Digital Piece Final

For my final digital piece I knew I wanted to have a voice over for my work to help guide the viewer through what was happening in the story, I liked the idea of it being told by my main character Jack as I felt it gave a bit more insight into his as a character and his story with Jessica. For the narration piece I had my friend write this up who also wrote the screen play, when he showed me there were no alterations I wanted to make as I thought the piece fitted beautifully with the work I had already put together, for him to make this he needed to see the sequence I had created, as Premier Pro was something I hadn't used before he was also able to help me with the sound a little as I was a little clueless, however I edited all the pieces together so that they all alighted to the right text to the right image, by doing this I had to make the images appear on screen longer for each image which is something I didn't like before but with the sound over the top i feel its better that they are longer as it gives you time to sink into the story.

My voice over was narrated by my friend Reece who is my actor Jack in the story, sound equipment for recording films were used to record the voice over as it was a lot cleaner and made it easier for editing at a later stage, I'm really pleased this was used and not just an app on my phone as the sound is extremely clear and made for good editing. my actor did well to put on his American accent and act well to the noir style script, I think this all added to the atmosphere of the work making it very successful.

Once these pieces were put together it was suggested to me to put a sound over the top to work as an underlying tone to the story, This was a great idea so I went back to my research and knew what film I wanted to take music from, Sin City was very influential to me for this unit so I wanted to use something from this to use in my story I chose the song 'Her name is Goldie' this piece of music is very ambient and works beautifully behind the images and my voice over, this is times perfectly with certain parts of the sequence as the music picks up in tone and falls as well. I am so pleased I went for the music with the piece I think it adds a little more depth to the work as the voice over was a little too quiet it certainly works really well in my view and I'm really pleased with the outcome.

By looking through my work I feel it is clear to see where I have been influenced most, despite photographers being a big help and inspiration I do believe that film is what drove me forward with my ideas, the films Sin City and L.A. Confidential most of all the imagery used in these films in something I have wanted to follow through with my work, and I certainly feel I have done so in that, I feel i have created a film noir style piece of work and with that I am very happy with the outcome of both my pieces and my research.

EDIT - For some reason my video would not upload to Blogger so please watch through my DVD! Thanks!

Black and White - Option Two

Since I knew I wanted to create a graphic novel based around the style of Frank Millers Sin City which is in black and white high contrast, I decided along with my desaturated images I would also create some black and white images for the Graphic Novel publication I was going to make. However as I began to edit there were some images I really liked and felt worked really well with the dramaticy I wanted to create and linked well with the Noir and Silent films I have been watching for more research, but then again there were also images which didn't look as great in black and white and which contrast just looked quite ghastly and fake which is something I didn't want and don't particularly like in my work. However I did carry on with a number of edits to see if they could work and how they may change the whole structure into an alternative narrative. This hadn't previously occurred to me that this may happen until the review when it was mentioned in my notes from David Rule. I wasn't sure how I felt about the narrative changing as I very much liked how it had originally been written without it being depicted differently in just the editing and presentation. I feel I have enough diversity in my narrative structures given that despite both being open ended and in linear form I have incorporated a voice over in my digital piece and I wish to have use of text for my publication which originally isn't what I wanted as I am very much a fan of "let the images carry the narrative forward" which is what I said in the beginning of my research as Frank Miller does this with his Graphic Novel work which I have followed through throughout my work. Below are some images which I have edited into black and white here you can see that some of the images work quite well and are dramatic in the style I wanted to create, however there are also some which just don't work well at all and for that reason I feel I will not carry this through my final work.

First Experiments

Since I began shooting a few weeks ago I have done about six shoots of photographs to make up my sequence, (contact sheets in book) here I thought I would upload some of my edits I am most fond of and think that I would like to follow through with the rest of my edits for the work,

In relation to how much I edit my photos I am not a fan of too much over editing so a lot of the images are either desaturated or black and white as these are both styles I would like to play around with for my final pieces. However I am a tad unsure on how I feel about my Black and White images not only do some not look quite right but it will take me a lot of time to have to do two sets of edits, so I need to decide whether it is worth me experimenting so much over something which may not work so well in the end and consequently not get used at all. To figure this out I will edit a few more Black and White images to make up my mind without getting too carried away with it.

The first image is one of my favourites as I really like how the smoke is brilliantly highlighted by the flash, I think this is very dramatic and very Noir like in its style, this is something I do not think would work as well if it was without colour, but with a little desaturation I feel it works beautifully. However in contrast the very last image works very well without colour it has been made to look dark and eerie with a slight sinister feel to it by being dark adding dramatics to the mix which is of course something I am trying to create, it is just a case of me choosing which route I wish to go down.

The Black Dahila | Film

The black Dahlia is a film based in the 1940's with the genre of film noir, or neo-noir as they call the newer more updated versions of film noir,  these tend to be in a slightly desaturated colour, rather than the traditional Black and White, L.A. Confidential followed this same style too, which is where I got the inspiration from to create my images in the desaturated style. The Black Dahlia was written by James Ellroy who also wrote L.A. Confidential. The film is based around the true murder of Elizabeth Short nicknamed The Black Dahlia, for her unsolved death, this is just on of the films/book adaptation of the unknown events of the woman's killing.

The main character played by Josh Harnett opens to movie with a narrative voice over, this is again similar to L.A. Confidential, I am a fan of how this style of telling a story or just to inform the story more with a narrative to introduce the characters and the general story is a nice way to engage the viewer into the story, and is something I would like to experiment with my digital piece as I feel it would definitely inform my story in a positive way.

The story also follows the story of two ambitious cops who are tackling the case, and along the way encounter troubles with former crooks who are released from prison or either somehow involved with the new case, there are damsels which need saving added into the mix too, which all just adds to the noir style of film which is what I particularly like about it, I find this style of filming is very inspirational and is my reasoning for wanting to create work from this.

What I have taken from watching this film and also L.A. Confidential is that I would like to experiment with my images in both Black and White and in a desaturated colour, to see which would work best for my film piece. I like the noir style of images with just them being slightly desaturated with an almost sepia tint to them I think it works beautifully and fits well to the dark style of the story line. So from watching these I will be experimenting to see what style images work best to inform my work.

Film Noir | What is it?

For my work I am very interested in the style of film noir, and using moving image to portray my narrative, I like how these films are very Atmospheric, by doing this it adds something more to the image and gives a stronger idea of what the characters may be experiencing through the film whether it be using this or dialogue.

Film Noir began in the 1940's when inspired by numerous screenplays being written based around crime fiction. The storytelling was highly stylized and very theatrical. Often the imagery used within Film Noir was taken from the earlier era of German expressionist cinema as many of the early noir film directors came from Germany to Hollywood. Film Noir explores various chapters covering many themes such as physiological, lovers planning murders corrupt policemen etc. This style film was admired by many and audiences responded to the more adult orientated type of film certainly by end of the second world war. In 1946 the films were recognised for being visibly darker than your average film and much more cynical for this reason they were given the title of "Film noir" its literal translation being "Black film". It is still heavily debated whether film noir is a film genre in its own right, however a style of film consisting of doomed romanticism, lost innocence, corrupt cops etc is still generalised in this way today.

Despite being popular and being used a lot, This is the sort of theme I would like my story to take, I feel it would fit well with the brief, given that the nature of these style of working are quite mysterious without giving too much away, From this I will continue my research into film noir and the styling of how to place together my narrative.

Some Popular Noir Films:

• Double Indemnity
• Gun Crazy
• Touch of Evil
• Kiss me Deadly
• Blood Simple
• The Big sleep

Part of Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder  in 1944

Initial Idea

Since my first lecture I've had my mind set on doing a short film as my digital part of this unit, As the film industry is something I would like to go into I thought it would fit well for my CV as well as give myself some experience with using a film camera as well as my DSLR.
I am very interested in the film style of Film Noir I like how the films are very atmospheric and dramatic, the monochrome adds a little more to the film which is what I would like to incorporate into my work.

General Idea's from first Lecture:

• Film Noir style film for my digital piece
• Use film stills to create my photographs?
• Images will be in style of film noir
• Black and White shoot
• splashes of colour?
• Sin City - Film style / Graphic Novel
• Short film
• Collaborate with film students

From this point I will use these bullet points to further my research into each area and hopefully come up with a more thorough plan of what I would like to do for both the digital and printed pieces.