Treatment

Our film is to be a film noir style drama based around a central character that has an unhealthy gambling addiction along with a sea of other troubles both at home and work. The opening will depict him entering a poker game with a group of high class individuals where his desperation leads him to lose all the money he bet with which is everything he owns. He is unhappy with his life how it is, it is hinted his wife may be seeing other men and consequently he is hopelessly lusting after the wife of one of the other players. With him loosing it all he has nothing left and the rest of the film centres around a in depth look into his state of mind as he desperately tries to claw back everything he lost, throwing our otherwise average working class man deep into the heart of the criminal underworld.

As this is to be based around the film noir style it will involve a deep look inside the head of the main character, allowing for him to be seen for exactly what he is, flaws and all. This kind of exploration of the character is typical of film noirs which are often very dark and portray their main characters as having some kind of fatal flaw which leads them to make bad decisions that ultimately affect the outcome of the film. It will be based in the 1950s.

The stylistic influences for this project are to be taken from the film noir genre, more specifically containing strong elements of neo noir films as to not restrict us to basic techniques and black and white filming. This will allow us to still keep a modern feel to our project while still heavily including film noir styles and mise en scene. Another genre of film to be looked at while creating this project is the crime drama genre, as this will be a modernised neo noir that will also borrow from thriller and crime drama traditions. A real task will be to try and mix these varying influences to create a film opening that works well.

The mise en scene element of this project will be very important, to fit with the desired style we will be using trilby hats and trench coats to create an air of mystery around our characters, and also to fit with the time period we are basing it in. We will have our characters relatively sharply dressed also, in business attire to fit with the style and also the occupations of the respective characters. Props used may be objects that would be commonly found in that era, such as and old radio for a source of digetic sound in the opening sequence. To avoid looking clichéd we will not be using props for guns as we do not have the software to make it look realistic. To fit in with the feel of the film, and the era it is based in we may use things such as cigars and paper files. We will make sure there are no modern items on shot during the filming.
Due to the style of this project we will most likely have very low key lighting in our opening sequence to allow for a dramatic and contrasting look and feel.