Film noir refers to classic crime dramas from the 1940s-1950s known for their dark visual style in black and white. Key characteristics include low-key lighting that casts shadows, urban settings like dark streets and alleys, and use of music to build tension during scenes of violence or murder. Film noir often relies on facial expressions to convey emotions like fear or shock without explicitly showing violent acts. Common visual elements include use of Venetian blinds to imply a sense of characters feeling trapped.

1. Film Noir
Alicia Keown

3. What makes film noir
distinctive?
• Film noir is a cinematic
term use to describe
Hollywood crime dramas.
The Hollywood film noir
classic period was the late
1940s to the early 50s. Film
noir is a low key black and
white visual style film. Film
noir means black film in
French which emphasis
light and dark as shown by
the high key and low key
lighting used within the
films of that genre which
makes it appear as being
very accurate and precise.

4. Genre conventions.
• Conventions of film noir
is that they use the
persons facial
expressions and
emotions to show that
someone has been
murder without the
audience looking at the
body or someone being
murder by the way that
there facial expressions
are shown and they
usually do a close up of
the persons face to give
it more of an effect.

5. Genre conventions.
• Film noir use urban
setting to make it feel
more real they use the
dodgy areas and low
rented apartments and
dark murky streets they
use rain and damp streets
when they film in urban
settings. They also use
deep shadows to add to
the atmosphere of the
scene.

6. Visual style
• The film noir visual
style is that they use
low key lighting which
produces light and
dark contrast to get a
shadowy effect. The
use of the Venetian
blinds in film noir is to
show that the person
who's that its
reflecting off, makes it
look that it is as if they
are trapped.

7. Sound
• When the music usually
gets played in film noir
is when something bad
is happening or
someone is being
murdered they use they
music to make the scene
more tense so if
someone id being
murder they use they
sound of the music to be
tense so it makes the
audience what to know
what's happening.