room, looking exhausted – the bed appears to be empty, breathing a happy sigh DAN throws himself happily onto the bed. He realises there is someone inside.

DAN
Sorry man, I didn’t realise there was anyone in here.

DAN pulls back the covers to find CAMERON inside covered in blood. He is dead, and has obviously been murdered.

NB. We originally filmed this, however when we viewed the shots back, they didn't seem right so we decided to come up with a new idea and to refilm in a new relocation - that's how we came to our final script and film.