Hello, my name is Charlie Sharp, and together with Tom Hughes, created a film noir two minute film opening, called Murder Case.
I helped out Tom in pre-production, shared the production roles, and did a lot of the post production. I was dominantly the lighting technician and the editor. Tom was dominantly the writer and the director. We shared all of the other roles equally among both us.
Murder Case follows a lot of Film Noir conventions. The characters follow the conventions very well. We have a cocky Chicago detective who wears the conventional outfit, light blazer and trilby hat. One of the other characters is a very dark, mysterious thug, in a dark blazer and trilby, who uses a gun, which is also conventional. The third character also wears a conventional outfit, trilby and blazer.
The setting also follows conventions very well. Dim and gloomy lighting is used conventionally, and the lighting is done well to show more about the characters than the outfits suggest.
Our film however does challenge some conventions, for example, our Film Noir focuses on the mystery aspect in the film, and revolves around the main characters journey as he delves into the mystery of the Case. Most Film Noirs feature the mystery aspect in the movie, but have other predominant themes, romance and crime. Our Film Noir is slightly leaning into the psychological thriller mystery genre more than other Film Noirs.
Also femme fatales are usually very outstanding in Film Noirs, but in Murder Case, there is none. However there is a ‘dame’ mentioned, so if the film was full feature, it is possible the audience get to meet her later on, not completely eliminating the femme fatale from the film.
Ideally, paramount pictures would distribute our film, as they have distributed several similar film noirs, for example, The Killers, and Double Indemnity, which are both similar, classic film noirs. It would be shown in cinema screens around the world. Due to Murder Case being a no budget student film, realistically it will only be distributed on YouTube and other blogging websites.
The original target audience were both genders, aged 18+, however this has changed slightly over the course of the overall production. As it will be mostly watched and judged by our peers, we have changed the target audience to males aged 16 – 45. The research really backed this up, as that certain age group was shown to like the outline of the characters and themes involved. We took a lot of information down from the audience feedback after the 1st edit was show, and used that very well into creating the 2nd and final draft of the film.
Attracting the audience came about naturally during the production of the film. The opening credits to the film have a clip of the main character looking through a brief case in the background, studying different documents then getting up and leaving, which instantly opens up several questions to the audience and makes them want to watch on. This enigma code is a big hook to the audience.
The locations are easy to understand and look nice, appealing to movie fans. The music also drives the emotion to the film and is very clear and enjoyable. The soft jazz in the bar is very conventional also. A quiet, mysterious piece of music plays when the characters are outside.
During the entire production of Murder Case I have learnt a lot. I have learnt how to use the lighting kit, and got a certificate to be able to use it for up to year. There was a lot of editing so that is a lot more experience and knowledge regarding Adobe Premiere Pro. Also I have been updating my blog using different pieces of software, such as sribd, Celtx and other programs which are very useful when uploading scripts and other information onto the internet. This will be very useful in future productions.
Overall the film went a lot better than I had predicted, and I feel me and Tom worked very well as a team. I have learnt a lot and gained a lot of helpful experience when making the film.
I know a lot more about shooting on location than beforehand. For example, I have learnt random things can occur which can hinder your shoot. When shooting on the empty roads, it turned out there was a meeting in the local town hall, which is very rare, so the usually empty roads had cars on, trying to find the town hall.
I have improved on my editing skills and know a lot more about the intricacies of Adobe Premier Pro settings, and file types of clips, and know a lot more about all that than beforehand.
General actor and casting experience has been very helpful, as dealing with actors and their limitations to time and such was a bit of a hassle, but we worked the production around when they were available, which proved extremely helpful on keeping them happy and keeping the production smooth and productive.
My time management skills have increased. This was the biggest film I have been involved in so far, and I knew this beforehand when my organisation was fairly poor. Keeping my organisation and time management was key in keeping the production productive and smooth, and together with Tom, this was not a problem.
The main thing I have learnt is not to underestimate the editing, do a lot more research on the target audience, and most of all, use the audience feedback effectively as that vastly improved our film when we did our 2nd and final drafts.
