My report of Sin City (Neo-noir)

As in my example the film features 3 volumes of stories by ‘Frank Miller’ who originally wrote the story on a comic book series. The first part is called ‘The Hard Goodbye’ about a man who embarks on a brutal rampage in search of his one-time sweetheart's killer; The Big Fat Kill, which focuses on a street war between a group of prostitutes and a group of mercenaries; and That Yellow Bastard, which follows an aging police officer who protects a young woman from a grotesquely disfigured serial killer. Although there is three different storylines going on its not always obvious that the stories are not connected. As the viewer you feel as if you just getting an insight into the characters and the narrative is building up to them meeting.


The film starts with ‘The Salesman’ walking onto a penthouse balcony where ‘The Customer’ looks out over Basin City. He says that she looks like someone who is tired of running and that he will save her. The two share a kiss and he shoots her; she dies in his arms. He says he’ll never know what she was running from but that he’ll cash her check in the morning. Then surprisingly the story jumps to a different storyline That Yellow Bastard (Part 1). On the docks of Sin City, an aging police officer tries to stop a serial child-killer. From raping and killing eleven-year-old .


The Hard Goodbye


After a one-night stand Marv awakens to find Goldie has been killed while he slept. vowing to avenge her death. His parole officer warns him to give up on this mission. Marv interrogates several informants, working up to a corrupt priest. Marv kills the priest, but is attacked by a woman who looks like Goldie. Eventually he ends up being executed


The Big Fat Kill


That Yellow Bastard (Part 2)


Hartigan is recovering in a hospital and is told Nancy is in danger and in the end Hartigan commits suicide to ensure Nancy's safety. Again, he justifies his life for Nancy's as a fair trade.


Epilogue


An injured Becky departs from a hospital, talking on a cell phone with her mother. In the elevator she encounters The Salesman. Narrating the scene, he says that if you turn the right corner in Sin City, you can find anything.


So the narrative of the film is very dark, there isn’t really much happiness in the film all the characters we feel close to and side with all end up dying and no one really seems to win. And the message of the fiction city comes across; that nothing good ever really happens in Sin City.


Sin City uses shadow and stark backgrounds, black and white are the sole colours most of the time with exception of red, yellow and blue in some stories.

3 Examples of Neo-Noir

Brick – was released in 2005 and fits the genre of neo-noir perfectly. The basic storyline is that a teenage loner pushies his way into the high school crime ring to investigate the disapeance of his ex-girlfriend. The film has all the traits of classic film noir; odd-ball characters, dark and gloomy setting right down to the very smart and quick paced dialogue of a 30s/40s hard boiled detective thriller. The twist that lifts it above parody and even a mere homage is the presentation of these elements with high school kids. The director’s way of telling the story makes the audience feel like they are being taken along smooth and quick editing. Along with skewed and distorted camera angles. He manages to maintain suspense throughout the film. And the narrative follows tat of typical noir with the good guy not winning. It has all the traits of a noir but with a younger cast and a more up-to-date setting and scenario.
Sin City – again was released in 2005 and features 3 volumes of stories by ‘Frank Miller’ who originally wrote the story on a comic book series. The first part is called ‘the hard goodbye’ Sin City is famous for its artwork, which draws heavily from film noir, including its use of shadow and stark backgrounds. Black and white are the sole colors most of the time with exception of red, yellow and blue in some stories. Partial color usage is designed to draw attention to a certain character in the story. The writing style also draws heavily on detective and crime pulp fiction. Strange metaphors and similes are often used. This gives the narration a very unnerving feel. The story is set in Basin City fictional town in the American west. With strange climate it has deserts, farmland, tar pits and also it snows their part of the year most of these settings are considered dark and gloomy


Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow – this film was released in 2004 and it crosses into many genres. Sci-fi mystery thriller with action adventure, but i belive that this film uses alot of noir traits in it and should be considered as a neo-noir. “The film is set in an alternative 1939 and follows the adventures of Polly Perkins, a newspaper reporter for The Chronicle, and Harry Joseph "Joe" Sullivan, known as "Sky Captain", as they track down the mysterious "Dr. Totenkopf" who is seeking to build the 'World of Tomorrow'”(Reference from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Captain_and_the_World_of_Tomorrow ) so to give the film its 1939 feel i believe that the film has been decolorized in the edit to make colours dull and cool. But because there is still colour in the film I believe that it appeals to a younger audience than most noir films. Most neo-noirs are aimed at 15+ male and females but I believe that this film appeals to people as low as 8 years due to the narrative and the characters. Which may get more people interested in noir films.

Evaluation of Preliminary Exercise

Our brief was to shoot a short video with someone entering a room and exchanging a few lines of dialog with another character. Taking in mind the skills of basic video production; so continuity editing with Sharpe cuts between shots. And whilst filming the footage the framing must look professional by using the rule of thirds. And checking what’s in the frame.

I feel in general our production went very well for our first attempt at film making. Our group fulfilled most of the brief whist shooting trying to get shots in thirds. But in one shot whist a character was walking across the shot from left to right the cinematographer had the character in the right vertical third when they should have been shot in the left vertical. Then after that shoot the cut to the next shoot feels very irregular to the viewer, this is due to the actor changing their body stance in the change of shot when opening the door. Most of the rest of the cinematography is good. The eye line match on the two-shots and shot-reverse-shot is good and meets the upper horizontal third. But some of the over-the-shoulder shots there was dead space between the top of the frame and the top of the actors head. And the sound quality was generally good apart from nearer the end of the clip the boom operator didn’t wrap the microphone wire around the boom so this created an irregular/ unnatural sound in the final piece as the wire kept vibrating the boom.

Synopsis & Treatment for Final Piece

Here is our groups own synopsis for each individual area the first is mine and i covered editing and sound, the second is Emily's she covered mise-en-scene and finally is Seb's he covered Cinematography.

Synopsis for BulletProof

The film opens in the past in the general storyline of the film. Mike is waiting to go and kill a planned target. He looks at his watch and climbs three floors of stairs and walks down the corridor to the location were he was told he would find his target. He walks up to the target without being heard and points his pistol at the target. The woman who sent him on his mission (Candeece) who is Mike’s old partner for their hit man agency is also been asked to go the location. Unbeknown to her, her target is Mike and she is under grave pressure to kill her target (It is hard for her as she has a crush on Mike). Mike goes to pull the trigger on his target but takes to long and is shot by Candeece. We see mike collapse to the floor as-if dead! At the end of the scene Trig (who was Mike’s target) walks over to Candeece and sees that she is nervous so comforts her by telling her “you did well”. They walk off down the corridor with Trig believing that Mike is dead. But Mike then sharply opens his eyes gets up and addresses the audience to say; “So I suppose you want to know what is going on?”

BulletProof Script

INT. STAIRWELL (GROUND FLOOR) DUSK/EVENING




MIKE looks at his watch and opens the bag with the gun in, he takes out the gun and checks the bullets and puts the magazine in the gun and exits squatting in the shadows under the stairwell.





INT. FEMME-FATAL STAIRWELL (2ND FLOOR) DUSK/EVENING



FEMME-FATAL nervously walks up the stairs holding the gun awkwardly and pauses and looks at the direction information, continues to the entrance to the corridor and pauses and sighs





INT. FEMME-FATAL 2ND FLOOR CORRIDOOR DUSK/EVENING



FEMME-FATAL enters the corridor and walks the centre of the corridor and collapses into a dark area on the right





INT. TRIG BRIDGE (2ND FLOOR) DUSK/EVENING



TRIG is in a locker arranging some documents. A gun is clearly visible on the documents



INT. MIKE STAIRWELL (MIDDLE FLOOR) DUSK/EVENING



MIKE is weary of being seen and if anyone is above him on the stairwell, he clibs the stairs calmly putting one foot on each step as he goes up the stairs.



INT. MIKE (2ND FLOOR CORRIDOOR) DUSK/EVENING



MIKE stops just outside the entrance to the 2nd floor corridor and opens is and peers around the open door into the corridor to check it’s clear. He proceeds with the gun held loosely in his right hand



INT. BRIDGE (2ND FLOOR) DUSK/EVENING



MIKE walks down corridor and sees a glance of the subject he is meant to kill. His footsteps get lighter and he goes up to the wall and creeps along the wall. He gets to the corner looks round, composes himself then stands in the centre of the corridor and slowly brings the gun from the relaxed position to the firing position with the barrel pointing towards his target

TRIG: I’m surprised you haven’t pulled the trigger yet!

MIKE: How did you know I was here?

TRIG: I know most things.

MIKE: Name some!

TRIG: I know the organisation that sent you! (Gloatingly)

MIKE: And how would you know that

TRIG: easy, we have a mole in your organisation, the one thing I don’t know is your name! May I have the pleasure of knowing it?

MIKE: NO!



MIKE raises the gun to trig who is looking straight down the barrel. There is a long pause before a loud BANG!



MIKE collapses to the ground as-if dead



TRIG confidently walks over to CANDEECE and takes the gun from her

TRIG: You did well



TRIG & CANDEECE walk off down the corridor



MIKE from dead, suddenly awakes picks up the gun and addresses the audience (via fourth wall)