Further Development

Here i took one of my other film noir style photos and edited it in Photoshop. For this one it was a more simple tranformation, I adjusted the contrast to bring out the grain in the photo, I then added a light blue hue with the saturation turned slightly down so it wasn't so vivid. This adds a feel of 'Brick' to the film with the blue tint to the image. I then tried to make it more abstract by adding a sumi-e filter which made it grainier and added lines, like pencil lines onto the image.

'Brick' - Contemporary Noir

In the lessons we have started watching 'Brick' (2005, dir. Johnson), which is a modern day Noir crime drama, that draws lots on intertextual references to the Hollywood style Film Noir classics. These films were filmed in black and white, this created stark light/dark contrasts that could make the iconic shadows that these films were known for. 'Brick' is shot in colour, but has a very drained, almost blue tone to it, and parts are filmed on really sunny days so this gives shadows which can create the iconic look to Noir films.

Film Noir - Development

I took the photo of my sister with the shadow across her face, and edited it using Photoshop. Firstly I colourised it and made it a kind of sepia colour as this gave it a more modern Noir feel. I then found two texture pictures, one being a bokeh blurred pattern and the other a star speckle pattern, I then adjusted the opacity and fill of each picture as I layered the photo and the patterns in Photoshop. I then saved it as a picture, and opened up the flattened image again. This time I turned up the contrast and the brightness to give it the very scratchy, worn look, with the high contrast adding a grain that i think works well with the whole look of the photo.

Film Noir - First Response

My initial response to the genre of Film Noir was to take photos in a very dark room with one source of bright light to create the stark light/dark contrast that is iconic of the genre. I got my sister to play the role of the femme fatale type character and focused the light on her face and creating shadows over it, which is another iconic style of the genre.
Some of my initial photos are shown below, I took them using a relatively low shutter speed, so I could see the initial basic photo, then using Photoshop I turned up the contrast, and I turned down the brightness so the light/dark areas were enhanced.

Film Noir

Film Noir is a cinematic term used to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, but modern Noir films can show the same characteristics and themes.

Themes - these are usually based around moral ambiguity and sexual motivation in Hollywood crime dramas. They are often known for their pessimistic attitude, and showing a world that is inherently corrupt.

Visual Techniques - there tends to be the use of low-key lighting which produces stark light/dark contrast and defined shadow patterns. Venetian blind shadows on faces and walls has become an iconic visual motif for the genre, also shadows could cover actors faces partially or fully.

Narrative - the narratives tend to be convoluted, with flashbacks and flash-forwards. Voice-over narration is also common and the storylines are focused on crime, heists/cons, false suspicion, double-crosses and accusations.

Characters - the characters tend to be morally flawed, misunderstood, full of existential angst. There are also stock characters such as hard-boiled detectives, femme fatales, corrupt police and jealous husbands. The femme fatale is noted for her changeability and treachery, she is portrayed as empowered, however rarely 'survives' at the end of the film.

German Expressionism

During the period of recovery following World War I, the German film industry was booming. However, because of the hard economic times, filmmakers found it difficult to create movies that could compare with the lush, extravagant features coming from Hollywood. The filmmakers of the German Universum Film AG studio developed their own style by using symbolism and mise-en-scène to add mood and deeper meaning to a movie, concentrating on the dark fringes of human experience.

The first Expressionist films, “The Student of Prague”, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920), “The Golem” (1920), “Destiny” (1921), “Nosferatu” (1922), “Phantom” (1922), “Schatten” (1923), and “The Last Laugh” (1924), were highly symbolic and stylized.

The first Expressionist films made up for a lack of high budgets by using set designs with wildly non-realistic, geometrically absurd sets, along with designs painted on walls and floors to represent lights, shadows, and objects. The plots and stories of the Expressionist films often dealt with madness, insanity, betrayal, and other "intellectual" topics.
The extreme non-realism of Expressionism was short-lived, fading away after only a few years. However, the themes of Expressionism were integrated into later films of the 1920s and 1930s, resulting in an artistic control over the placement of scenery, light, etc. to enhance the mood of a film. This dark, moody school of filmmaking was brought to America when the Nazis gained power and a number of German filmmakers emigrated to Hollywood.

German silent cinema was arguably far ahead of cinema in Hollywood. As well as the direct influence of film makers who moved from Germany to Hollywood developments in style and technique, which were developed through Expressionism in Germany, impressed contemporary filmmakers from elsewhere and were incorporated into their work and so into the body of international cinema from the 1930s onward.


A good example of this process can be found in the career of Alfred Hitchcock. In 1924, Hitchcock was sent by his film company to work as an assistant director and art director at the UFA Babelsberg Studios in Berlin on the film The Blackguard. An immediate effect of the working environment there can be seen in his expressionistic set designs for The Blackguard.
Stylistic elements taken from German Expressionism are common today in films that do not need reference to real places such as science fiction films, e.g. “Blade Runner” (1982, Scott).