In the Rouge of the Night: A Film Noir (Filmmaking 101 - Boot Camp)
Task: Film a film noir sequence that has no dialogue and only tells the story through visuals.
The task I chose, and was given, in my group was to create a silent film noir sequence. Before I got into figuring out a story and script I first researched on what is a film noir and what that genre of films consist. I had heard of the genre but was not familiar with works and stories from that type of cinema.
When doing research I started to see all the stereotypes and typical tropes within this genre from scenes being surrounded by smoke, constantly, men coming back from war or detectives in the force struggling to find justice in society and streets full of crime. The era that is mainly said to be the time of film noir's is from 1940s-1950s when World War II began and ended and the aftermath of that, McCarthyism terrorising the U.S. and The Great Depression crippling America. Film noir very much presented the fear and trauma people felt in society at that moment in time, especially for the filmmakers who created these stories, from American directors to European creators. All film noir's have a very dark tone within them, lighting being able to create that atmosphere along with the black and white colouring of the films themselves.
Once I understood the context, symbolism and stories of film noir's, an idea started to develop as I just kept writing in my notebook. I started with who the main focus would be in this sequence, which I settled on a classic private eye but turned it round to him finishing a long day of serving justice, possibly just solving a hard case, instead of starting with him trying to find pieces of an impossible puzzle. I then just started sprouting out ideas from here where he is sat in a bar, trying to shake everything off by drowning himself in whiskey and contemplating the meaning of his life. But of course it being a film noir, nothing is going to be easy in this mans crazy life of working for the authority.
Once I had figured out the premise of the sequence and jotting down many ideas, this then led into starting a script and piecing the story together. It was easier in terms of the sequence being silent as I didn't have to write any dialogue or noises that could possibly be heard, diegetic or non-diegetic, but was difficult in having to write a lot of detail and description to characters actions and reasonings to them in the story.
Pages 3 & 4
Page 5
Once finalising the script, and showing my group it, we then got working on a shot list to help us on the day of filming. We did wait a while to get to actually filming for it as we used the actors from the performing arts course, at the college, which was worth the wait as we got everything ready (shot list, props, costume, set, etc) over time and the performing arts were really good to work with, great actors and were very patient when waiting to do scenes.
Roles on Set
Cast:
Crew:
Filming at Restaurant (Bar)
My main role on the film was being director, I was very nervous about doing this in the beginning as I had only briefly met some of the actors before and had never had a lot of power to tell people what to do before. My main struggle, I think, was trying to get across what I wanted the actors to do in a scene and what I would like the camera to focus on during scenes, either I couldn't find the words I wanted to say to direct them or explaining it that much to them that it might of confused them. This was my first time directing anything like this before so it was definitely a learning curve for me, and I think for the actors as well as a lot of them haven't really acted in front of a camera before. I think for my first time directing it was successful but then again I was worried that people may not understand what's happening in a scene or even the story and that I might have overcomplicated what the actors needed to do. Although I was mostly nervous about directing, I think the film came out pretty well and I would definitely like to try and do directing again as I do like bringing stories to life, whether that being on stage or on-screen.
We started the day of filming at the Infinity Restaurant at the college. The actors came in on time and as they were getting changed into their costumes, my group and I headed to the restaurant and started setting it up to look like a bar. We had a few extras, which were so helpful, to set the scene and because we didn't have many of the actors we just put them all on one table together, which was in frame in most of the shots. We put a few electric tea lights on the tables and we found some candleholders in the restaurant, that looked like little dishes, and put some of our leftover fake cigarettes in them to look like ashtrays. There were also many wine and brandy glasses that we gave to the actors to show that they were having a night out, whether that being with their friends, having a meeting or just there to drink the night away. Luckily, there was an actual bar inside of the restaurant which was so useful as we did many shots from behind it, overlooking the rest of the restaurant, and also in the script the meeting place for the Private Eye (Tom) and the Woman (Sophie) is at a bar. There was also a TV on the wall, as you can see in the photo, and we tried to not get it in frame as much as possible.
Other props that I brought in myself was some fake money that we had in a brown envelope, which is the package that leads to all of this destruction in the film. With the fake money, I drew fake blood splatters with red sharpie on the first note to make it look like blood had leaked through the package. One problem we had was we didn't have any fake blood to put on the envelope, so the money with the blood on it looked a bit confusing because we would've put fake blood on the envelope, after filming the Attacker's death, but we didn't have any and we couldn't go all the way back to the college to get it as we were filming at the canal. I do have to say though the blood on the money did look pretty cool, also it didn't matter that it was just pen on the money as we were making the shot black and white when editing.
Another prop I brought in, and also sort of made, was a vintage looking, Camel, cigarette packet to match the time period the film is set in (around 1940-1950). The way I made it look as if it was part of the time was by printing of a template, of a whole Camel packet, that I found on Google, cutting out each side and then sticking them to an empty cigarette packet that a family member of mine had just finished. I also then put some fake cigarettes inside the packet, as the Private Eye smokes quite a bit and also offers the Woman one in the bar. This was good to have in the film as smoking is a very big part of film noir and although we didn't have actual smoke, the cigarettes had a red foil at the end of them and when light was on the foil it then reflected the light and made it look as if the cigarette was lit.
We didn't have as much time to film in the restaurant as the performing arts students had to go back to lessons sooner than we thought, but luckily it didn't take us long to shoot all the scenes we needed in that setting. I would say our only problem was we didn't have many cutaway shots to go in between scenes that couldn't thread together and look like a continuing scene once we had cut the camera. We had one scene where the Private Eye brings his arm into the frame to suggest to the Woman that she should put her money away so he can pay for her drink and as we cut to the next scene of him bringing his wallet out, Tom's arm was already down and getting his money when really we should have still had his arm out from the beginning of that shot. The only problem we had with trying to do some cutaway shots for this reason was because we were cautious of time and didn't want the actors to be late for their lesson, but what we filmed with the actors in the restaurant was still really good.
Filming at Canal
After the short break, me, my group and our main actors went over to the canal near college. Where I originally wanted to film this scene was on a street and alleyway at night but this would cause many complications, whether actors not being able to come or many people out and about on a night time and it was the safest and better idea to film by the water. We set the rest of the film under this bridge, mainly because we still wanted the scene to be dark visually and thought it was best to film here (the picture on the left shows underneath the bridge).
Next to this bridge was a stairway, we used this to replace the street. Originally the Private Eye steps out of the bar and ends up on the street and, because the restaurant was inside the college, we weren't able to do this and instead just had Tom walking down the stairs and getting a cigarette out. We also had a scene after that where we have a shot of Tom's profile, but see this crime scene unfolding behind him whilst he is still minding his own business and then realising something is going on. This shot looked really good as you still can't really see who the people behind are, they don't look like silhouettes but because of the distance between the characters and camera you don't really make out who these people are.
There were quite a few problems to filming out at the canal, one of them being the lighting under the bridge. The bridge was dark underneath but was still visible to see through the camera, but there was one scene in particular where we do and extreme close up on Tom's face before the most pivotal part of the film, and when we were filming this we did understand it would be quite dark and even when editing it looks much lighter but still quite hard to see Tom's face. This scene was meant to be very suspenseful, as the Private Eye thinks he's going to be murdered by the Attacker (Joe) and we are meant too as well as viewers. Another problem was there were many people walking past, we tried not to get anyone in shot as we might not get permission from them to be in the film and also because these scenes were not meant to have any other people around, it's meant to be set in a very empty place. It was also very cold outside and I didn't want to the actors and crew to freeze or get ill so I tried filming it as quickly as possible which was an issue, because we then didn't really do many takes of certain scenes that we needed to and not many cutaway shots for continuity errors between cuts. We also lost a fake cigarette at one point, in a shot we have from a low angle only showing the Private Eye's shoes and the attack in the background, but during this Tom had to drop the cigarette and put it out with his foot. When we did our first take of this, when Tom dropped the cigarette, the wind became very strong and blew the cigarette away before Tom was able to stand on it and sadly it went into the canal (luckily we did have spares).
The last shot we did was when the Private Eye walks away. Again, originally this was meant to be down a street, at night, after it's been raining, but I was actually much happier with the new shot that we did. We did the shot from the top of the bridge and filmed Tom walking on the path next to the canal, I will say it was a bit fast and we only did one take of this as everyone was freezing, but in black and white it looks like a cool shot.
Editing
The last thing we needed to do was of course edit the film and I think at first we didn't think the film was going to look well, but once we started colouring the shots black and white and adding music and working around the continuity errors, it then ended up looking really well.
We first started with putting all the shots we wanted onto Adobe Premiere Pro and then putting the shots in order, taking away the sound from them and cutting them down, if they needed to. We had help with this from Daniella for the basic guidelines of how to import shots and cut them down and how to colour them. Once that was all done we then started working on how to fix continuity errors by trying to cut down previous shots to try and fit actions from the next one, or cutting parts of shots and putting them between continuity errors. We also made sure to contrast and brighten shadows on some of the shots as when we made shots black and white, you weren't really able to make out who the characters were and what they were doing, this improved the shots visually.
The last things we had to do now was add music, the title and credits to the film. We started off with the music, on YouTube we found a copyright free compilation of Jazz Noir music and added the first song, called Harlem Nocturne, to the shots of the bar. This music fit really well with the setting of the bar and showing how calm the story is before we get to the attack at the canal. We then had help from our teacher, James, on what type of music we should use for the next part of the film, the shots at the canal. James found a jazz piece of music that really fit the the tense tone of the rest of the film. It was then with this song that we started playing around with it. Joe helped out a lot with the music as he started cutting the music together and fading it out at the end of the film, as well as in the scene where his character gets shot, he stops the music to symbolise the gunshot and then fading into the song again at the scene where the Woman leaves the Private Eye alone. This worked really well as the silence makes the scene much more tense as you don't know if it will come back on again or if the rest of the film will be left in silence. Lastly we added the title at the beginning of the film, this fit in really well against the music as the beginning of the Jazz Noir music compilation there was the sound of an old film projector starting up. We left this part in as it set the time of the film noir, with it being from the 1940s-1950s, and as this part was just black at the beginning, before fading into the film, and having the title appear in time of the film reel sound effect. After the title was done, we then had help from Kai Speight, from the other group, to have the credits rolling from the bottom of the screen to the top, at the end of the film.
I was really happy with the end product of the film as when me and Nathan started editing, we didn't really have high hopes for it as we thought a lot of the shots didn't add up and that we weren't going to be able to fix the continuity errors, but it ended up looking really good with the help from the whole group, some members of the other group and our teachers. I think as a first attempt for using this application for the first time to edit a film together was a success and I would love to do more editing with future projects.
Altogether, I think filming went really well, also another huge thank you to the actors, we really appreciate your time, patience and hard work. From the beginning I always wanted Amiliyah to be the camera operator on this film, she is really good with getting different and lovely looking shots, what needs to be in or out of frame and understands what you mean when you ask her the type of shot you want to do. Amiliyah was also challenged by the tripod we had not being balanced and having to film freehand, her shots looked perfect and didn't shake too much. So, I think for a first attempt at a film and doing what the task asked us, was really successful and I can't wait to continue with the rest of the course and working with everyone.
The task I chose, and was given, in my group was to create a silent film noir sequence. Before I got into figuring out a story and script I first researched on what is a film noir and what that genre of films consist. I had heard of the genre but was not familiar with works and stories from that type of cinema.When doing research I started to see all the stereotypes and typical tropes within this genre from scenes being surrounded by smoke, constantly, men coming back from war or detectives in the force struggling to find justice in society and streets full of crime. The era that is mainly said to be the time of film noir's is from 1940s-1950s when World War II began and ended and the aftermath of that, McCarthyism terrorising the U.S. and The Great Depression crippling America. Film noir very much presented the fear and trauma people felt in society at that moment in time, especially for the filmmakers who created these stories, from American directors to European creators. All film noir's have a very dark tone within them, lighting being able to create that atmosphere along with the black and white colouring of the films themselves.
Once I understood the context, symbolism and stories of film noir's, an idea started to develop as I just kept writing in my notebook. I started with who the main focus would be in this sequence, which I settled on a classic private eye but turned it round to him finishing a long day of serving justice, possibly just solving a hard case, instead of starting with him trying to find pieces of an impossible puzzle. I then just started sprouting out ideas from here where he is sat in a bar, trying to shake everything off by drowning himself in whiskey and contemplating the meaning of his life. But of course it being a film noir, nothing is going to be easy in this mans crazy life of working for the authority. Once I had figured out the premise of the sequence and jotting down many ideas, this then led into starting a script and piecing the story together. It was easier in terms of the sequence being silent as I didn't have to write any dialogue or noises that could possibly be heard, diegetic or non-diegetic, but was difficult in having to write a lot of detail and description to characters actions and reasonings to them in the story.
In the Rouge of the Night Script
Pages 1 & 2
Pages 3 & 4
Page 5
Once finalising the script, and showing my group it, we then got working on a shot list to help us on the day of filming. We did wait a while to get to actually filming for it as we used the actors from the performing arts course, at the college, which was worth the wait as we got everything ready (shot list, props, costume, set, etc) over time and the performing arts were really good to work with, great actors and were very patient when waiting to do scenes.
Roles on Set
Cast:
- Private Eye - Thomas Burton
- The Woman - Sophie Ashcroft
- The Attacker - Joe Mitchell
- The Victim - Declan Bullock
- Extras - Mitchell Cox, Kate Drummond, Aaron Fletcher, Sophie Laverick, Sadie Paterson and Chelsea Saunders
Crew:
- Director - Harriet Parvin (me)
- Assistant Director - Nathan Appleby
- Script Writer - Harriet Parvin (me)
- Camera Operator - Amiliyah Ashraf
- Editors - Nathan Appleby, Harriet Parvin (me), Amiliyah Ashraf and Joe Mitchell
Filming at Restaurant (Bar)
My main role on the film was being director, I was very nervous about doing this in the beginning as I had only briefly met some of the actors before and had never had a lot of power to tell people what to do before. My main struggle, I think, was trying to get across what I wanted the actors to do in a scene and what I would like the camera to focus on during scenes, either I couldn't find the words I wanted to say to direct them or explaining it that much to them that it might of confused them. This was my first time directing anything like this before so it was definitely a learning curve for me, and I think for the actors as well as a lot of them haven't really acted in front of a camera before. I think for my first time directing it was successful but then again I was worried that people may not understand what's happening in a scene or even the story and that I might have overcomplicated what the actors needed to do. Although I was mostly nervous about directing, I think the film came out pretty well and I would definitely like to try and do directing again as I do like bringing stories to life, whether that being on stage or on-screen.
Other props that I brought in myself was some fake money that we had in a brown envelope, which is the package that leads to all of this destruction in the film. With the fake money, I drew fake blood splatters with red sharpie on the first note to make it look like blood had leaked through the package. One problem we had was we didn't have any fake blood to put on the envelope, so the money with the blood on it looked a bit confusing because we would've put fake blood on the envelope, after filming the Attacker's death, but we didn't have any and we couldn't go all the way back to the college to get it as we were filming at the canal. I do have to say though the blood on the money did look pretty cool, also it didn't matter that it was just pen on the money as we were making the shot black and white when editing. 
Another prop I brought in, and also sort of made, was a vintage looking, Camel, cigarette packet to match the time period the film is set in (around 1940-1950). The way I made it look as if it was part of the time was by printing of a template, of a whole Camel packet, that I found on Google, cutting out each side and then sticking them to an empty cigarette packet that a family member of mine had just finished. I also then put some fake cigarettes inside the packet, as the Private Eye smokes quite a bit and also offers the Woman one in the bar. This was good to have in the film as smoking is a very big part of film noir and although we didn't have actual smoke, the cigarettes had a red foil at the end of them and when light was on the foil it then reflected the light and made it look as if the cigarette was lit.
We didn't have as much time to film in the restaurant as the performing arts students had to go back to lessons sooner than we thought, but luckily it didn't take us long to shoot all the scenes we needed in that setting. I would say our only problem was we didn't have many cutaway shots to go in between scenes that couldn't thread together and look like a continuing scene once we had cut the camera. We had one scene where the Private Eye brings his arm into the frame to suggest to the Woman that she should put her money away so he can pay for her drink and as we cut to the next scene of him bringing his wallet out, Tom's arm was already down and getting his money when really we should have still had his arm out from the beginning of that shot. The only problem we had with trying to do some cutaway shots for this reason was because we were cautious of time and didn't want the actors to be late for their lesson, but what we filmed with the actors in the restaurant was still really good. Filming at Canal
Next to this bridge was a stairway, we used this to replace the street. Originally the Private Eye steps out of the bar and ends up on the street and, because the restaurant was inside the college, we weren't able to do this and instead just had Tom walking down the stairs and getting a cigarette out. We also had a scene after that where we have a shot of Tom's profile, but see this crime scene unfolding behind him whilst he is still minding his own business and then realising something is going on. This shot looked really good as you still can't really see who the people behind are, they don't look like silhouettes but because of the distance between the characters and camera you don't really make out who these people are. There were quite a few problems to filming out at the canal, one of them being the lighting under the bridge. The bridge was dark underneath but was still visible to see through the camera, but there was one scene in particular where we do and extreme close up on Tom's face before the most pivotal part of the film, and when we were filming this we did understand it would be quite dark and even when editing it looks much lighter but still quite hard to see Tom's face. This scene was meant to be very suspenseful, as the Private Eye thinks he's going to be murdered by the Attacker (Joe) and we are meant too as well as viewers. Another problem was there were many people walking past, we tried not to get anyone in shot as we might not get permission from them to be in the film and also because these scenes were not meant to have any other people around, it's meant to be set in a very empty place. It was also very cold outside and I didn't want to the actors and crew to freeze or get ill so I tried filming it as quickly as possible which was an issue, because we then didn't really do many takes of certain scenes that we needed to and not many cutaway shots for continuity errors between cuts. We also lost a fake cigarette at one point, in a shot we have from a low angle only showing the Private Eye's shoes and the attack in the background, but during this Tom had to drop the cigarette and put it out with his foot. When we did our first take of this, when Tom dropped the cigarette, the wind became very strong and blew the cigarette away before Tom was able to stand on it and sadly it went into the canal (luckily we did have spares).
The last shot we did was when the Private Eye walks away. Again, originally this was meant to be down a street, at night, after it's been raining, but I was actually much happier with the new shot that we did. We did the shot from the top of the bridge and filmed Tom walking on the path next to the canal, I will say it was a bit fast and we only did one take of this as everyone was freezing, but in black and white it looks like a cool shot. Editing
The last thing we needed to do was of course edit the film and I think at first we didn't think the film was going to look well, but once we started colouring the shots black and white and adding music and working around the continuity errors, it then ended up looking really well.
We first started with putting all the shots we wanted onto Adobe Premiere Pro and then putting the shots in order, taking away the sound from them and cutting them down, if they needed to. We had help with this from Daniella for the basic guidelines of how to import shots and cut them down and how to colour them. Once that was all done we then started working on how to fix continuity errors by trying to cut down previous shots to try and fit actions from the next one, or cutting parts of shots and putting them between continuity errors. We also made sure to contrast and brighten shadows on some of the shots as when we made shots black and white, you weren't really able to make out who the characters were and what they were doing, this improved the shots visually.
The last things we had to do now was add music, the title and credits to the film. We started off with the music, on YouTube we found a copyright free compilation of Jazz Noir music and added the first song, called Harlem Nocturne, to the shots of the bar. This music fit really well with the setting of the bar and showing how calm the story is before we get to the attack at the canal. We then had help from our teacher, James, on what type of music we should use for the next part of the film, the shots at the canal. James found a jazz piece of music that really fit the the tense tone of the rest of the film. It was then with this song that we started playing around with it. Joe helped out a lot with the music as he started cutting the music together and fading it out at the end of the film, as well as in the scene where his character gets shot, he stops the music to symbolise the gunshot and then fading into the song again at the scene where the Woman leaves the Private Eye alone. This worked really well as the silence makes the scene much more tense as you don't know if it will come back on again or if the rest of the film will be left in silence. Lastly we added the title at the beginning of the film, this fit in really well against the music as the beginning of the Jazz Noir music compilation there was the sound of an old film projector starting up. We left this part in as it set the time of the film noir, with it being from the 1940s-1950s, and as this part was just black at the beginning, before fading into the film, and having the title appear in time of the film reel sound effect. After the title was done, we then had help from Kai Speight, from the other group, to have the credits rolling from the bottom of the screen to the top, at the end of the film.
I was really happy with the end product of the film as when me and Nathan started editing, we didn't really have high hopes for it as we thought a lot of the shots didn't add up and that we weren't going to be able to fix the continuity errors, but it ended up looking really good with the help from the whole group, some members of the other group and our teachers. I think as a first attempt for using this application for the first time to edit a film together was a success and I would love to do more editing with future projects.
Altogether, I think filming went really well, also another huge thank you to the actors, we really appreciate your time, patience and hard work. From the beginning I always wanted Amiliyah to be the camera operator on this film, she is really good with getting different and lovely looking shots, what needs to be in or out of frame and understands what you mean when you ask her the type of shot you want to do. Amiliyah was also challenged by the tripod we had not being balanced and having to film freehand, her shots looked perfect and didn't shake too much. So, I think for a first attempt at a film and doing what the task asked us, was really successful and I can't wait to continue with the rest of the course and working with everyone.
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