Group: Film Noir and Femme Fatale

For the type of concept we have planned, film noir is the most appropriate choice of genre to research. This is because our film falls under a cross between crime-thriller and horror. Film noir is a term to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas particularly those that emphasize moral ambiguity and sexual motivation. The golden era of film noir was between the 1940's and 1950's.

Low-key lighting

Some visual techniques we could use to make our film noir more film noir is low-key lighting. Low-key lighting is widely used in film noir. This type of lighting produces stark light/dark contrasts and dramatic shadow patterning. These lighting techniques can be produced by shining a light through Venetian blinds or banister rods. Another technique is three-point lighting. Three-point lighting is where you have lights on both sides of the shot and above. This gives a lot of shadows.

Lighting using blinds

We also believe film noir is suitable because of our plot. Stock characters in film noir are hardboiled detectives, femmes fateles, corrupt policemen and jealous husbands. Our plot includes corrupt policemen, a detective and a husband, but it centres around a femme fatale. The characteristics of a femme fatale is that she is very alluring and sensual. However, she is also very cunning and elusive, using her sexuality to elude the police. We understand that a strong iconography of a femme fatale is cigarettes with wispy trails of smoke. This is something we would like to replicate.

Mia Wallace

Some famous and iconic examples of femme fatales are:

• Mia Wallace (Pulp Fiction)
• Catharine Trammell (Basic Instinct)
• Satine (Moulin Rouge)

Another convention of film noir is the narrative. Film noir generally portrays an extremely corrupt world and explores dark themes.

Overall, film noir is a genre we would like to take a lot of inspiration from in our horror opening.

The Basics of Lighting for Film Noir from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.