Further editing

As all of our footage takes place in one room there is a danger of our footage becoming quite boring to the audience. In order to maintain there attention we have decided to add some interesting transitions.

We have predominantly used the cross fade and the fade-in fade-out effects. This is because they are fluid and maintain a level of pace for the scene. They are also quite dark transitions which exaggerates the darkness of the mood. It also conforms to the conventions of film noir as they would often feature more lengthy shots, the transitions prevented the cuts from seeming too sharp.

Colour correcting

To really push our film noir effect we have used the colour correction effect in final cut express. Firstly we pushed the saturation bar to the far left which desaturated our image. Due to the more even lighting we had to use when re-shooting our footage, there was a slight lack of contrast. To add some contrast we pushed the whites to the right which increased them and pulled the blacks to the left to create darker shadows. Now we have to do this for every shot enssuring continuity...

Re-shoot!

We just got round to re-shooting our footage. There are a few changes which have been made, the biggest one being our main actor. Marcus was very busy and not in the country at the time when we needed to do our re-shoot so we re-cast his role and gave it to Alec. Alec also fit the character profile of the traditional protagonist of a crime film. The advantage to having a group member is that he is aware of what we are trying to achieve which made filming a quick process.

We then made a few adjustments to the mise-en-scene. First of all we covered up the unnecessary radiator in the corner of the room by placing a sheet over it. We also took away a few items which we didn't previously realise had made it into shot, such as a box of beer. We then adjusted the crucial lighting. One of the key features of film noir is its dramatic lighting which gives the shots high contrast and a low key effect. The dark scene was both a feature of film noir as well as helps to enhance the crime thriller feel as it adds a sense of mystery. To overcome our previous issues we used some overhead lighting which was just enough to balance out the light within the room.

Backing music

As well as the narration we feel we need another element of music. Previously we looked at trying to find some jazz music or any popular music from the 1940's era however we couldn't find anything that was appropriate for the atmosphere we were trying to create, after all its a thriller as well. Nevertheless we managed to find a suitable piece of music 'Hello Skinny' by 'The Residents'. 'The Residents' are leaders in the world of experimental and avant-garde music and therefore i think they are quite an appropriate choice when we considered the surrealist roots that film noir developed from. We wont use the whole track as the vocals would class with our narration. Instead we aim to just import the track into garage band or something and create a loop of the beginning instrumentals. The song features wood wind instruments which reflect the era and give the song a mysterious feel. This will help exaggerate the darkness of our film.