Representation

In my film I want to represent women. Usually in film noir, women are represented as powerless and only want to seduce the main male character. Or in Horror, the women are also represented are helpless and usually die first. Well not in my film. The women will be powerful and take control of the scenes. They will be badass like Wonder Woman.

One movie that represents women as powerful and in control is “Wonder Woman.” In this film, the main character (Wonder Woman) is a strong and intelligent superhero who leaves her home to fight alongside men in World War I. Diana (Wonder Woman) saves the Allies when they accidentally show up in her land. With her extreme strength and bulletproof cuffs, she helps the Allies defeat the Axis powers in the war. Apart from the woman being a superhero, the film represents women very accurately. Women are strong and are able to be in charge. Even before Diana’s people were discovered, she was an Amazonian princess filled with other female warriors. The film starts off by showing all of these amazing female warriors and no men. The women Amazonian women hold all of the power.

Another movie that has a strong female lead is “Pocahontas.” Pocahontas is a Native American woman who stumbles upon a colonists named John Smith. Pocahontas takes the lead into bringing unity between her tribe and the colonists. As both groups are at war, Pocahontas tries her best to understand both sides and end the feud. Pocahontas is extremely smart and understanding, so she teaches John Smith and is able to communicate with the colonists. When Smith gets captured by the Native Americans, she is able to free him and bring peace among the tribe and the colonists. This movie represents women and strong and understanding. Without Pocahontas, the two groups would not have been able to come to peace and socially interact with each other. Women in this movie are wise like Grandmother Willow, great listeners like Nakoma, and extremely understanding like Pocahontas.

I feel that the way that these films represent women are very fair and correct. Women are strong and powerful and should be represented that way. Strong female leads are very important to show that women can also be in charge and have a role in life other than having kids and staying in the house. While these movies do have strong females, many other films still represent women as damsels in distress needing a prince to come save us. In the movies that I previously explained, I would keep all of the characteristics about them. I want women to be strong and independent, not incapable of taking care of themselves. I would challenge the fact that all of the men in these films were understanding of the women being in the power. In real life, that is not how reality works. In my film, the women will not only have their main conflict, but the problems of having to prove themselves.

Horror

The second genre that I will incorporate in my film will be Horror. Yes, the film will have a noir also incorporated into it. But with the dark setting and the striking action, horror will also be expressed. The typical audience for horror is not specific to age but to who is interested in the genre.

Horror is usually set in isolated areas where there is no help for the characters and no hope in finding somewhere to run. The films usually use the sound of thunder and rain to enhance the feeling of isolation. Props that they use are usually weapons or antiques to create a dark and sinister scene. Colors used within horror are usually reds and blacks because they suggest danger and death.

Lighting used in horror give the effect of something bad going to happen. For example, shadows and light flickering causes the audience to feel scared and nervous. Lighting usually sets the mood for the movie. To give the movie an eerie feel, the lighting is dark and creates many shadows. Lighting can also be used to create a personality of character by casting shadows across their face to create a sinister minded character or a split mind personality. Costumes also create a personality of a character. Usually, in horror movies, the costumes are stereotypical to the character. For example, the jock will be wearing a jersey and the nerd will be wearing big glasses.

Sound is huge in horror films. Audio is key when editing, using Foley sound will help build suspense. Exaggerated diegetic sound will allow tension to be created in the film. Fast and loud non-diegetic sound can add to making the audience jump or feel scared. For example, the music in the shower scene in Psycho.

Many props are used in horror films to suggest horror for example Bibles, crucifix, paintings, candles, and weapons. The props such as a crucifix represent religion and the devil. It can also be used as a sign of God protecting them from the evil spirits. However, it usually just causes anger in the demon and more bad things happen.

Horror films have the typical icons that represent either the bad character or thing. It could be ghostly symbols, dark places, and unusual things happening like doors slamming and swinging lights. Horror films also have jumpy scenes with loud abrupt sounds to frighten the audience. These films also use wind, shadows, and unexplainable noises. There is normally a character that doesn’t believe or a priest that just upsets the bad thing even more.

One example of a great horror movie is “The Shining.” This movie is one of the top horror movies of all time. With the intense scenes and the loud abrupt music, the movie was an extreme hit. In this film, a family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from both past and future. This film embodies the horror genre with the loud slashing music, the terrorizing murders, and the low lighting.

Another example of an amazing horror movie is “Psycho.” This film is an iconic horror movie that is the headline of being the most known. “Psycho” is about a Phoenix secretary embezzles forty thousand dollars from her employer's client, goes on the run, and checks into a remote motel run by a young man under the domination of his mother. The black and white scenes and loud scary music really embody the horror genre. The remote hotel gives the sense to not only the characters a sense of helplessness but also the audience, by making them feel like there is nowhere to run.

Other great Horror films are:

Alien

A Quiet Place

Get Out

Halloween

The Exorcist

Genre

Genre

        My genre for this film will be a drama/noir. In the drama I want crime to be incorporated.  The typical audience for this genre is targeted at older adults because they grew up with this sort of film. Film noir, or in French "black film" refers to a period of film in the early 1940s to the late 1950s. It is known to be very theatrical and came from an early era of German expressionist cinema. These films were created directly after WWII; for movie audiences, this new type of film was fresh, exciting, and entertaining.

               Lighting is a key convention which stylized the film noir movies. Conventionally lighting is low key (a style called Chiaroscuro) and cleverly creates shadows concealing and is highly contrasting revealing various parts of the mise-en-scene. They use hard lighting to create sharp shadows with props and soft lighting to glamorize female characters. This is often known as "femme fatal". Another major convention is setting. The setting for film noir is usually an urban area like New York or Chicago. There are dark, bleak, disturbing settings. Bars, lounges, and nightclubs usually appear as settings.

           The difference between men and women in film noir is very distinct. The male is the great protagonist and has been like that for years. The female characters in film noir use their sexual attractiveness, provocative clothing and appearances to lure in men, manipulating them to gain money, independence, and power (get it ladies!!!). Their costumes are very seductive and revealing while their make up is heavy with black eyes and red lips. These characters have been named 'femme fatale' and are very different from the devoted wife and loving mother mainstream look that society has portrayed women as. Many iconic features in film noir are : cigarettes and smoke, dark sidewalks, alcohol, guns, trench coats, rain, flashing neon sign, and the color red.

             Film Noir knew how to connect with its audiences during the hardships of the aftermath of WWII. As soldiers returned home and women lost their jobs at the end of the world, the upbeat, pre-war propaganda films were replaced by films that projected cynicism. A harsh sense of reality now descended over America and audiences wanted to see it reflected in their movies. So they preferred seeing everyday people on the street in actual locations rather than artificial sets. Noir films were characterized by darkness and long shadows that were both symbolic and practical. They helped create the gloomy mood portrayed in the films and also hid the fact there was no set to show since noir films were often made on low budgets. The effect was created by the use of lighting or in some cases, the lack of it. These were great techniques used in their marketing.

             One great film that represents Noir is "Sunset Boulevard". While the film did have the typical cigarettes and low key lighting with the sharp shadows, it was the storyline that brought out the darkness. in the film of Sunset Boulevard by Billy Wilder (1950), the evilness and the guilt was a scene where Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) found out that Joe (William Holden) went out very frequently at night which she also found out that he is seeing another woman who is Betty (Nancy Olsen). Immediately, she plotted a scheme, gave a call to Betty and tells her about Joe. She never knew that Joe is back and when she knew that is too late because Joe already knows her scheme then she cut herself and act in pain in order to win a sympathy from Joe. Nevertheless, Joe decided to leave her and she shot him to death. In this scene, it shows how evil she is in plotting a scheme to break up Joe's and Betty's relationship and killing him in the end for leaving her, and also the guiltiness for what she had done in cutting herself to win his attention. This brutal storyline is an exact matchup to a film noir.

             Another fantastic film noir example is "Touch of Evil". This movie is a stark, perverse story of murder, kidnapping, and police corruption in a Mexican border town. Although unappreciated in its time in the US, a box-office failure, and criticized as artsy, campy, sleazy pulp-fiction trash, the low-budget film - in retrospect - has been ranked as the classic B-movie of the silver screen. It was regarded as a rebellious, unorthodox, bizarre, and outrageously exaggerated film, affronting respectable 1950's sensibilities, with controversial themes including racism, betrayal of friends, sexual ambiguity, frameups, drugs, and police corruption of power. Its central character is an obsessed, driven, and bloated police captain ("a lousy cop") - a basically tragic figure who has a "touch of evil" in his enforcement of the law. This movie has all of the known concepts of a film noir but with a hint of comedy.

             Here is a list of the top five film noirs:

1. Sunset Boulevard

2. The Maltese Falcon

3. The Third Man

4. Rebecca

5. Touch of Evil

Thanks for reading my genre blog and I hope you have a fantastic day! Stay tuned for the next post!

             

      

             

Welcome!

Introduction

Hi! My name is Riley and I'm very excited to share my film opening journey with this blog. So I am working on this film project with my friend Nicole and we both know that we want something dramatic. Whether the genre was just straight up drama or a film noir. I personally love film noir and I find it sad that it is a dying genre. I feel that many people now would like the darkness and the twisted ways of film noir. I am very excited to see this film opening come to life and I hope that people enjoy it. I will update as much as possible on here with all of the puzzle pieces that create this work. I hope you enjoyed my introduction and now on to the work!