We started our lesson on Friday with a formal introduction to the first unit of the film class. I learnt that our criterion A assignment would be submitted in written and presentation form: a 3-5 minute pitch with a log line, poster, power point and mood board to illustrate concepts for a short film in the Film Noir style that I want to shoot. Criterion B would be the final produced 5-7 minute film in the Noir tradition, possibly with homage to a director. I also learned that paying homage to somebody means making something dedicated to or in honor of that person by copying their style.
After the formalities, Ms. Rosati gave us a short quiz on how much we knew about Film Noir. During this, I realized how little I knew about Film Noir! I learnt that footage in the film noir style is usually black and white, and usually has a mystery or thriller storyline. The typical film noir illustrates a female accomplice working with the heroic detective or investigator and turns and stabs them in the back towards the end of the film. The iconic femme fatal with a white mask of a face with bright red lipstick against the investigators who do things only for money seem to attract the audience to the stories. Signs and signifiers may also include crucifixes, extensive usage of silhouettes, trench coats for the investigators and fedoras for the ladies. All these are typical in the Film Noir.
Looking at the footage cinematographically, the image is typically in black and white with low key lighting and high contrast, shot from low or skewed camera angles. While learning about lighting, I learnt about other terms related to lighting such as key light, fill light and back light. Key light is the main source of light that the camera captures. Fill light is the lighting focused on the character’s face for clarity. Back light is used to “lift up” the foreground and make the frame more three dimensional. Low key light does not refer to the key lighting, but actually to the fill light! Low key light means the fill light is lessened, and so half of the face of the character is in the dark, creating a dramatic, mysterious feel. Mise En Scene literally means “put on stage” and refers to anything in the frame, be it props, costumes, blocking, lighting or the set itself. These cinematographic features are typically used in Film Noir.
After the informative presentation Ms. Rosati gave us, we watched scenes from three different films considered to be in the Film Noir Tradition: The Maltese Falcon, Touch of Evil and Sin City. We were instructed to be active audiences and notice the theme of the movie, type of characters, structure of narrative, image, sound and Mise En Scene. After watching brief scenes from each film, our homework task was to write up a short analysis of each scene, and also brainstorm ideas for our own Film Noir.
I found this lesson extremely informative and I learnt a lot, including the straight forward unit outline, to the basic characteristics of Film Noir, and then the technicalities of cinematography related to the Film Noir tradition.
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