Film Noir.

1. Film Noir. Film noir is an artistic style of shooting a film. It is used in the genre of crime thriller films. It was most popular in the 1930’s – 50’s at the time of the great depression. The term film noir actually means “black and white” in French. Film Noir originated from many countries reflecting the war and the great depression but Hollywood took styled it into a dark, artsy style. However film noir can be used in colour as well in the more modern noir films such as Chinatown in the 70’s, Blade Runner in the 90’s and Shutter island in 2009.

2. Characters. Certain characters appear in many film noirs hardened detectives, femme fatales, corrupt policemen such as some of the characters Orson Welles played, jealous husbands, intrepid claims adjusters, and down-and-out writers. Among characters of every stripe, cigarette smoking is rampant. Film noirs tend to revolve around anti-heroes who are more flawed and morally questionable than the norm, often fall guys of one sort or another. The characteristic protagonists of noir are described by many critics as “alienated“.

3. The “Femme Fatale” is a French term that literally means "fatal woman”; an irresistibly attractive woman who leads men to destruction and tend to do stupid things to get the main male character in trouble.

4. Props. The trilby hat is a very important prop used in film noir films. It’s used to distinguish what the characters like depending on how they wear it so if you were a dark, mysterious character he would be wearing the hat down over his eyes. It also adds to the effect of lighting and depending on how you wear it highlights the characters face adding a really nice effect. Cigarettes are used in film noir to set a mood, the smoke adds a really nice effect when the smoke is lit up under dim light. It also tells you that the character who’s smoking it is mysterious and shifty.

5. Filming techniques. In film noir they use a deep focus, bold lighting and depth of field camera techniques. In early day film noir they didn’t normally use many big stage lights as they di in the 40’s/50’s so they often used natural light showed it in a experimental way such as using venetian blinds to adds tension and intimidation to a certain scene or character. They also use big neon lights in the background of characters to silhouette them in certain shots normally in a murky street, or a gloomy ally way .

6. Depth of field. Also known as depth of focus, the depth of composition of a shot where there are several planes; a foreground, a middle-ground, and a background. Depth of field specifically refers to the area, range of distance, or field (between the closest and farthest planes) in which the elements captured in a camera image appear in sharp or acceptable focus.

7. CAMERA ANGLES. There's also allot of camera angles that are often used in film noir. The Dutch Angle also known as an Oblique Angle which is a tilted camera angle that shows images obliquely slanted to the frame's vertical axis. Point of view shot is a shot taken with the camera placed approximately where the character's eyes would be, representing what the character sees

8. Location

9. Narrative

10. Target audiance

11. Chinatown

12. Mise en scene

13. Sound