This document summarizes the key conventions and techniques used in the student's magazine cover, poster, and trailer for their neo-noir film project. It discusses similarities and differences to real neo-noir works like Drive in terms of lighting, color schemes, character depictions, and logo/company designs. The student analyzes shots from their works and outlines ways they effectively captured neo-noir aesthetics while also noting areas that could be improved, such as image clarity.

1. Both mine and the and the example of real media texts show a
similar convention of a magazine mast head by having the star
vehicle cover the text. However my mast head sticks thoroughly
to the convention by having a close up image of my character
rather than showing her entire body. Both mast heads use a
large, bold sans serif font which is seen as another convention.
The reason for this font choice is the simplicity of it and the
boldness is recognisable meaning the audience would be familiar
to this, however it does not draw entire attention away from the
image and the features on the front of the rest of the magazine
cover.
Another similarity between the two mast heads is the smaller
writing that portrays information for the audience.
By calling my magazine “Empire” suggests that it specialises in up
coming big block busters, which contrasts with “Total Film”
which would advertise and feature any film.

2. The image i used for the front of the
magazine was focused very much on the eyes
of my main character and also the lighting on
the image. The eyes are a theme throughout
all three products, and since the magazine
cover focuses mainly on the face it was
important to place emphasis on them. The
real “Total Film” cover also shows emphasis
on the eyes as well however because the
lighting is different both eyes are shown. I
have subverted the conventions slightly as my
image is placed slightly off centre where as
the total film image is right in the middle. The
genre of films are quite easy to determine
comparing these specific covers due to the
lighting. For example the warm yellow light
and the heavy shadow on my cover suggests
the film noir theme. The sepia/black and
white tone creates a more action or sci-fi feel.

3. As the film style we chose to adopt was "Neo-Noir"
we decided to add in some colour too all three of our
products, this piece in particular is from the magazine
cover. The pink creates a a bright/retro affect. We got
the idea from a similar genre film named "Drive"
which influenced us to use bright colours within our
work. However to keep it original in the other
products shadows are used behind the font on the
poster so the Noir style stays prominent.
Drive uses other colours such as yellow to tone down
the bright pink scheme however the pink in our
products stands out above the rest of the mostly black
backgrounds.

4. This is a still image from our trailer which creates a very Film Noir feel, it shows headlights of
cars coming towards us and also the change in light colour of the dashboard. The effect of
this is the idea the driver is unknown, similar scenes are shown in drive.
Although we didn’t have the equipment that would have been used in the filming of Drive
both images show a sense of mystery and bright lights coming from all directions which
keeps the Noir theme flowing throughout. An area of improvement for our image is that it
could have been more clear.

5. This still is another perfect example of a film noir
classic shot it shows the reflection of an unknown
character in the wing mirror of a car surrounded
by street lights. Although the real Noir image is
very different to ours it still shows that the
reflection shot was used in Noir style films.
One improvement I would give to my own shot is
it is not clear enough. An improvement I would
possibly make to the original is that it doesn’t hold
as much mystery as mine and also that because of
it being black and white the warm street lighting
could not be used.

6. An improvement we could have made to the
images would be have a similar light warmth for
both characters, although the colder light on
the woman suggests that she is the more
sinister character.
One way in which our poster is similar to “The Machinist” is the
layered images and the idea that the images are faded right into
the poster rather being oddly placed. A difference between them
though is the Machinist definitely only shows one main character
however the audience could be curious about “The Inevitable” as
it shows two characters and although one is placed in the
foreground by holding a gun it is hard to determine who is the
lead. Both images of the male characters show one eye which
stare out at the audience which creates the effect that the
audience are being challenged which is usually a magazine
convention but has been used on the poster.

7. The top image is a practice shot where we created a warm
light that only lit up half of Chris’ face to suggest mystery
which is a convention of Film Noir. Although it was only a
practice image it had the right kind of theme we needed.
The real image used in an actual Film Noir movie uses the
same sort of warm lighting and the idea that his eyes are
important.
An improvement we could have made to our own image is to
be careful how much background is going to be in the image
and try and stay on the black sheet behind the chair.

8. A convention which we used throughout all three of our products
was the idea of “Femme Fatale” and that the women are quite
powerful and a lot of the time the bad person within the film. Both
images show girls holding guns which suggests it’s quite a common
convention within Film Noir films. Although the real image is in
black and white due to the time period, we stuck to this idea and
made sure I was dressed in black to do this shot. One way we tried
to make the shot look as realistic as possible was to be quite
creative and colour in the very end of the gun to take away the
harshness of it being fake. Both of the girls have quite similar facial
expressions which suggests they’re up to the same thing.

9. The background image for our poster shows
a city scape which represents the idea that
our trailer is not just Film Noir but it’s neo
Noir. The light on the bridge was made
brighter so that we could match it with the
font colour scheme of all three products.
Drive is also a neo-noir film and it also shows
bright lights in a city however it shows less
original noir style as my background image
as there is no real prominent shadow as
there is over the river on mine. However we
used images like this for influence and then
created our own.

10. As we wanted the trailer to be as professional as possible
we created a distribution company logo and a production
company logo, by doing this it made the trailer a lot more
realistic. We chose the name “PLC” films as it was a letter
of each of our names it sounded right together and it was
easy to remember.
The tagline underneath shows that it is an independent
movie company which is s good thing as the audience
would know straight away that the film was independent
too. The logo’s are compact and neat like some of the
professional logos such as “Film.”