Color Film Noir - Have Suggestions for Shooting?

NOMADIC

NOMADIC

Major Contributor
I'm the DP for my student film and thought I'd try getting some advice from people...

Its a comedic noir-like film, but takes place today.

We are shooting on color becasue
A. I'm going to school to learn, and want to work with s16 color and
B. I've seem noir like films in color, and I think it looks great (LA confidental)

We were talking about things in class, and using colors in the scene to help bring out the noir feel... Personally, I am not a fan of real noir films, but I think its good to be cornered into something like this...


So would anyone have any suggestions for lighting, color moods, camera movement that could help for a project like this?

thanks!
-matt
 
well, along with high contrast low key lighting, you might wanna go with really punchy colors, maybe give each character a color scheme ala Dick Tracy.
 
I just finished DPing a color Noir. It really depends on if they are day or night shoots. I messed with our camera settings till I got an overcast look. Crush the blacks. Use the mess out of a china globe, the best lighting I had was from this with a 5500k photo flood bulb. Over light everything. Try and keep everything in neutral colors, (white, black, greys and browns) unless of course it's a special character or hot dame then make them pop with color. Excentuate the eyes especially in low light situations, that is a Noir trademark. Hope this helps. Find the film Le Samouria it's a french color Noir from the 60's.
 
Consider Bleach bypass. Aside from the look, if you bleach bypass on the neg, you will gain a stop of exposure... kinda nice on a student budget.

I think fotokem does a wednesday bleach bypass special...
 
Sven said:
Excentuate the eyes especially in low light situations, that is a Noir trademark. Hope this helps. Find the film Le Samouria it's a french color Noir from the 60's.
Click to expand...



Do you mean like making the eyes pop on screen kinda? Seeing the whites? Is there any good tricks to this?


I'll check out that movie.


Alot of the film will be in 2 different offices, in the evening. One is a lady's office, and we plan to have her in red, and ..tell be if this sounds lame or not, but then also giving her a little be warmer light directed on her face... it seems like a common thing for the "attractive" women, and thats sorta why I don't like noir, because its all these setups and techniques used over and over.

I just want a refreshing noir. :) [thanks for the posts so far]
 
The warm light on her face and her wearing red is a good thing I think. If you're filming in the evening try setting up some light out side of a window with blinds, then direct the blinds, making the lit spots cut out your characters eyes. You can do this with barn doors too, if you have them. Remember that Noir means dark, and its not just the lighting and filming techniques that make a film Noir.
 
j said:
Consider Bleach bypass. Aside from the look, if you bleach bypass on the neg, you will gain a stop of exposure... kinda nice on a student budget.

I think fotokem does a wednesday bleach bypass special...
Click to expand...

I love bleach bypass, but I always feel its too gritty (in a horror way) for somethings.


and just for kicks...heres the little poster I made for it. :)

1191998284.jpg
 
You can check out a color Noir we did here, to see if it gives you any ideas, then feel free to email with questions:

LINK

There is a flash version in the middle of that page.
 
Mark Harris said:
You can check out a color Noir we did here, to see if it gives you any ideas, then feel free to email with questions:

LINK

There is a flash version in the middle of that page.
Click to expand...

Very Nice... I see that Timur Civan DP'd it. I'm coming up with some questions thru out the day I'll send you.

The bar/diner setup was awesome.... do you remember what kind of lights, flags, diffusion/gels were used on that?

thanks
-matt
 
Yeah, I don't remember where everything was. Maybe aram or timur can answer that. Aram gaffed. I know we had one 650 outside to highlight the window, a 300 making a line on the wall in the back, a chinaball for some key fill, and another 300 or a 650 for a hard backlight.

We were going for the same basic Noir thing, where there is a lot of darkness on faces, hard-hard back and side lights.

I know we had a couple of 650s, a bunch of 300s, a 1K and some chinaballs.

But put together one list of all questions and I will send it around to the guys who worked on it with me.

Yeah, timur and I work together a lot. He is about to shoot another short for me in the next couple of weeks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top