My part of the concept board

Right, so i've done a little research into the sound and music of film noir which is my part of the concept board/ the production.

Nearly all of the music in Film noir is jazz of some kind, featuring instruments such as piano, trumpets and saxophones, and are essential in giving the film it's mood and atmosphere. Since the feel and atmosphere of film noir is very dark, gritty and slick, the music is often very slow and melancholy.

I've chosen a couple of tracks to potray this, although they are quite modern, they give the ambience and effect we are looking for, and an influence we could possibly use.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeyI-S3RKk0 - this track has a very slow, dreary and sparce sound to it, giving the feel of a scene between the hero and the femme fetale. It is one we could possibly use, but it seems too slow for our purposes.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G55USzVU5ZE - the instrumental intro to this song is very upbeat and powerful, therefore I feel it is an idea for the soundtrack when the animation of our OTS kicks in. whilst being very modern, I think it captures the dark atmosphere of film noir quite well.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eXsBj9BCdM - although this is a very popular song, the intro is indeed very slick and "James Bond" like, with the piano, and jazz drumbeat. This aswell, is another option for our OTS, despite the fact it is very well known.

Ofcourse, my task, being a musician, is to try and write and record a piece to use in our OTS. Although my instrumentation is quite limited (difficulty in getting trumpets and saxophones) I will take the song I have researched as influence, and hopefully come up with a modern, yet very fitting piece of music that will fit our OTS perfectly.

Pictures and inspiration.

This is a close fit to  what we imagine our femme fetale could look like, she feature the curley hair, complete with a black, formal dress, with gloves.

Here are a couple of pictures that contain the style of the hero, they both feature the classic suit and tie, aswell as a fedora hat, although we may not go with the detective style coat, we may go for a more modern hero, in the form of a James Bond style'd character, as shown in picture three.

this is a representation of the typical gangster, who's attire and style may fit the one that we are looking for, featuring the suit, fedora hat and tommy gun.

Concept Board Idea's

This will be a quick draft of sme idea's I have had for the concept board, covering the main aspects of it, and what we can include in our film.


Mise-en-scene;
The gangsters and the hero will be dressed in black suits (some of which I have), fedora hats required.
The femme fatale will be dresses in a gown, with curled hair.
Hero and Femme Fatale will be holding high class glasses, sat at bar.
Gangsters to be holding either tommy guns or pistols; in the three gangster set up, the two on the outer sides may both hold tommy guns, while the leader( in the middle ) will hold a pistol, or all three may have pistols.
Location; to be finalised - Ideas include bars and restraunts.

Possible plot synopsis; Our hero is a gambler, and has recently had a strike of luck in winning a very valuable diamond necklace, the problem is, it was won against a notorius gangster, who believes he was cheating to win the game. The film begins with the hero giving this necklace to his girlfriend, who is the femme fatale, just as the gangster and his henchmen arrive to take it back.

Sound; we plan to make most of the speech diagetic, with some (hopefully original) music playing in the background, although the speech may have to be mimed, and then foleyed.

Lighting; we intend to keep the lighting as minimal as possible, to enhance the dark and gritty atmosphere.

The people i'm working with...

For our Film Noir project, the members of my group are myself, Matt Armes  ( asmediastudiesmattarmes.blogspot.com ) and Lee Cooper ( asmediastudiesleecooper.blogspot.com )

The idea we're working on is a plot containing elements of murder, gambling and lust, with a dark, slick atmosphere. We are also planning to add animation to out piece, to give it a unique, as well as contrasting edge.

We're all in the process of pulling idea's together and finalising various aspects of preparation; location, timing etc, and we are currently creating our concept board.

I will be posting some of my idea's on the various aspects of our film, mise-en-scene, lighting shortly, but for now, thats all.

Blog Inspiration

Looking through last years media students, I found a guy named Tom Coe's Blog.

http://tomcoea2.blogspot.com/

This one I found quite interesting, as it combines plain elements (grey background, with a simple layout) with alot of information/inspiration he has obviously put straight on there as soon as he has got it, and I find this quite effective. I also like the side bar he has, organising his blog, and this is something that I could possibly do with mine.

Concept Board

Preparing for the video we are to create and shoot, in class today, we discussed concept boards, and what they must contain, these are what we came up with.

• A Title
• The plot; order and structure of the narritive.
• Narritive; the story, including edits, transtitions and titles.
• Storyboards
• The Cast; Charaters, accents, mannerism
• Representation; Style, props, costumes
• Settting + Mise-en-scene (lighting)
• Signifiers/icon (Something with connotation larger than the object)
• Sound (Diegetic + Non-Diegetic) - Soundtrack +effects, Contrapuntal (Contrasting music, to give a better effect), Folelying (Matching sound with the picture)
• Camerawork; Shot, Pace, Angle, Trasitions
• Target Audience; Demographics( Fatual data, such as age, gender and class), Projected/Preffered audience, stereotyped audience; Tradional (Fixed Tatstes), post modern (open minded), hedonest (risk takers), Niche (unique interests), Mainstream (conventionally modern)