- The directors of Snake in the Grass researched conventions of noir films such as characters, settings, themes, and narrative structures. - They incorporated many conventions into their film such as including gangster characters and using settings like offices, lounges, and streets. However, they challenged some conventions by making one character experience emotions like jealousy and betrayal rather than portraying them across multiple characters. - Through their opening sequence and other elements, they both followed conventions like using a flashback and murder mystery, and challenged conventions such as putting the title at the end rather than following modern title sequencing.

1. Question 1
Mathew Bray
Welcome, today we are here to discus Snake in the Grass. More specifically we will focus on the
question “In what way does Snake in the Grass use, develop or challenge forms and conventions
of real media product?”
Kenya Bell
Before they created Snake in the Grass, they researched the specific genre, noir. This included
things such as characters, settings, themes, visual style, narrative, and the progression of film
noirs.
Mathew Bray
Behind me is some examples of the characters that were used in noir films. Here is a gangster (.),
a detective (.), corrupt cop, and a protagonist.
Kenya Bell
Gangster where included in Snake in the Grass. We will now show you a clip of each of the
different gangster that where involved. Tony Pensiero who was played by Jack Waterman (.),
Paulie who was played by Daniel Gorman (.), and Jonny who was played by Ethan Lang (.)
Mathew Bray
These character where of course used to ensure that the film creators followed the conventions
of a typical noir film.
Mathew Bray
Conventionally noir films are used to show that the characters are trapped in the City, with no
escape. Mathew and Kenya the directors showed this in there film. They did this by using the
storyline and the characters.
Kenya Bell
The story line goes like this, a detective (Show the clip of Mathew in the film) starts to question if
he is on the wrong side, and eventually makes his decision after the gang had shown him the way
things could be run from the other side.
Mathew Bray
The way they showed the convention of feeling trapped through the characters was by involving
the character Dominic Hudson very early into the corrupt job. (Show the scene where Tony is
talking about Hudson to the other two gang members)
Kenya Bell
As you have just heard on the clip Tony Pensiero says the word “new”, this would imply that the
characters don’t even need to be trusted to be able to join the gangs operations.
Mathew Bray
The main character Dominic Hudson has many roles such as being a detective, a corrupt cop and
a protagonist. This developed the conventions of their film because the one character is the main
focus for the audience.
Mathew Bray
It also means that this developed convention will intrigue the audience. The audience will then
try to focus on the character because they will feel the need to connect and understand the
character Dominic Hudson. (Show several images of Dominic Hudson at the murder scene, and
the office)
Kenya Bell
Dark alleys, bars, lounges, police stations and empty streets are all conventions of a noir film.
They used some of these conventional places in their media product. The settings they used
where an office, a lounge and an abandoned street.

2. Mathew Bray
The office they used is technically an office in a police station (Show a clip from the office scene),
they used an abandoned street for the murder scene (Show a clip of the murder scene) Also they
used a lounge which included a lot of conventions in its self (Show a clipof the gang scene)
Kenya Bell
As you have just seen in the clip there was a pool table, this is a convention they used because
there would be a pool table in a gang hide out. More specifically in a gang members house that
runs all the operations. This is a strong use of the convention, because it makes the noir film look
like it is set in the 1950’s.
Mathew Bray
Before filming they had to make sure they had the right filming location. Here are some of the
location they considered (Show the images of the locations) After Kenya and Mathew talked
about the locations they decided these did not have mise en scene.
Kenya Bell
They chose to use conventions of a noir mise en scene, this made sure the audience believed the
film Snake in the Grass was set in the 1950’s.
Mathew Bray
Now let’s talk about the opening sequence and how it uses some conventional themes and how
they also challenged the conventional way of using the themes. The themes they used where
murder, betrayal and jealousy.
Kenya Bell
They challenged the conventions by making Dominic Hudson use all of these conventions on his
own. Normally feelings like jealousy and betrayal are portrayed from different characters,
however they have challenged this and made only one character feel all these emotions. This
makes Dominic an edgy character and an interesting character.
Mathew Bray
Narratives have many forms such as flashbacks, voiceovers, first person narrative and flash
forward narrative. The directors decided to use a mixture of narrative conventions such as
flashbacks, a first person narrative and a voiceover narration. Using all of these themes made the
film more interesting and intriguing to the audience. This will the audience have a little glimpse
into the rest of the film.
Kenya Bell
To make sure they had a wide understanding of the different institutions they researched who
was most likely to produce there noir film, Snake in the Grass (Show the image of the title) They
did this by taking a wide variety of noir films from different points in time.
Mathew Bray
They then carried on to choose a couple and research who produced them and how much the fil
made in profit overall. Kenya Chose Warner Bros as a producer however they did not specialise
in noir films so they went with Mathew’s option. This option was Paramount Pictures, and as you
can see from the clip Paramount Pictures did decide to produce their film.
Kenya Bell
Both Kenya and Mathew looked at two different opening sequences each. This meant that they
could choose a variety of conventions to bring back and use in there film. A convention that
Kenya found was a flash-forward, this was in the film opening Bugsy Malone. (Show a clip off the
opening sequence of Bugsy Malone in our video)
Mathew Bray
They decided that using a conventional flashback would give Snake in the Grass a nice smooth
feel, giving the audience just enough glimpses into what is going to happen in the rest of the film
(Show a flashback from our opening sequence)

3. Mathew Bray
Kenya looked at Sunset Blvd as another opening sequence. The sunset Blvd’s titles are in a
different order from the modern conventional titles. They did not choose to use the conventional
title sequence like in Sunset Blvd, because in the modern times it would bore the audience. This
would make the opening sequence uninteresting and therefore people would not watch their film
(Show an example from the film with the titles all shown at once on a black screen) Not following
the titles conventions makes their film more modern and watchable.
Kenya Bell
They liked the convention where the film Sunset Blvd showed the murder victim in the opening
sequence. They incorporated this into our opening sequence by showing Tony Pensiero lying
dead on the floor at the end of the sequence. (Show the clip where Tony is laid dead on the floor)
Mathew Bray
They used this convention because it intrigues the audience and makes them think of these
questions. Why did Tony get murdered? What will happen to the rest of the gang? What
happened to the operation they were on? This will make the audience want to watch the rest of
the film to be able to find out answers.
Kenya Bell
Mathew watched the opening sequence for James Bond Casino Royale. This opening sequence
was focused around gambling and private meeting rooms. To follow this convention they decided
to include a private room in their opening sequence. And this opening sequence also lets the
audience know what type of character this person is. (Show a clipwith the gang hide out on)
Mathew Bray
(Show the titles time lines when we are speaking during the video) For further research they
needed to find out the chronological order that the titles should appear on their opening
sequence. They did this by looking at two different opening sequences. Kenya looked at the
opening sequence Natural Born Killers and Mathew looked at James Bond Casino Royale’s
opening sequence.
Kenya Bell
Watching the opening sequences allowed them to see how long the titles should stay visible on
the screen, and which order they should show up in.
Mathew Bray
To make sure they followed conventions they used the correct order of titles. Although they did
challenge one title convention by putting the name of our film at the end of the sequence.
Choosing this order made sure that the title of their film was remembered in the audiences mind
right at the end of the opening sequence.
Kenya Bell
Kenya created a survey which was given which was given out to a wide variety of people. This
was so they could find out what the audience would expect to see in Snake in the Grass. However
doing this showed the directors that 90.9% of the peopled surveyed knew nothing about the noir
genre or the conventions it normally follows (Show the survey pies from the questionnaire)
Mathew Bray
Even though the audience didn’t know as much about the noir genre, they still liked some of the
conventions that are usually found in noir films. Such as a plot twists which is a huge convention
of noir. They made sure they used this convention in their film because 70% of the audience liked
a plot twist, therefore using this convention gave them a bigger audience. An example of how
they used a plot twist is when the detective murdered Tony Pensiero (On the video play the
murder scene while one of us is speaking this paragraph)

4. Kenya Bell
After finding out this out they decided that they should stick as closely as they could to the noir
conventions. An example of this would be when they picked the names for the characters such as
Tony Pensiero, Paulie, and Dominic Hudson (In the video show clips of the characters saying the
names)
Mathew Bray
However the directors did challenge some conventions of noir. These where things such as not
including some conventional characters like the Femme Fatale. They made this decision so that
the audience focused more on the storyline of the one main character Dominic Hudson rather
than focusing on a romance that would distract the character and the audience.
Kenya Bell
Also they pushed the boundaries for the narrative of the story, because in their opening sequence
they created a narrative where the character is letting the audience in on all the secrets by
directly talking to them. This is challenging conventions because the character breaks the 4th wall
between the characters and the audience. (On the video show the scene where Dominic looks at
the camera towards the audience)
Mathew Bray
That’s all for today’s news, but come back tomorrow when we are interviewing the characters
from Snake in the Grass.