BBFC certificate rating

"No one younger than 15 may see a ‘15’ film in a cinema. No one younger than 15 may rent or buy a ‘15’ rated video work."

Our film should be a 15 certificate as it will have violence (maybe some strong scenes), use of strong language and some scenes of a sexual nature. Our film doesn't go too far into the categories of the BBFC certificate rating scheme but there may be some scenes that breech the guidelines of what is allowed, to make sure there is no offense taken by our audience we have labeled it as a 15.

http://www.bbfc.co.uk/downloads/pub/Guidelines/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202009.pdf

Character Profiles

Detective:

He is a very good worker who's life revolves around his job. He is hard boiled and will not stop at any cost to get the job finished. His personal life was the cause of this as he lost the things he loved most in life so he set all his concentration on his job to make sure he didn't loose it, his personal life will be revealed more later in the film.

Femme fatale:

Is an alluring and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous and deadly situations.

Film Noir - Sex & Censorship

Films featuring corruption, death, and sex defined the classic film noir era of the 1940s and 1950s. It seems strange to think that the genre of film known as film noir would thrive during a period in film history that was heavily censored. The classic films in the film noir genre were forced to illustrate the corruption, violence, and sex through different and creative ways. The films had to use certain ways of implying a sexual relationship as opposed to playing it out blatantly on the screen like most films of the present day. Using innovative and creative ways to imply sexual relationships between characters in the films, the film noir filmmakers during the classic film noir era successfully produced dark and racy films despite being censored by the government.

Films in the classic noir era had a lot to do with sex, but hardly ever showed any sexual interactions on the screen. The censors were one of the main reasons why much of the sexual interaction was absent from the finished product. However, the films were able to work around the censors and imply sexual activity in more subtle ways. As Naremore writes: "if we did not already have the evidence of the films themselves, the censorship reports of the period reveal that classic noir was almost obsessed with sexual perversity...Breen Office censors were especially concerned about [homosexual] characters, just as they were about realistic depictions of heterosexual passion

Another aspect of sex that the makers of noir films had to work at portraying was homosexuality. Homosexuality was a taboo topic in American culture during the classic noir era. Unlike present day where homosexuality has slowly filtered itself into the mainstream, portraying a homosexual character during the classic era in a blatant and obvious way was not considered appropriate by the norms of American society. However, film noir was a genre of film that seemed to have hints of homosexuality from its characters, although the filmmakers never came out and directly announced it.

By using editing, camera tricks, symbolism, and subtle hints, makers of noir films during the 1940s and 1950s were able to work around the heavy censorship they had to endure and produce movies that contained sexuality. The censors may have done a favor to the film noir genre by making the filmmakers create unique ways to illustrate what they wanted their movie to show. This unique way of manipulating the audience makes the genre of film noir intriguing. Unlike the films of the present day, sexuality was not something easily portrayed on the big screen. The creativity of the filmmakers during the classic noir era is just an example of why film noir has become such an interesting and groundbreaking genre of film.

Characters In Film Noir

Main Characters

One main characteristic of film noir is that its main character is often not much of a hero, but rather an anti-hero. This detective is often trapped into doing some pretty bad stuff, and he is left to get himself out of trouble and find a life for himself again. He is depressed, spends a lot of time walking through dark cities at night in a fedora, and always seems to lose. The story often was told from the perspective of the hard-boiled detective, and it was not at all uncommon to begin the film with a scene from the end of the plot, and then flash back to the beginning of the whole story for him to tell it as the narrator

The other main character who was present in most every film noir was the femme fatale, a typically blonde woman whose name spelled trouble. These women with guns were empowering, deceptive, and just plain mean. They always seemed to manage to trap the hard-boiled detective into falling in love with them, just to come in at the last second and turn his world upside-down.

Stereotypical Costume

• For male characters in film noir the detective look is the most common. The characters often wear a suit and a long coat, making them look important and intimidating.

• Where as the female role often wear a fancy dress making them look more innocent and seductive.

• This costume choice for the characters makes the male role seem more powerful and in charge and the females look weaker and make it seem like they are just there to look pretty, more as a trophy shown off by the male characters.

• This also helps if in the story the twist is that the woman is the bad guy as it is more unexpected and shows that you can't stereotype someone by how they look.

• These costumes are very stereotypical and makes the film feel older as the males are always in working clothes and seem to be mainly detectives or spy's and the female roles always seem to be in fancy dresses in show business or in plain old fashioned clothes and are house wives.

• The costumes are often colour coded to fit the characters in film noir and are made so the more important roles contrast, are made to stand out more. For example because it is in black and white a female character would wear all black but have fair skin and light coloured hair making her contrast and stand out more like the woman on this picture.

• This also makes the female characters that have costume like this look more seductive and have something about them and the female characters that don't contrast seem more boring and less important.

• The male characters that do this make them seem like theres something going on with the character, making them stand out like this gives the audience the feeling that they have an important role in the film and may be the downfall in it or as a twist the more shady male character in the beginning turns out to be the big hero in the end.

Sunset Boulevard

Another film we are going to research for help with ours is “Sunset Boulevard”.
Sunset Boulevard was written by Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder also directed the film. The budget for this movie was around $1,752,000 and was distributed by Paramount pictures, released on the 4th of august in 1950.
This film has a love themed storyline that ends up with the main female role having her heart broken and losing control.
If we look into more film noir type films and see the different plots and story lines then it can give us more idea on what to do for our own film and how to set it out.

How To Create That Signature Visual Style

Here are some tips on how to perfect the visual style of Film Noir;

• Helps to have a smoke machine
• Back Lighting/Front Lighting
• Using blinds between front light & actor creates a nice effect
• Shooting at night & in black & white is strongly suggested
• Interesting camera angles (e.g. Deutsch Angles, X-tremely High/Low Angles)
• Point-Of-View Shots can help your viewer into the mindset of the character