My Brief

Poster:

•  I want to have a long shot of a building estate or industrial place which will look old fashioned and like a film noir environment.
• I want to have an image of a women/girl layer on top of that picture, creating depth int the poster.
• I want the building lights to be in colour to give the bold impression of what film noir insinuates. A random splash of colour brings your eye into the picture. 

Timeline:

• I want my pictures to be really dark and omnious pictures. 
•     Mostly using femme fetal as the main focus of all pictures.
• I want the pictures to be bold and stricking.
• I want the guys in my timeline to be really manly and smart, wearing suits and ties.
• Cigerettes being the main focus of some of my shots.

Ideas for Film Noir

From looking at numerous films form the Film Noir genre, I have an understanding of what the criteria is asking from me and also I enjoyed the films I watched which will help me as I am more interested in it.

 I have decided I really like the smoke effect that I've looked at within Film Noir pictures. Here are a few examples of what I am hoping to achieve or something near. The picture above I love the way she looks like shes more of the dominating person, blowing the smoke at his face and is in more light than him. 

 This is another dominating picture, she looks like a very strong character, and has the items of a Film Noir genre, money, cigarettes, alcohol. 

 I love this effect of using two pictures and layering one over the other. I love how dark the background picture is then the women being lighter and in the foreground almost looking down on you. 

 These two photos are really interesting, I like the blind light that's hitting their faces. I think this is another idea I could develop and explore.

 These three photos are more resent, and modern. Although I love the old fashioned look, I feel my photos will come out more like these in terms of the clothes worn and the environment.

I really like the closeness and close ups of the subjects within this genre and the dark mood that it brings. The smoke of the cigarettes give the picture a dominated feel.

Things I'm hoping to achieve:

• Using smoke for a dominating look.
• B&W Film maybe> for my photographs not timeline.
• Try different effects with blinds 
• Timeline photographs - edit on photoshop to give them a dark and more omnious look > use quotes from Sin City? 

For my Poster, I think I want to make my photos more cartoon like, using photoshop. Also i will use just a little colour on specific parts of the photos to give it a more eye catching look. I might like to use layers to create depth in the poster, overlaping pictures to give impact. 

For my timeline, I intend to use just black and white pictures and use quotes and smoke effects on them. I want them to look very formal and staged. Although i dont know how the photos like turn out, or how i want them to be set up, once ive started my shoot, i think it will just fall into place. 

Film Noir... Research

For this new project, we have looked at films that are in the style of film noir, one from 2005, Sin City and one from 1944 called Double Indemnity.

Sin City:

Style in Sin City:

Within Film Noir films like Sin City, they are most likely in black and white except for the occasional colour from either a splash of red from blood or within this film the blonde of the character Goldy's hair. 

The intense colour that appears throughout this film, brings a cartoon effect and gives a more powerful empowerment over the characters. I like the idea of cartoon style photographs which i would have to edit on photoshop to get the effect that i am looking for. 

The environment within Sin City, its a very dark neighborhood. Film noir work is usually seen in a city like Sin City. The mood the environment brings is very cold, alone and unfriendly.

Lighting in Sin City:

The lighting in Sin city is very dramatic, using shadows which block out three quarters of the picture, just leaving you with light hitting important parts in the frame. For example, there could just be shadow with just the barrel of a gun on show. The light just highlights important parts and lets you imagine what could be going on in the shadows. 

Subject Matter in Sin City:

The main focus of this film is aggression and violence wrapped around a sexual storyline. There seems to be a variety of stories within this film, but within the film noir scene, you see crime which is linked to a gang or the mafia. You see guns as soon as the film starts almost, violence is always around the next corner it seems.

Double Indemnity: 

Within this media of Film Noir, the first thing you encounter on while watching this film, is a silhouette of a man which is blacked out. The first five minutes of the film you already see the usual points - a beautiful and seductive women who has the men wrapped around her little finger. The men wear smart suits, and have a tough look to them, wearing top hats. 

Lighting in Double Indemnity: 

The lighting that is used for this film is still very dark and the main focuses like a gun or the femme fetale are very prominant. 

The subject matter is just like Sin City, there is violence of the femme fetales husband, murder and also a sneeky money scheme. 

Within most film noir there is always a character whose a beautiful seductive sexual women who uses sex to do evil. Which is a dominant feature in film noir. For these 'femme fatale' , they wear provocative outfits while the men tend to wear dark long coats and hats with usual a suit and tie underneath. Cigarettes seem to be a big part in the Film Noir scene, which is a sexual look for the femme fatale and a bold powerful look for the men. 

So from these films you can see the repeated props and storyline that sets a trend in film noir. The clothes, settings, characters all seem to be roughly the same and this helps me to get a picture of what kind of things ill be using or needing to develop my project. 

Evaluation summed up...

Three good points about my final image...

• The range of sizes of the subject - gives more diversity to the photo
• The range of places the subject has been positioned
• The location sets the mood and character to the photo

Three bad points about my final image...

• Could be a bit lighter depending on viewers opinion
• Could of made it more themed to give more impact 
• Could of had two characters instead of just one

FINAL IMAGE

Evaluation of Multiple Image...

Strengths and Weaknesses...:

I think due to having used Photoshop before I found it quite easy to complete this project. I think if i hadn't of had the experience before it might of made me a little slower getting use to the different icons and technical things used to create a layer mask or to paint over the image to transfer an image from underneath. 

Being able to quickly get through this made it a lot easier for me, if i wasn't able to understand things i think i would of got stressed out and not find this project as fun as i did. 

The weaknesses that I came across were the actual photographs I produced. I think if i had a bit more time, I would of been able to pick an actual theme for them which would of given the photograph more character. Saying that I feel my photos were upto my standards, and I don't think that i could have done anything better to what I had. 

Comparing my plan...:

My plan does link to my final photo as I have encorped my photographs into a forest/tree area. I didn't however use my sister as she wasn't available so I became the subject in the photographs. 

I was picturing that the subject would be in the tree and the photo would be looking up at the tree, but now looking at my final piece I think it looks good how it is. 

Comparing to the artist research...:
I don't think I really used anything I saw from the research I saw. I think the only thing i can compare to my work is that I made some of my subjects smaller so it had a different composition, which it had within the photo I chose to evaluate.

Altogether, I am pleased with what i accomplished.

How to... produce a multiple image

 First of all you open up Photoshop on your computer/mac. As seen on the image above.

 Your screen should now appear as above. 

 Next step would be to open your background image that you will be using. For this you simply go to the top of your screen and file>open... (cmd and O shortcut)

Then the box should appear as image above shows, where you select your photograph and click open.

Your image should appear as above shows.

Next step would be to edit your image if needed. I have just adjusted the contrast of my picture by image>adjustments>levels...

This is the box that will appear where you can experiment with the mountain like box and see what fits your standards, then ok.

 After this the boxes to the right of your screen should be shown. You should have layers and history open which help you with the next few steps. (If these are not already on your screen, go to window>and click on which box you need)

You would next need to open another image that your going to use as you did before. To add this image onto your other as an over-lapping (layer) image, use the arrow and cross icon situated on the left of your page. Once doing that make sure your clicked on your new image you have just opened and while clicking drag it into your background photograph.

This image will now be named as 'Layer 1' in your layer box to the right. Next step would be to make your new photograph a layer mask. This is by clicking the icon at the bottom of the layer box. It is a grey box with a white circle in the middle. The 3rd icon in on the picture above.

 Now your Layer box should look like this. Make sure you are clicked on the layer mask before continuing.

Going to the left of your screen at the bottom you should see two boxes which are over-lapping. The one in the picture above are white and black. If you click one a box will come up as bellow.

This is the box that should appear, make sure your colours are pure - black would be all 0's and white would be 255. Press ok.

Now you go to the paintbrush icon, shown on the right hand column of your screen.

Lastly you paint where your background image would be. This should be when you use your black paint, which would make your image appear. 

Once you have added as many layers you want you go to Layers>flatten image, which will put all your layers into one. 

Then Save.