Noir to the bones

Mike Manning

Mike Manning

Well-known member
So here's the assignment.
Tell a story with still photographs.
You get one 36 exposure roll.
No fancy editing, only dissolves and fades.
No restrictions on sound.

I bet my film teacher won't be expecting any projects like this:
www.beginningmiddleend.com/detective

This is due on Tuesday. The pictures you see in the video are the only ones I have to work with. Any sugestions or criticism? I want to make sure mine is the best, hehe.
 
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Doesn't quite qualify as dvx footage, but oh well. :) That was very cool- looks like you had fun with this assignment.

You did some neat things with the lighting that were definitely "noirish", but it seems like you were struggling with the camera's focus, as almost all of the pictures were a little blurry.

Maybe its my monitor. Or my eyes. Or you meant it like that.

Nice job. Let us know what your teacher thinks of it.
 
*It's not the focus, it's the exposure ethat caused the pictures to be blurry. some pictures required that the shutter be open for like 8 seconds cuz it was so dark. i guess my actors couldn't hold still. we wre only allowed the ne roll of film, so i couldn't really braket the shots.
 
Despite the rough acting and the mentioned focus issue, I think you've got a great piece here. I like that car a lot, especially the shot under the streetlight. Good job man
 
that's the problem with film, you have to sometimes overexpose a single pic to make it look good. when that happens, i'd just open up the aperture more to try and compensate for the exposure time, but in that case you don't want to blast out the exposure..
 
Loved the Ghia and the shot of it under the light. I think it's a good project although the partner and the girls acting wasn't so good but other then that i enjoyed it.
 
Thanks guys,
Yeah, the detective is the only professional actor, everyone else are just friends of mine.
Good call on the carmengia. My friend actually has two of them, a white and a red one. The white would have worked a lot better in black and white, but it isn't a convertable. But i still think it came out hot.
this is the version i'm turning in for film class, i'll post the no holds bars version as soon as i get a chance.
 
I definately liked it.

Yeah, the man playing the detective was great, and "Junior" wasn't all that bad. But the girl's first line killed me! No enthusiasm or emotion. It's ok though. no big deal. and Lupino? I think, was a bit too over the top. but it made it kind of funny. :)

Great stuff though! The lighting was terrific.
 
i think on projects like that you gotta think very much like an editor that uses each frame to push the story forwards. I agree that you got some nice lighting here and there but the project ends up looking "sloppy." The first cut is really nice (wide to slightly reversed medium) but why CU of matches??? From then of little problems arise --- You gotta be really concise when working witch such limited number of stills. We just finished shooting music video where each still was on screen about 2 seconds and then got quickly burned. Each little episode had to be told in 3-4 frames... Really though stuff!
 
It is a very tough assignment. I really enjoyed it. First, it teaches you to be economical with your choice of pictures. Second, it forces you to be able to tell the story visually. I think that's why I ran into the editing problem aforementioned. I was preoccupied with making sure the shot I took told enough about what was going on - as opposed to the practicality in editing. However, most people in the class are showing their photos in a slide projector and playing music to it. The professor gave us the option to edit digitally, I don't know why someone wouldn't take advantage of that. I recomend that you guys take a stab at a project like this. I learned a lot from it and I bet you guys will to. Try and stick to the rules of the assignmnet (see the first post in this thread).
 
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