1. Questionnaire Results – Film noir
In the questionnaire I asked a total of 20 people a range of questions, these questions were:
What kind of characters do you expect from a noir film?
What kind of setting would they like to see from a noir film?
Would you rather see a classic noir film or one that has been modernised? Clsc(13) mdrn(7)
What rating would you expect to find the film? 16(15) 4(18)
People responded to the first question in a number of ways, they said they would like to see a
range of characters ranging from corrupt policemen, unlawful citizens, vigilante civilians, feme fetals,
gangsters and general anti-hero’s. This is obviously too many characters to have in our opening
sequence yet we could incorporate some into the sequence which depends how much of the story
we wish to impose onto our audience within the opening sequence. Which characters we
incorporate into our sequence would depend on our storyline, plot and sub plot within that
particular sequence. The different characters that the audience have chosen and asked to be seen
within our sequence are influenced by the classic noir films from the era of the ‘40’s and ‘50’s, the
modern noir films such as The Godfather, The Dark Knight, Se7en and various others that have been
released since 1990.
The settings that people have suggested have ranged from an old industrial estate to the marina
or a quayside, bars and various other mysterious places that often appear in noir films. This shows us
that the audience are very much aware about what goes into a noir film, what to expect from one,
and where to find the characters within the film. This makes our job easier on the filming side of
things as we can focus more on the characters rather than the setting behind them within the shot.
This also makes it easier for us to show because the audience will have expectations of where they
hope to find the characters and will be able to discover and recognise a certain place within the film
quicker and we can therefore make the plot a little more complicated and revealing as the audience
will be paying attention to the plot as they will quickly establish a place.
The people I have asked would rather see a noir film that is modern yet still carries more traits
and appearances of the classic noir films as it is easier for them to establish that it is a noir film
through that. Also they said that if we made it more of a classic noir film then they would be able to
see that they need to pay attention to most of it because if it was completely modern then it could
be classed as a straight-forward action/thriller movie. As this is not the case for what we want to
create the opening sequence to, it would be easier and better for all of us to stick to the classic noir
conventions than rather go completely modern which could confuse the audience as to what they
are watching.
The people I have asked were a mix of ages ranging from 15-42. This allowed me to get a range
of views on the ratings that they expect the film to appear certified as. Most of the people asked
(about 75%) have said that they would rather see the film certified as a 15 rather than an 18 because
then more people can see it and also conventions of the noir theme and mood can be shown. Also
they said that it should be a 15 rather than an 18 due to the plotline that could appear within the
sequence. This means that they would rather focus more on the plotline and the development of the
characters rather than the blood, gore, sex, violence, swearing and other things that go appear in
most 18 rated films. This is to show that the audience are aware of the content within the film and

2. because of recent films such as Inception, The Matrix and others that have focused more on the
story of it rather than the action and violent content, the audience of our film type have grown used
to and want more of an interesting story rather than senseless blood and drug use. Films such as the
Saw and Hostel franchises have slightly put people off the appearance of blood and gore as they
contained very little story. This tells us that in our sequence we have to be slightly careful about the
content that appears within the sequence and focus completely on the story line and how the
plotline is shown to develop and how each character is shown to be portrayed and therefore viewed
and judged by our audience.