Rough Cut

Making It Happen

After a strenuous pre-production, I am finally ready to film my section of a short film for the Independent film challenge. My section is 3 minutes of a film noir piece with a title of The Narcissist.

The overall idea is a sleazy lawyer’s rise to power, and inevitable fall, aided by a team of detectives, eager to stop him by any means necessary. The section used for the contest will be the flawed partnership of Holloway and Collins and the fateful night where the Lawyer, Mike, finally falls of the edge.

Cast

Holloway, a rookie cop, just assigned to the force, naïve and by-the-book will be played by unknown actor Ethan Jones. Holloway will be dressed in a mismatch of blue trousers and a grey blazer. This is done purposely to enhance the feeling of naivety but also that the work comes before the image.

Collins, the alcoholic old timer, will be played by a man native to the birthplace of Noir, LA. Jack Holdsworth takes on the role employing his best gritty, cockney accent.

And finally, our main character Mike the man who causes crimes just to prosecute for financial gain and to fill his power complex will be played by upcoming star Oli Hudson. Oli Hudson was a perfect fit for our short film as his psychopathic essence can be thoroughly seen and he's a genuinely fantastic man.

Outfits

The outfits used are modern but still reminiscent of the golden age of Noir. 

Collins' Shearer Jacket is key to conveying a tough attitude and a sense of versatility.

Here is the outfit of the schoolboy gunman. Derivative of any British gangster film as this is all he would have to base the look on. This shows his lack of experience.

The old fashioned style of this blazer and trousers adds a touch of clunkiness to the character. Based on "Professor" - this outfit brings a sense of knowledge and naivety to the character, fully contrasting to his partner.

Location.

Location 1 - Office

The location of Holloway and Collins’ work, arguments and drunken moments will be their office. This is set in a school English classroom, converted to look shabby and overused.

Location 2 – Alley

The location of the climax of the piece will be an alleyway at night time. The alleyway I’ve chosen is outside the school, in between a transformer building and the bins. A possible problem will be light so I will bring plenty of portable light sources. I will film in the evening to get the classic gothic feeling but still see my characters.

Target Audience

The target audience of my piece is older, smarter people and fans of classic noir. Although there is a modern twist, there is still a classic practicality about all of the characters along with generic interesting props. The BBFC rating will be 15 but the target audience will be 16-35 year-old males. This is due to the macho nature of the detectives and the male heavy cast. There will be slight discrimination by Collins which will be portrayed as unfair and wrong, meaning that women will not be pushed out, but it is definitely a more a male-focused genre.

Film Blog Analysis

As a newcomer to blogging, an interesting activity is reviewing other blogs; It can help give ideas to make a blog better, but it's also fun to judge people.

So here we go: reviewing the form and functionality of film blogs.

Live For Films

This blog has a very clear layout on a simple, black, white colour scheme with accents of colours like blue and green. At the very top there is a title and a slogan "We have such sights to show you!".

Underneath there is a very simple and clean navigation bar used to capture every aspect of film, even niche concepts such as cosplay and comic.

Below a rolling selection of top stories, perfectly chosen (Star Wars Episode 7), is 4 topic columns, with neat stories underneath based on the topics: News, Trailer, Poster, Review. This simple but encompassing layout means that everything is shown, yet there is also a hell of a lot to read, and generally something for everyone who likes films.

The review bar is very appealing and kind of represents this blog as a whole: simple, and self explanatory.

Filmonic

On the opposite end of the scale, we find a more simple vessel of information here. With it's black and white colour scheme and very simple banner, it conveys a sense of simplicity and in films, this connotes the mainstream, as if 5 simple headings would be enough for the whole variety of audience. This audience is a lot broader but unspecific, unlike Live For Films, which hit all the types of audiences it could manage, whilst still hitting the right places of each. This blog has sneaky adverts on the right hand side, all related to film and television, but still make an avid internet user groan. The posts in Filmonic are very simple, laid out reverse chronologically, with no weight of significance, and all the same boring 'read more' style. That might fly for them but as a youth oriented style as I have myself, I think its important to add excitement, whilst also keeping a strong hold on the basic principals of style and classic theme.

Movie Marker

Immediately, I recognize a good navigation bar, the real indication of a solid blog. It is simply laid out into the main functions of the blog. Each page has the same structure of a header with a half page article link about a main story, in today's case, an interview. This top story structure is effective, as it obviously guides the focus of the audience, but takes up a lot of space, showing that it is a highly skilled blog and uses the structure for effect. Blogs like Filmonic only have stories which looks quite boring. This exciting blog layout shows that it is for the younger film fanatic and the style of films represented in the 'news' section are ranged but mostly mainstream. Marvel and Tarantino are highlighted, which literally pull me to the screen, mainstream audience for sure.

An interesting part of this blog is there is a whole subsection for competitions, this kind of audience interaction is extremely intriguing and shows its attempts to grab all kind of people, but mostly the young ones due to their excitable manors.

So apparently, layout is a big deal to me. I like knowing there is always more to see and a very easy way to get there. I feel like a good film blog has a good navigation bar and an electric colour scheme.

As well as this it must obviously appeal to the specific audience. 

My audience would probably be an older, smarter audience, who benefit from psychological concept as well as gripping drama and action. So i'd probably expect myself to reflect some excitement but also classic style and trend.