Evaluation - Q1: In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?

In my media product we have followed the conventions of film noir by having a detective and a femme fatal. Our detective had everything that a detective in a film noir would have: a trilby hat, suit and tie etc... However the female in our film was a more modern twist on a femme fatal but wasn't actually shown on screen to create mystery and put a twist on the original film noir's. They would have usually been on the screen the majority of the time trying to persuade the detective of their innocence which he would then fall for and sometimes fall in love with her but in our film this is not the case. Most film noir's are in black and white whereas ours is in colour adding the modern twist to it to make it our own and unique. Due to the fact that the femme fatal wasn't actually filmed we thought this would add a sense of power and control to the detective challenging the conventions of a film noir as under normal circumstances, the femme fatal would have been the one to take charge throughout the whole of the film until she gets found out, that's if she does. We showed the contrast of the males having more control throughout the opening scene as there were no other females in any of the shots.

Here is a screenshot of our title clip on our opening sequence. As you can see it is significantly different compared to the image below of  a film noir mainly because ours is in colour and that one is in black and white. We have kept it in colour to challenge the common essentials of a film noir to make it individual to us and different from everyone else's.

In the original film noir's picture, they

have added the effect of having the smoke appear to add mystery to the film. What does the smoke mean? It makes the film look quite creepy and also foreshadows that something bad is going to happen which is then linking to the detective and the seductive femme fatal. 

The film noir looks as if it is set in a city because of the screenshot being taken down a side street. This conveys the isolation of the film and can hint to the audience that someone will be on there own in the very end. We also tried to challenge this convention by setting ours in first the detective's home and then the college to give it a different change of scenery. The title screenshot of our opening sequence is unique because it is outside the detective's house which you don't normally see in the old film noir's. 


The image on the left shows the close up camera shot of the detective and the femme fatal however in ours all of the close ups are of just the detective which changes some of the conventions even further. This image is also in black and white and ours is in colour. By doing this it gives our opening sequence a modern twist on the original film noir's. 

Silhouettes are frequently used in old film noir's and that's what makes ours significantly special because we don't have any shadows or silhouettes in ours adding to the modern aspect of it. 

How a femme fatal should be:

• The iconography is explicitly sexual with long sleek hair (blonde or dark), make up and jewelry.

• Cigarettes have sexual connotations of liberation and phallic power.

• 'Dress - or the lack of it - defines the woman'

• 'Iconography of violence is a specific symbol of her unnatural phallic power'

• Framed portrait of women is a common motif.

• Murders indicate narcissism or duplicity.

• Women are generally center frame or drawing our attention by focusing on the foreground.

• Visual style expresses mood through darkness, both real in under a dim light and night-time scenes, and psychologically through shadow and claustrophobic settings which overwhelm the character. 

Below is an image of Eva Green from the film 'Sin City 2' where she plays a stereotypical femme fatal...

Our femme fatal was completely different from the expected and contradicted the stereotypical femme fatal.