The Evaluation - Question 1 In what way does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

Title

The title to our opening sequence "Bullet Heart" Was not our first choice. Originally we wanted to name our film "Scarlett" (after the female protagonist), however we decided that we needed to revamp the title so it was enticing to the audience. The concept behind "Bullet Heart" was first of all obviously the shooting, and secondly that the audience should get the impression that there was/is a romantic relationship between the two leads "Garrett" and "Scarlett". We wanted this to be shown through the body language and also the emotive language through the sequence.

Title - font & style

The titles for the film are serif font and conventional colours of black and white. We felt the serif font gave a more traditional and serious look rather than having a sans serif font which would almost make the film seem friendly.




For the location and setting we enhanced on the idea of a "back alley confrontation" into a back alley murder. We felt it was best to keep it all happening within the alleyway as it was the main and best location we could find that could help us represent the "demi monde" which translates from french to "half the world" which basically means the dark, shadow end of town, the bad side, the "stop before hell." We knew an alleyway would be great to portray this.

Alleyway (POV) top of stairs

Also When looking for the location to film in I noticed that there was metal fencing, which consisted of long straight poles. At that point we decided then that this would be the perfect location as the long straight lines showed imprisonment, meaning that the characters are trapped and there is no way they can get out of this.

We used the alleyway to the right
of the Church

     

Derelict street
(path to the "demi monde")

When deciding on the costume we all knew we wanted to use previous conventions as well as challenge them.  A glamourous developed look was used for the Femme Fatale, we did look at previous femme fetales from classic noir to see their costume, but we realised they seemed too innocent for what we were trying to achieve. we gave her a business-y look with hints of red which has connotations of danger.When deciding on costume for our detective Garrett we used the dual conventions such as long trench coat and shirt but decided to then challenge these usual conventions by adding footwear such as Converse and a skinny tie to convey he was a younger detective which also challenges the conventions. 

Female (first idea)

Male (first idea)

The props we used were very conventional of the crime genre. Props such as the gun and a cigarette are used across the majority of the films within this genre so we decided not to challenge them but rather use them as a feature in our opening sequence.

Throughout the filming process the idea of lighting did not really occur to us because we all thought natural lighting would be more suitable as we were not producing a Film Noir, therefore no shadowing effects were needed. (and we were filming outside so there was no where to plug the mains!) However when we got to the editing studio we realised that the sequence looked a bit... bleak. So we decided to try out different lighting effects. The one we all finally agreed on was 'Creamy Dreamy'. The overall effect of this lighting was to establish the dark emotion within the characters and to assist with also establishing genre.






When creating the characters we had to consider the audience perspective. We knew as a group how we should see the characters, but the audience did not. We tried to convey Garrett as much as we could to a good 'chilled out' kind of guy this is why, when standing at the bottom of the steps even though Scarlet is pointing a gun at him, he still stands with his hands in his pockets unshaken by what is happening. We wanted Scarlett to come across as a classy and seductive lady hence the red lipstick and heels, also in the close up shot on the corner she appears to be moving her finger in a 'come here' manner because she knows she looks good and that he will follow.
In the chase sequence the audience are led to believe that Scarlett is the "weak, helpless, conventional" female character, and that Garrett is the heroic, strong, courageous" male character. However when the sequence develops we can see that the roles have been flipped to show that Scarlett is the stronger character to Garrett who is helpless by this point. This in unconventional for film noir, however that does not mean it hasn't been seen before: and example would be from the Neo Noir film "Romeo is Bleeding." The femme fetale - Mona Demarkov has full power over the male protagonist Jack Grimaldi in the scene where she is pointing a gun towards him from a slight low angled camera shot.




    






The majority of the obvious camera angles take place in the alleyway scene. We decided that the shots when character Scarlett was talking should be an over the shoulder shot so that Garrett's reaction was obvious to the audience this could be done by using "shot reverse shot". We also decided that, because of Scarlett's dominance, shots from her point of view should be high angle. We then looked at shots from Garrett's point of view and decided the opposite should be in effect for him. His POV would be low angle because he is "helpless" so to speak. A cut in was used when Scarlett was removing the gun from her pocket to clearly show her action it was then followed by another high angle. The effect it gave was one we hoped to achieve: we wanted the audience to see that Scarlett continued to pull the gun out even though Garrett had asked why doesn't she put it down, and the fact Garrett was shown at a high angle straight after this shows that she is more dominate to the audience and that no one can stop her.


 

 


During editing we decided to use the transition 'Cross Dissolve' to help avoid jump cuts as we found some when looking through our footage and realised we had nothing to fill the gap. We also used this transition when going from a shot to more titles as we also felt the continuity was smoother. The only effect used was that of the gun shot. We felt the gun shot was more emphasised with this as apposed to just a 'BANG'. We also knew that this would have an effect on the audience as it made Lauren jump every time she watched the sequence (which was a lot considering all the editing we have to do.)


      


We tried to establish Genre through many conventions during our opening sequence. Two of the main ways we did this were through costume and props. Trench-coats and ties would generally only be associated with crime or detective genres, it's vary rare that you will see this kind of thing in a romance film as the romance genre has different conventions. Also a business-y type woman would not necessarily be seen pulling out a gun in the middle of a comedy film. Lighting was also another way we established genre as crime/detective films are usually dark and dingy and so this lighting suited  us perfectly. Finally another way we established the genre is through the voyeuristic gaze that is seen towards Scarlett. The camera is positioned in the alley scene at a low angle to show dominance, and that she has control over the male character. And also to the fact that we can see her legs, this is a sign that she is luring and lustful to the male gaze. The red belt and red lipstick used also enlighten the conventions as red you will see in most genres as being the colour of danger.


    


-p