Media Roles

Media Roles from Coey1611

Neo Noir

Film Noir Examples

Double Indemnity: 







In Double Indemnity, the femme fatal is shown in a very explicit way. She is shown standing at the top of the stairs in her towel as the third picture here shows, this was very different for the time this film was made and some audiences will have been very shocked by this. Also, the way she is standing makes her look superior as well as being 'flirty' and half naked.
The top picture is the end of the film but is shown at the start because of how the narrative in film noir's are laid out, it shows the everyman broken and injured and talking into the phone about what has happened.

Film Noir Examples

The Black Dahlia:







This film is more of a modern noir and it is edited differently. Instead of being in black and white it is shown in colour but with a filter to fade it out a little and make it seem more classic. The first picture here shows the femme fatal smoking and looking heavily made up just as she is in the older film noir's. The second picture
shows the characters wearing suits just as they would've done in the classic noirs, the air appears to be filled with smoke to emphasise the idea of smoking.

Film Noir Examples

 The Killers:








The top picture here shows the femme fatal in The Killers, laying seductively on the bed; this gives her the idea of being flirtatious and trying to show off her body. The second picture here is an example of the lighting effects in film noir's; as you can see the room is very dark and the shadows reflect the dull gloomy atmosphere. The final picture is an example of the narrative structure again, it shows the end of the film at the start with the two men arriving and holding people hostage to look for the 'Swede'.

Film Noir Features

Camera and composition:

In film noir's, different camera angles are used in different ways to create effect and atmosphere. Low camera angles are used regularly to give characters the idea of being powerful. The picture here shows the femme fatal in 'Double Indemnity' standing at the top of the stairs. The camera angle is low and looks up at her giving her the idea of being powerful as I've previosuly mentioned. The everyman in this film looks up at her which gives the impression that he is below her and must obey what she says. In this case it turns out to be true as the everyman is used and betrayed by the femme fatal.

Editing:
Film noir's are edited in specific ways to make us feel uneasy when watching them. The ones made in the 20th century are nearly always shown in black and white but some made recently in the 21st century are shown in colour but are still distorted in some way. For example, 'The Black Dalia' is shown in colour but it isn't as clear as it could be. It is edited in this way to give it the sense of mystery and make us believe that it is set years and years go. On the other hand, 'Double Indemnity' and 'The Killers' are both in black and white. The main reason for this is because they were made in the 1940s but having them in black and white creates the same sense of mystery that the distorted colour in 'The Black Dalia' does. Also, in the 1940s technology wasn't as advanced as it is now so there wasn't exactly much editing done.

Sound:
In film noir's the sound that is normally used is produced from musical instruments rather than actual computer generated sounds. This is because obviously when the films were originally made in the 1940s they didn't posses the technology to create sound so instead they edited the sound of instruments into the background. The general instruments that were used in the backgrounds were saxophones, certain types of pianos, and trumpets. These were all played in a specific way to give a sense of mystery in the opening and climatic scenes.

Film Noir Features

Mise-En-Scene:
The lighting in film noir's is generally low key and the use of fill lights is usually restricted giving it a dark sense, when lighting is used it creates shadows to further emphasise the dark atmosphere. When it comes to location, noir's are nearly always filmed in urban cities and directors use rain to make the films seem more dull and dark.
These pictures show a typical noir film, the picture on the left shows an everyman watching the rain giving him the idea of being 'broken', whilst the second picture shows the urban location they were generally filmed in.

Film Noir Genre

A film noir is a term used to describe a hollywood crime drama. The older film noir's were always shown in black and white to create a more dark and sinister atmosphere and because of the cost of colour productions back in the 1940s. However, in newer film noir's made in the last 20 years, colour is more common in these films. The films were produced mainly after the second world war and aimed to send a message to families about how life should be. The violence that was included in the films was something that very little people were used to seeing but after the war so many people were used to the idea of violence because of the events of the war film noir's didn't shock them that much.

The films usually consist with a similar plot and tend to include the same characters in each film just with a different story.
The characters usually are:
- The everyman
- The femme fatal
- The villain
- The henchman/henchmen
- The girl next door
The everyman is always the main character and the films usually begin with the end of the actual film with him hurt or broken in some way. From here we learn his story and discover the events that has resulted in him hurt in this way.
The femme fatal is normally at the center of the everyman's pain. In the majority of film noir's she lures the main character using her seductive techniques. After pretending to care about him she betrays him at the end or he realises she was using him all along.
The villian is sometimes connected in some way to the femme fatal and is generally the enemy of the everyman. In a typical film noir the villain will be in a relationship with the femme fatal and the everyman will have an affair with her resulting in the villain taking action and often using his henchmen to afflict pain on him.
As mentioned before, the henchmen take orders from the villain to attack or kill the everyman, however in some film noir's this isn't always the case and sometimes they aren't included in the production at all.
The girl next door is a rare and irrelevant character who doesn't have a consistency in appearing in film noir's. When she does, she usually ends up comforting the everyman after his betrayal or ends up hurt and broken with him.

Top 10 Films

Reflective comment:
The purpose of this was to get used to using Emaze as a presentation software and know how to upload it to my blog. The upload was successful however I need to spend time working out how to resize it.
After playing about with the HTML code I've managed to make the presentation fit my blog :)

Media and Me

Reflective Comment:
This was the first time I've ever used Prezi so the presentation is a bit basic. I originally made the slides on PowerPoint and then uploaded it to Prezi, I'm glad that I was able to get it to work on my blog as a video though

What is a Sweded Film?

What is a Sweded Film and where did they come from?

The idea of a Sweded Film is to recreate famous films using limited resources and technology. This idea was first inspired in 2008 by the comedy film ‘Be Kind Rewind’. Generally these films are much shorter in length than their originals and are filmed on virtually no budget.

As mentioned before, the actual term ‘Sweded’ was founded from the 2008 comedy film ‘Be Kind Rewind’. The plot of this film involves two characters attempting to replace a store’s video collection by recreating films using a camcorder and claiming they are special editions from Sweden. This is where the name ‘Sweded’ came from.

Before the actual film came out, a YouTube channel was created to help promote the film. The channel contained a film that the actors had Sweded and a video called ‘How To Swede’. Obviously the production of low budget films had existed for years before this film arrived but the term originated from the 2008 film ‘Be Kind Rewind’.

Sweded Films became more popular following the film in 2008 and thousands of people now create a variety of videos recreating films and trailers. When making and recording a Sweded Film, people spend little to no money. Props and outfits are made by hand and location is very simple. Our Sweded trailer is a prime example of recording with no budget.

Location, Camera and Editing

As Jack had all of the props needed available at his house and he had areas perfect to film from such as a table outside, we decided that we should film at his house.

We decided to use Jack’s iPhone 6 to film on as it has a great camera quality and he will always be there as it is being filmed in his house. Every single one of us had a turn filming parts of the swede and it was whoever was not needed in the scene being filmed.

To edit the swede we used a free app on the App Store called iMovie, this meant we could easily rearrange the clips in order, remove audio from some clips and add voice-overs all on one iPhone.

Below is an example of the layout of iMovie. At the bottom there is a camera button to add videos, a microphone to record sound and a settings button to edit a clip. In this scene we muted the video, added a voice-over then recorded Matthew playing the piano to add some audio similar to the official film.

Props

In the trailer of The Babadook, there are only a few props needed, mostly the props were items of clothing to make us look more like the characters we portrayed. To make Josh look more like the mother he needed to look more like a woman, to do this we used a wig the Jack has.

In the start of our sweded film we needed a book that could be used as the babadook, inside the book we included drawings on plain paper that were drawn by Niamh.

Dressing gowns and hoodies were worn over the top of our original clothes in some scenes when we were filming the scenes with the boy, Sam, and the mother. Matthew and Jack both had to wear a smart white shirt and tie when portraying the characters of the headteacher and the doctor.

In one scene there is wood being sawn and hammered, this was simple as in Jack’s shed he had planks of wood, a saw and a hammer. Also, there was a crossbow used; luckily Jack’s brother had a toy crossbow which we borrowed for the scene.

Multiple scenes were filmed inside a car so, with no keys in the engine, we borrowed Jack’s car to film a few scenes with the mother and son.

The three pictures below show some different props that were used during the sweded trailer. For example, you can see Josh and Jack playing the Mother and Sam in the car we used. You can also see the wig that was used by Josh to make his character look more like the Mother, and the crossbow Jack used when acting as Sam.

The Babadook trailer script

The Babadook - Sweded Trailer: Script

Joshua Coe- Mum

Jack Grimshaw- Samuel (Child), Head Teacher, Old Lady (Hooded)

Niamh Gallagher- The Babadook, Assistant Head Teacher

Matthew Levesley- Robbie, Old Lady (talking to mum), Doctor, babadook voiceover

(Mum and Samuel in bed)

Mum: Where’d you get this?

Sam: On the shelf

Mum: Whether it’s in a word or in a look, you can’t get rid of The Babadook. A rumbling sound then 3 sharp knocks-

Samuel: Bababa dook dook dook

Mum: That’s when you’ll he’s around, you’ll see him if you look

(Mum and Sam search house)

Mum- Nothing bad’s gonna happen, Sam

Sam- Did you think that about my dad before he died?

(Old woman outside)

Old woman- He sees things as they are, that one

Samuel (Voiceover): I promise to protect you if you promise to protect me

(Mum in school with two teachers)

Mum: Oh my God, did he hurt anyone?

Headteacher: The boy has significant behavioural issues

(Mum and Sam in car)

Mum (voiceover): This monster thing has got to stop, alright? It’s just a book, it can’t hurt you.

(Mum sitting with Robbie)

Robbie: Are you alright?

Mum: Yeah, yeah, I’m fine

Robbie: You don’t have to be fine, you know

Mum: Just a bit stressed at the moment

(Mum and doctor in doctors office)

Doctor: All children see monsters

Mum: Not like this!

(Mum in police station talking to officer)

Mum: I’d like to report someone stalking me and my child

(Door swings open)

Sam (Voiceover): You can’t get rid of the babadook!

Babadook (voiceover): You can bring me the boy (x3)

Sam (voiceover) : Don’t let him in! (x5)

(Mum in car with Sam)

Mum: WHAT DO YOU WANT?

(Mum coming towards Sam)

Mum: You are trespassing in my house!

(Mum forces Sam into bath)

Mum: I’m sick Sam, I need help

(Mum screams)

TITLE SCREEN

(Mum under bedsheets)

Mum: It isn’t real, it isn’t real, it isn’t real

Babadook (voiceover): Baba...dook...doook...dooook

Planning

Here are our planning ideas. Having looked at all the possible trailers to swede, we decided to go with the Babadook.