QUESTION 1 - Rough Edit

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In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real products?

In this opening sequence we were trying to incorporate generic conventions of film noir and try to develop (modernize) them to make the sequence look more contempory.

In first scene after the graphic match of the wanted poster when we are first greeted with what we are led to believe is ‘the bad guy’, revealing a low angle of this ‘bad guy’ which is a generic convention on film noir as it shows that he may have the upper hand/more power that any of the other characters in the sequence because. In the same scene, the mise en scene shows a silhouette of ‘the bad guy’ and clearly shows the outline of him wearing a trench coat and a trilby hat to hide is identity further from the audience, which is another classic convention of film noir.

From the primary research I carried out by creating and sending out a questionnaire via email to students around Hartlepool Sixth Form College to find peoples opinions and preferences on film noir. We discovered that the audience prefers modern noirs such as ‘Se7en’ and ‘The Usual Suspects’. By using conventions of film noir we have tried to indicate that ‘Se7en’ has influenced our work; for example, we have kept ‘the bad guy’s’ identity hidden, which in ‘Se7en’ John Doe’s identity is remained a mystery until the end of the film. This is also a convention of film noir because it adds to the mystery of his identity.

The subgenre we have tried to aim for is a mixture between a detective mystery; this element comes from how Walter, Nancy’s husband, has gone to look for her, therefore he takes the role of the detective, and tries to solve the mystery of her disappearance. The other subgenre we are trying to incorporate is a suspense-thriller; this element comes from how the identity of ‘the bad guy’ is always kept hidden, therefore it builds suspense and keeps the audience on the edge of their seats wanting to find out more. When I showed the final cut to my friends, the shared comment from them all was that they all wanted to see more, more than an opening sequence. So to demonstration these subgenres we used conventions of film noir such as hidden identities, which involves the audience, perhaps by misleading them to believe and accuse the wrong character.

We have challenged classic noir conventions mainly my not including a main protagonist. In film noir, whether they’re contempory or old fashioned, a protagonist is always included, mainly a detective character; by not including one, we have edgily challenged the convention of noir as a protagonist is usually expected. However when Walter goes looking for Nancy he kind of takes over the role of the protagonist but it isn’t made clear, it is left open for interpretation.  

Our evaluation will be presented on a Wix in which we will present our Question 1 as a video, this will involve us showing clips of our film that we have used as examples in our evaluation and have us talking over the footage to explain why we have used these examples.