Question 1
To start our planning and research for our film noir each of us in the group watched film noirs and analysed them, we also watched neo noirs so we could see how the film noir has developed through time to suit the more modern audience. They were films such as Double indemnity’, ‘Shadow of a doubt’ and ‘sorry wrong number’. By watching these films we got ideas for our own film noir and we were able to develop and challenge the typical conventions used.
We challenged the typical film noir conventions by not using a dutiful woman this meant that there was no one right for the male character to fall in love with. This is different from the films I have watched as in double indemnity we meet Lola who is Phyllis’s daughter and she is shown as the dutiful women. Film noir was also challenged because we didn’t keep to the classic film noir story line, which are usually quite complex. Instead we decided to use a simple story line, which would be easy to follow.
As well as challenging typical media conventions we also developed them, this was done by using a femme fatal and the fact that she convince men to do what she asks. As in our film noir opening Evelyn is able to convince Johnny to kill her husband Mike. This idea was taken from the majority of film noirs that we watched because it is a big part of the typical conventions. We also developed the use of costume and makeup by the influence of ‘Pretty little liars’. This allowed us to follow conventions by having the femme fatal’s makeup alluring throughout.
Maisie Underwood AS Media 