Editing session two.

Our second editing session went well as we added all of the footage we filmed and it all work really well with the footage we had before. We decided not to use the close up shots as they didnt turn out as well as we wanted them to. We also added the music to our piece of footage, we chose Mozart as it added to the elegance to the mise en scene. We recorded the dialogue with Scarlett, we decided to do this with a mp3 recorder, this worked very well. When we added the dialogue we decided to add it later on the the footage as we wanted the piano to play for a while to create enigma and to again add to the elegance of the mise en scene.

Filming session two.

Our second filming session didn't go as well as the first session did as we did not plan it as well as we did the first time. We spent a lot of time talking about what shots to do, this was time consuming, however when we had a clear idea of what we wanted to do the filming went smoothly and we left with some very good footage. We also filmed a voyeuristic long shot from the mysterious women looking at the femme fatal which creates enigma as this is the first time there is any form of a shot of the mysterious women. Now we have completed the filming, this is a big relief!

Planning our second filming session.

We met only for a short amount of time to talk about what was going to happen and what shots we need to film and in what locations in the hotel. We have decided to re-film the footage that had continuity errors, we will replace this with a close up of the femme fatals elegant legs walking. We will also film a close up shots of a note being passed across the bar as we did not cover this in the last filming session. We also want to get some close ups of the femme fatals eyes, lips and hands as we want to break up our footage a bit and we want to add a variety of shots to the footage.

Editing session one.

The first editing session went well, we began by deleting irrelevant footage and then putting the footage we wanted to keep into the correct order. We then began to cut our footage so that each clip ran smoothly into each other. We found that there was some footage that was irrelevant, we also found that there was a continuity error. This was when the femme fatal walks along a corridor, she has a scarf hanging over her arms, in the next shot she has it over her shoulders and then in the final shot she had it hanging back around her arms. We decided this was to risky to keep in as we would loose marks for it. Therefore we decided in our second filming session to re-film that particular piece of footage. The only problem we did encounter with the editing was with a piece of footage that jumped for some reason, we could work out why it was jumping and after a long time of trying to fix the problem we succeeded.

Filming session one.

Today we met at the Imperial hotel at 6.00pm to begin filming, earlier on in the day we had completed our story board therefore we were able to get on with the filming straight away rather than pondering over where to film and what shots to use. The first session of filming went really well and we filmed almost everything. This meant there will be less to film in the second session. We also filmed what parts we did various times to reduce the chance of lots of re-filming. It was a time consuming process though because we were obviously filming in a public place which meant people repeatedly stepped in the shot. I am happy we did a schedule to follow because that made us more organized and we had no confusion with what part we had to film next. Though out the filming session we made some changes as seeing some angles on the tape is different to seeing them on paper. Therefore some improvement and changes were made whilst filming but generally we covered lots of footage that is of good quality.

Planning our first filming session.

We have prepared our story boards, equipment, props and costume lists. We are now ready to film, we have set a time and date with the hotel for our filming to take place. We didn't have many financial costs for our film opening, we only needed around £20 as we could borrow most of our props and costumes,the only costs were travel costs and we had to buy the black trilby. We our now ready to begin filming.

Actors.

We struggled to find actors to take part in our film opening, when we did find someone willing our schedules clashed. Therefore Freya played the part of the femme fatale as it was far more simple rather then working around other peoples schedules. The other female character was our friend, Scarlett, who also did the voiceover. This worked out well as she understood the story due to her playing a major part in recording the voice over. The only downfall of our actors were that we looked young so it lacked realism. We originally planned to have two professional actors in our film, Paris selley and Tom Riley, but their schedules clashed with our own.

Dialogue and sound.

Our main soundtrack is a voiceover. We originally planned on it being a males voice, in an american accent. However no one was willing to do it except our friend Scarlett. As she is American it helped to fit with the genre however when it came to lowering the pitch and tone of her voice to it didn't sound right. We came to the conclusion that we change the story line to a female love story opposed to a male one, this therefore creating more enigma. The voice over said: "Every time i saw her my heart stopped. She was stunning. She had long golden hair. Her voice caressed my ears like velvet. I first saw her in december. The weather was icy and crisp. It was at the imperial hotel. She was sat at the opposite side of the bar to me slowly sipping a martini. I didnt know who she was, or why she was there. But i knew that she was beautiful... and i would do anything to get her." The content of the voiceover is clearly about love but it also creates enigmas. Why were they at the imperial? How did they have a connection? Will she do anything dangerous to get her? The second sound piece we have is a piece of classical music from mozart. We chose this because it adds to the elegance of the main character. It is also synchronous with the mise-en-scene of a grand hotel.

Costume 2.

This black suit is similar to what we want the male character to wear as I think it represents the genre well. It also represents sophistication and class, this therefore again fitting well with the genre.

We again for the same reasons wanted the male character to wear a black trilby hat as it would represent the genre well.

Costume 1.

This black dress is similar to the type of dress that we want the femme fatale to wear. We want the dress to be black as it represents mystery and elegance. A black dress is traditionally worn in the evening, therefore suggesting she is a women of the night.

We also wanted her to wear a black scarf as it added to the elegance of the costume.

Prop and equipment list.

Prop list

• Two perfume bottles
• Note
• Book
• Necklace
• Black bag
• Bracelet
• Lipstick

Equipment list

• Video camera
• Tripod 

Locations.

We have decided to use the Imperial hotel for our filming as it has the grand and elegant setting that we wanted for film opening. We will be using the reception hall way, spiral staircase, the first floor hallway and a bedroom. We chose this place because it represents wealth and higher status through the decor. This is the representation that we wanted to give the the enigmatic femme fatal. It also had old periodic signifiers which gives a feeling of the late 1930's and 40's, this again fitting with the film noir genre. The character playing the femme fatal also wears an outfit that we adapted to signify this era and style therefore we felt like the and mise en scene worked well.

Planning our initial ideas.

Our initial ideas consisted around the Film Noir genre, we wanted to create something realistic therefore we thought this was good genre to create ideas around.
Our first idea.
To have a titles over a black screen with smoke floating in the background. Non diagetic sounds of a car pulling up and stopping, there is then a cut from the titles to a low angle shot of the women's legs walking, this would then cut back to the titles and then again to the women's legs. We then wanted to have voyeuristic tracking shots of the women in her hotel room whilst the voice over from a mysterious man was playing. This therefore creating enigma as the audience do not know who he is yet. We then wanted some sort of love note to be passed between the two characters. We wanted to end our piece of a cliff hanger.

Our second idea.

Our second idea was to have a montage of photographs of a beautiful el

egant women, in between the photographs we wanted to have footage in slow motion of the woman i

n her bedroom pampering herself. This therefore representing she care

s about her looks and is vein.

Over the footage is a voice over of a man declaring his love for the women. 

Our final idea.

For our final idea we picked the strongest parts of the first two ideas and put then together with some other ideas. We wanted our setting to be grand and elegant therefore we chose to set it in a old grand hotel. The footage would start with a black screen with smoke slowly floating across the screen. Then white titles appear centrally on the screen. We th

en wanted to have a tracking shot of the woman walking up a grand spiral staircase, then she would walk along a corridor to a bedroom where she would walk around whilst a voice over plays in the background, the voice over talks about how he loves the women and will

 do anything to get her. There is then a flash back of him passing a note under her do

or. As she sees the note by the door she picks it up and reds it, then we her sat by the mirror looking at the note, the footage ends there. We decided to end the footage there as we wanted to create enigma as the audience is left not 

knowing wether she reply's to his message. 

Research on Film Noir.

Film noir is the genre we have adopted for our film opening, we will explain why in the proposal however we have to research the techniques and ways in which film noir is represented. A good example of film noir is this youtube video made by students. We are taking inspirtation and guidance from it:

Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as stretching from the early 1940s to the late 1950s. Film noir of this era is associated with a low-key black-and-white visual style that has roots in German Expressionist cinematography, while many of the prototypical stories and much of the attitude of classic noir derive from the hardboiled school of crime fiction that emerged in the United States during the Depression.

The term film noir, first applied to Hollywood movies by French critic Nino Frank in 1946, was unknown to most American film industry professionals of the era. Cinema historians and critics defined the canon of film noir in retrospect; many of those involved in the making of the classic noirs later professed to be unaware of having created a distinctive type of film.


Visual style
l style Shadows of window blinds fall upon private eye Jake Gittes, performed by Jack Nicholson, in Chinatown (1974). Film noirs tended to use low-key lighting schemes producing stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning. The shadows of Venetian blinds or banister rods, cast upon an actor, a wall, or an entire set, are an iconic visual in film noir and had already become a cliché well before the neo-noir era. Characters' faces may be partially or wholly obscured by darkness—a relative rarity in conventional Hollywood moviemaking. While black-and-white cinematography is considered by many to be one of the essential attributes of classic noir, color films such as Leave Her to Heaven (1945), Niagara (1953), Slightly Scarlet, and Vertigo (1958) are regarded as noir by varying numbers of critics.

Film noir is also known for its use of Dutch angles, low-angle shots, and wide-angle lenses. Other devices of disorientation relatively common in film noir include shots of people reflected in one or more mirrors, shots through curved or frosted glass or other distorting objects (such as during the strangulation scene in Strangers on a Train), and special effects sequences of a sometimes bizarre nature. Beginning in the late 1940s, location shooting—often involving night-for-night sequences—became increasingly frequent in noir.

Structure and narrational devices
Film noirs tend to have unusually complicated story lines, frequently involving flashbacks, flashforwards, and other techniques that disrupt and sometimes obscure the narrative sequence. Voiceover narration—most characteristically by the protagonist, less frequently by a secondary character or by an unseen, omniscient narrator—is sometimes used as a structuring device. Both flashbacks and voiceover narration are today often used in movies looking to quickly establish their neo-noir bona fides. Bold experiments in cinematic storytelling were sometimes attempted in noir: Lady in the Lake, for example, is shot entirely from the point of view of protagonist Philip Marlowe; the face of star (and director) Robert Montgomery is seen only in mirrors.

Plots, characters, and settings
Crime, usually murder, is an element of almost all film noirs; in addition to standard-issue greed, jealousy is frequently the criminal motivation. A crime investigation—by a private eye, a police detective (sometimes acting alone), or a concerned amateur—is the most prevalent, but far from dominant, basic plot. In other common plots the protagonists are implicated in heists or con games, or in murderous conspiracies often involving adulterous affairs. False suspicions and accusations of crime are frequent plot elements, as are betrayals and double-crosses. Amnesia is far more common in film noir than in real life, and cigarette smoking can seem virtually mandatory.

Certain archetypal characters appear in many film noirs—hardboiled detectives, femmes fatales, corrupt policemen, jealous husbands, intrepid claims adjusters, and down-and-out writers. As can be observed in many movies of an overtly neo-noir nature, the private eye and the femme fatale are the character types with which film noir has come to be most identified, but only a minority of movies now regarded as classic noir feature either. For example, of the nineteen National Film Registry noirs, in only four does the star play a private eye: The Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, Out of the Past, and Kiss Me Deadly. Just two others readily qualify as detective stories: Laura and Touch of Evil.

Film noir is often associated with an urban setting, and a few cities—Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Chicago, in particular—are the location of many of the classic films. In the eyes of many critics, the city is presented in noir as a "labyrinth" or "maze." Bars, lounges, nightclubs, and gambling dens are frequently the scene of action. The climaxes of a substantial number of film noirs take place in visually complex, often industrial settings, such as refineries, factories, trainyards, power plants—most famously the explosive conclusion of White Heat. In the popular (and, frequently enough, critical) imagination, in noir it is always night and it always rains.