Main Production - Post Production - First Draft

Below is the first draft of our film noir created by me, Michael and Chris.
We still need to edit it, but we done the first draft, then are going to show the class and get some feedback and correct it. We havent acquired the voice over yet so that is not in the video yet and we have also recieved some feedback from Mr Woodcock and awaiting feedback from Mr sheppard.

Main Production - Pre Production - Actors Information

For our film noir opening scene we only needed one actor, this is his bio;

Name: Graham Hewitt
Age: 62
Height: 6ft 1
Weight: 13 stone 10 pounds
Hair Colour: Black
Eye Colour: Blue
Build: Skinny
Experience in acting: Amateur Dramatics and 3 Television Appearances.
Experience that could contribute to a better job: Used to be a solicitor advocate, can be serious when needed, and when shown will know what to do. Friendly and understanding so easily told what to do.
Ethnicity: White English
Skin Colour: White
Hair Length: Medium/Short
Languages: English
Interests: Films (Film noir, Action), Classical music, Psychic studies.

Main Production - Post Production - Getting the voice over.

Mr Sheppard mentioned during the week that for the voice over in our film we could email a professional to ask if he could do it for us to improve the quality. His name was Simon Ockenden, and he is well known in the media industry for a good quality American accent and also is known for helping media students with their projects for free.

Michael emailed Mr Ockenden during the week and we have received a reply and here is the email;




As you can clearly see in this email he has agreed to do the voice over for our film noir opening scene, so Michael has emailed him the script that he needs to say and we are now waiting for a reply with the first edit of our voice over.

As you can read above he has mentioned that if he does the voice over and it is not what we thought it was just email him back and he will redo it if we tell him what needs changing.

Main Production - Diary Entry 9 - Beginning of the editing process

Today Michael had started to edit all the clips that we had filmed for our opening scene, as he was part of the creation of our screenplay and script he had a good idea of what the film wanted to look like, although as with everything there is usually a problem with making the films look continuous and in sync, luckily Michael managed to get them all in sync before he started cropping the clips to make them more in sync. When Michael had a look at the clips it had appeared that they had no sound on them, this was not a problem except for the scene with the door bang in it, but this can easily be replaced. All we need now for the first edit is the voice over, which Michael has emailed a professional to do it who always helps with student workshops.

We now have the task to think about what style the credits want to be in and also the music that we will include, this is a simple process as Mr Sheppard as mentioned this week that there is over 100 film noir music clips we can include on the Z drive of school.

Main Production - Post Production - Shoot pictures/information

During filming we had a task to take pictures of us recording, here are the only pictures we took during the shoot and some information to do with the picture.

Here is Chris in living room, this was the room where we talked generally before and during filming of what we wanted to do, had the scripts and shot list for reviewing as this room as next to the filming room.

Here is the picture of the 3 props we created ourselves, Michael created these on Microsoft word and we printed them just before sorting out the set, just behind the top piece of paper you might be able to see an old looking newspapers, this is because the actor had 4/5 newspapers that were from the 1950s so we thought we would include them in the set to authenticate the scene more.
















This is the picture of the desk that was the main part of the scene, as you can see there is an old style radio on the left hand side, the newspaper clippings on left as well that we were using. Going towards the middle you can see the old style typewriter that we were using, next to that just on the right is an old scotch glass that is from the 1950s, then going to the right of that is the original legit 1950s newspapers that the actor kindly gave to us, all these props increased the authentication of the scene.













Here is where I put the lighting up for the production, as you can see when it will be on the door will be interfering with direct light on the scene, as the windows on the doors are blurry I thought this would be a good effect on the scene and also not give to much light as the scene is meant to be dark and mysterious, which is a convention of film noir.













Here is a close up of the light. (Before filming, hence the tripod next to the light)













This is a reverse angle of the desk that you can see, this picture is useful for me to show you on the windows in the doors opposite, you can see they are blurry, and you can imagine the effect on the lighting during filming, (as mentioned above).

This is during filming and our actor with his outfit as shown on several of my other posts.













Chris fixing the camera to the tripod between scenes.













Here is a picture of the room before we made arrangements to it, showing the difference before and after, with the picture of after we had done changes to it being above.



















Here is the reverse angle of the room we had to transform. As well as the building that we were filming in, it is a old house that is big, which shows the guy is quite or was wealthy.

Main Task - Post Production - Character Costumes

For our film noir opening scene we were expecting to get the character costumes as traditional and conventional, to do this we were looking for a trilby hat that reporters/directors use in the time set, and also a trench jacket to authenticate it more;

Unfortunately we did not arrange these in time and were dependant on our actor to hopefully have the items we required. When we got to the shoot we asked our actor if he had any and he said he was not sure but he would search for them, he then came down and told us he did not have any but he suggested he used his "judges outfit" as he used to be a judge, we then decided that we would try them and see what they looked like, he came down in a white striped shirt, black jacket, black shoes, black trousers and a tie. We told the actor then to change the striped shirt to a clear white shirt, and then we came to a group agreement that we liked the outfit. It is shown below;

Main Production - Pre Production - Character Bio

For our film noir opening scene we only needed one character throughout. His name is Cole Kelso. Cole in his prime was the best detective out there, he was solving crimes on the street and for a comparative is the 1950's "Sherlock Holmes". He would be known all over New York for putting highly dangerous criminals locked up weekly making New York a safer place. He then met a girl and fell madly in love with her, due to this he then got involved with a well known gang called the "Bedowski" mobsters, the power that the girl had on Cole was superior to his priority of his detective work, which lead to him finding and destroying evidence of crimes they have commit, doing this gained a closer relationship with this female. Due to hiding vital evidence of murders and drug dealings, the public soon found out and the story was unfolded so he became hated, wanted by many people, lost his rank in his job and also lost his important reputation. Once the public found out he had a epiphany and realised what he had "become", this makes his try to change back to his "prime" and the stardom that he had, but to get back up to this rank would be hard due to the trust by many people that he had lost. He came up with an idea to frame the "Bedowski" mobsters but doing this got him caught, once the Bedowski mobsters realised that he is trying to frame them, from their violent background they then went on the hunt for Cole to try and get revenge - and with their previous murders Cole knew at the first chance they had he would be a goner. This has resulted in Cole being a nervous wreck and paranoid everywhere he goes.

He now keeps a low profile all the time and hides most of the time, not going to major events and keeping his head down. He is a regular drinking and on the breach of becoming a alcoholic because he thinks that drink is the answer and to forget all his problems. He was not a regular smoker, only when a case stressed him out as he thought it was an easy way to relief stress, but now he is a heavy chain smoker and smokes up to 40 a day. 

Main Production - Pre Production - Research into Props

Film noir genre has a specific theme throughout all films. This theme coexists of costume, story lines, set and also props. Mostly all film noir movies will have the same props involved, as it is set in the 1950s then the obvious would be old type items.
Male Conventions of props would be;

• Guns
• Cigar/Cigarette
• Suit
• Trilby Hat
• Trench Coats

Female Conventions of props would be;

• Cigarettes
• Dresses
• High Heels
• Fancy Hats

Other Props that will be included into a film noir production could be;

• Typewriters
• Alcohol (Shots of gin)
• An old style telephone.

Main Production - Pre Production - Research into Costumes

Most film noir movies have a consistent theme and conventions about them. One of the conventions that they all have in common is the costumes that the characters wear. Usually the main male characters in film noir movies are detectives, or investigators. This shows that most people in a film noir will be wearing the same costumes, conventially this will be a detective long coat and a trilby hat, to back this up all you need to do is type in "film noir" onto google images and it comes up with the conventional costumes;

Main Production - Pre Production - Lighting Certificate

We definitely needed a lighting certificate for the film noir that we were planning to film. Due to this we were intending on borrowing a lighting kit from the media department, for this to be possible, Me, Michael or Chris has to pass the lighting test and get a lighting certificate.
I wanted to take this opportunity to get the lighting certificate for future productions in year 13 as well as this one so I took charge of the situation and passed the lighting test, gaining myself a lighting certificate, shown below.

Main Production - Pre Production - Production Schedule

The production schedule that was dispersed to the cast & crew on 28th February is shown below:Candi Production Schedule

Main Production - Diary Entry 9 - Filming

On Thursday the 1st March we started filming. It was approximately 7 o clock pm when we started filming due to we wanted it to be night time. We finished filming at about half past 9 pm. We got all the scenes we had planned to get and record all the scenes atleast two times so that we will have a alternative if they do not match and look continuous.

Main Production - Pre Production - Story Board

The storyboard for the production 'Candi' is shown below.
The storyboard was drawn & annotated by Christopher Howard, based on the finalised script (created by Christopher Howard & Michael Raucci) & the final plan - Candi (opening scene), (created by Michael Raucci)

Main Production - Pre Production - Risk Assessment

The risk assessment for the filming of the production 'Candi' are shown below.
I completed these documents on the 28th of February 2012 and they were checked by Michael on the 1st March before filming.
Document 1 -
General risk assessment for all aspects of the filming phase

Document 2 - Risk breakdown for all aspects of the filming phase

 Document 3 - General risk assessment for the lighting during the filming phase

 Document 4 - Risk breakdown for the lighting during the filming phase

Main Production - Pre Production - Screenplay Analysis

The screenplay was written by Chris and Michael. It contains many film noir elements and conventions to make the audience interested in the opening scene.

What will be throughout the opening scene that the audience will notice the most is the Voice - over, this will tell the audience on what they have missed out on and additionally add mystery to the scene. The voice - over is talking about, (presented at the end) himself, but the audience will not know that. It shows depression through the characters life when it started falling from its peak. The main character is a detective which lines it up with most film noir conventions and main characters, as well as gangs/groups of bad guys involved, which most successful film noir movies have. ]


All the conventions in the screen play are deliberate and on purpose, this is because everything in the screen is put their for a reason and we took this rule and put clues about what he has been doing prior to his downfall so that hopefully the audience can see these hints.

Main Production - Pre Production - The Props

The use of props during the film will make it seem more realistic. The props that we have used are;

• 50's style typewriter
• 50's style radio
• Old (expensive looking) scotch glass
• Genuine newspapers/newspaper extracts
• Non genuine newspaper articles that follow the plot of the film (to push the narrative)
• Although we had originally planned to use a picture of Cole Kelso in one of these newspaper clippings we were unable to due to time restraints, but instead used an archived picture of a New York crime scene.
• Old style ash tray
• Cigarettes
• Old style, reasonably expensive looking writer's desk
• Dark Old style wooden chair (with leather upholstery)

Main production - Pre Production - Shot list

Michael spoke to Chris the camera man about the shots he is going to use, and together they improvised and had a joint decision about the shots we were going to use, this is shown below.

Candi. Shot List