Engima

Enigma is when the audience asks questions for example in The Third Man the audience maybe thinking when the voice over starts 'Who is the man that is talking' 'Why does he know so much about this place?' 'Who is Harry Lime?' 'Why are the Americans called "poor chap"?'.

Enigma creates a reason to watch the film. They leave you thinking about why this is happening and who it is happening to. Enigma alows the audience to feel a part of the film, its also makes the audience have certian expectations of the film because they would hope that the questions that they ask will be answeredduring the film. For example they would expect to find out who the man is that is talking and who Harry Lime is.

Enigma was used in or thriller by the business man suddenly becoming homeless. The audience would wonder why this had happened to him? What happened to his family from th beginning?Who did this. What caused it to happen? This will hopefully draw the audience deeper into the opening in hope to find out during the rest of the film.

Binary opposites

Binary Opposites is oftern used in film noir (eg black and white, good and evil) it helps create drama and intest in the film. The types of binary opposites most commanly used in Thrillers are. ; Black and white (colour contrast), good and evil, male and female, life and death, turth and lies, justice and crouption, crime and punishment, light and dark, power and powerless.

Binary opposites in Thriller films I have watched.
The Thrid man

• religion (churches) and crime (dead body in water and items being sold that might not be legal)
• War (buildings blown up shown in the quick shots in the begining of the opening) and Peace (Main characters friend had died and he visits his grave. Graveyards-we think of death as finally resting in peace .)

Sin City

• Black and white (with only a few things in colour)
• Female and male. (female = femme fatal)

I have used binary opposites in my thriller opening by staring the opening in what seems to be a good and perfect life living in a clean comfortable home, but then leading to the man living a a dirty run down home. We hope that this will make the audience see the contrasts in his life and make that it will make a bigger impression and it will hopefully be something that the audience would remember when they go away. I hope that the contract between clean and dirty would leave the audience with the impression that life can change fast if you make the wrong decision.

L.A Noir

L.A Confidential is a perfect example of a L.A noir film. L.A noir is similar to film noir because they have exactly the same themes but the difference is that L.A noir is more bright and cheerful like L.A compare to film noir which is dark and mysterious. L.A noir being so bright doesn't give the impression of it being a noir film that is why when the characters are inside a house or building the windows are normally covered by barley open blinds that let in small amounts of light but enough to see in. Film noir films don't do this as it is already dark in the place the filming is set in. Film noir consists of dark unnatural lighting caused by night or bad weather.

L.A noir maybe the most realistic use of lighting and this should make people feel more comfortable watching the film but because of the genre contrastion with the lighting people will feel uneasy due to it not being a typical noir film.

Opening To L.A Confidental Notes

These notes were taken during lessons as we were watching the opening to LA Confidental. These notes give small detail on noir elements, key themes and why use LA. These are the things that I and fellow students in my class has noted during the opening.

Noir Elements
Black (Brown) & white start - [monocrome], Voice Over, smoking, Gun, Cheery music [Jazz], Smart clothes

Key Themes

• Corruption
• Bleak
• Crime
• Deception

Why use LA?

Bright, a cheerful place [Shocks Audience]

We ruin everything [corruption]

How does LA confadiental use and develop noir conventions

• Female- Femme Fatale, Intvitive, Seductive
• Moral Ambiguity
• Lighting
• Corruption- Decetive
• Flawed Heros

Opening To Sin City notes

These notes were taken during lessons as we were watching the opening to Sin City. These notes give small detail on the setting, lighting, sound/dialogue, costume/props and shot types/camera work. These are the things that I and fellow students in my class has noted during the opening.

How is sin city's opening scene film Noir

1. Female - Femme fatal
2. stylist - suits, slick hair
3. Monochrome
4. Iconic props - gun, cigarettes
5. Flaned hero
6. City Scape
7. Themes- Deception, isolation, Crime
8. Lighting
9. Voice over

Opening of Sin City

Setting/Lighting

• Contrast between shadow and light on faces implies hidden characteristics + deception
• Dominating colour is black
• Bright lights from party, balcony, dark shows isolation
• Cityscape large, makes character/crime look insignificant
• Colours for striking scene
• Establishing shot of city/ their significant

Shot types/ Camera

• Slow zoom on female face - emotions
• Close up of props - emphasising signifcance
• Close up on eyes- flirtation/intamate

Costume/ Props

• Dress (red)- Sparkly, backless,holter, 1920's
• Female Hair- Short - unrealistic
• Tuxedo -tie, dark suit
• Male hair - Gelled back - unrealistic
• Gun silencer
• Cigarette
• lighter
• Exaggerated gender roles
• Raining

V.O/ Dialogue/ Script

• Very focused dialogue- intensity
• Script adds layer of depth/emotion, complexity to character
• Emphasises female invulnerability

Opening of 'The Third Man' Notes

These notes were taken during lessons as we were watching the opening to The Third Man. These notes give small detail on the setting, lighting, sound/dialogue and shot types/camera work. These are the things that I and fellow students in my class has noted during the opening.

• Starts with voice over (narrator is English)
• Western music playing in background.
• Film Set- Vienna - Austria, war, black market

How does the sequence introduce ideas that are unsettling or to do with evil/morality?

War (vienna (metaphor) Criminal activity)-Voice over

Mise En Scene
Lighting
Colour
Set
Character
Props

Notes
Two Big Churches
Colours Dark/Light
'Vienna' late 40s audience
Classical (statues)
Ruff (Black Market)
Dead body floating (really Black) (dark evil)
(real news futage)
Bombed buildings
Naration - 'I was gonna tell ya'

How does the opening of the Third man establish the atmosphere/theme/mood and expctations?

Setting
-Gothic -architecture- dark/mysterious
-In Vienna-heavaly bombed
-Big Staircases- morality metaphor
-Graveyard
-Churches- Mortality/good and evil
-Spaced
-Winter- snow - Darkness

Shot types/camera work
- Flicks between different shots of vienna-Bustiling
-Documentary-Like wase news footage- Real and Relevant

Lighting
- White faces at funeral surrounded by darkness
-White vs Dark
-Dark and low intensity
-Dark city & light sky
-Floating body - death/ww2

Sound/Dialogue/V.O
-Lowers voice to discuss black market
-Cheerful music- Contrasts
-Conflicting Lauguage- isolation

Film noir

Film noir is a term used to describe Hollywood crime dramas. Film noir became very popular in the early 1940s to the late 1950s. This was a popular thing because they was not a lot of money to spend on films after the war so they made small budget film noir films. Film noir films are normally crime films. Here are a few film noir films:
Out of the Past (1947)
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
Shadow of a Doubt (1943)
The Wrong Man (1956).

Film noir was the era that was associated with low key lighting. Low key lighting is a style of lighting used in photography, film and or television this creates a chiarosuro effect. Low key lighting is used to create shadows and evil effects. Low key lighting is also used to single out one person and to emphasize the person.

Raymond Borde and Etienne Chaumeton said “We'd be oversimplifying things in calling film noir oneiric, strange, erotic, ambivalent, and cruel” They stated in there book ‘Panorama du film noir américain’ that not every film noir film has all 5 attributes.

Film Noir has 5 main themes
Death
Greed
Self indulgence
Self forgiveness
Crime

Film noir outside the United States.

Some people may believe that film noir didn’t start in America and that it actually started outside the USA for example the French film called Pépé le Moko (1937) is classed as a film noir film. The French have been none to create film noir films before film noir was actually created. Here are a few French film noir films:
Rififi (1955)
Les Diaboliques (1955)
Quai des Orfèvres (1947)

There were also a lot of films filmed in Britain classed as film noir films here are a few more:
Night and the City (1950)
Stolen Face (1952)
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947)

The Third Man

The opening of ‘The Third Man’ starts with a very strong English voice over. The voice over talks about Vienna. In contrast to him talking about the Vienna war there is cheerful music playing in the background. This could symbolise the victory is for the winning country. When the man starts to talk about the black market he lowers his voice this shows that it is not acceptable and that people shouldn’t hear you talking about it.
‘The Third Man’ has footages from what seems to be news footage from the Vienna war this shows realization and relevant ness It also flicks between shots of places in Vienna. The beginning of ‘The Third Man’ seems to be more like a documentary’
The setting of ‘The Third Man’ is very gothic. We can tell this by the uses of architecture. The architecture of ‘The Third Man’ is very dark and mysterious. The use of churches shows the contract with good and evil. This has also been used with the staircase. The main character is shown to have little importance in the opening of ‘The Third Man’ by how he is low down on one floor of the staircase while the camera is on the stairs above. The staircase could imitate the distance between heaven and hell.
This is also show by the man who is cleaning the chandelier. He points to heaven and says ‘hell’ and then points to hell and says ‘heaven’.
The third man seems to be set in winter these cerates a very gothic film noir scene.
Lighting is used to show the sadness and the darkness. This is shown by the white faces at the funeral that seem to be surrounded by darkness and death. Dark vs. white has been used a lot in the opening scene of the third man. The scene with the floating body in the river is emphasized by how dark the body is and how light the water.

Sin City

The opening of sin city starts with a black screen with the sound of a police siren. This immediately gives the impression of the films location in New York. Just as jazz music begins to play the black screen turns into a high angle shot of a woman wearing a red dress. The red dress is made to stand out because it is the only thing in this scene that is in colour. We assume that she is high up due to the balcony and bacause you can see tall buildings all around her. The voice over begins at 0.32 as the woman puts her arms around her, the voice over is describing what we as a audience is seeing.