Film Noir Infographic

The BFI have created this beautiful infographic on What is Film Noir. Not only has it got a great overview of the genre, but the specific filmmaking techniques that imbue the style, from 'Choker' close ups to the Dutch tilt.

They rightly crowned 'Double Indemnity' the most film noir movie of all time. This classic directed by Billy Wilder is adapted from the American pulp fiction novella by James M Cain, and contains the most elements of the stark and poetic genre.

Joss Whedon - Bafta Guru

The Bafta Guru site is a bountiful resource on filmmaking, they've got screenwriting lectures, interviews, and opportunities. This interview with Joss Whedon for their 'Life in Pictures' strand isn't just a great overview of the writer/director, it's also amazing what you can learn from just listening to him. Plus it's really fucking funny. Like really really funny. I've probably posted it before but after revisiting it last week, it bears repeat listening. This is the guy who created Buffy, Angel, Firefly and Serenity. He brought the Avengers together in a bickering harmony. I could listen to him all day.

Wes Anderson - Red & Yellow Supercut

This nice lil supercut by Rishi Kaneria shows off Wes Anderson's love of red and yellow, a couple of warm, striking and evocative colours that are strongly prevalent throughout his work. By splicing together clips from the likes of The Royal Tenenbaums, Moonrise Kingdom, and Fantastic Mr Fox Rishi's work delineates Wes Anderson's clear signature style - you always know a Wes Anderson movie when you're watching one, and it's no surprise Grand Budapest Hotel took away four Oscars last week.

Red & Yellow: A Wes Anderson Supercut from Rishi Kaneria on Vimeo.

Sticking to a limited palette is a great way of maintaining consistency throughout a visual story, and as the above short demonstrates, a good way to developing a trademark aesthetic.

Screenplays

Below I've collated a few links to great screenplays, both film and TV. The links are mainly pilfered from other, far better, filmmaking resources like the fantastic Cinephilia and Beyond, as well as the unstoppable Go Into the Story, and the UK's own BBC Writers Room. The more screenplays you read, the easier it becomes to write them... or so I'm told.

Glen Garry Glen Ross - David Mamet

Calvary - John Michael McDonagh

People Just Do Nothing - Steve Stamp

Fargo (film) - Joel & Ethan Coen

Fargo (TV series) - Noah Hawley

I've just finished watching Fargo the TV series, a new benchmark against which we'll measure all other spinoffs! Noah Hawley's black comedy had enough little nods to the Coen Brothers' original film - that subplot on the fate of Steve Buscemi's buried million was inspired - but did its own thing, with it's own deeply flawed yet lovable characters and quirky ideas. There's an online PDF of the first episode that's a perfect example of how a pilot can deftly introduce all your main characters, while keeping the plot moving - things just keep happening! - and using the setting to its full potential. The dialogue is sublime and the tone, that straight-faced gallows humour, is to die for.

Hearing Tarantino supercut

Jacob T. Swinney's edited this awesome supercut of the sounds of Tarantino. 'Hearing Tarantino' demonstrates the power of the right sound in the right place, from the shhhink of a samurai sword and the sppplatter of blood, to the slurrrp of a tasty beverage and the sssizzle of a cigarette drag, audio embeds tension, gives action impact and can really make a scene stand out.

Hearing Tarantino from Jacob T. Swinney on Vimeo.

Red: A Kubrick Supercut

Red: A Kubrick Supercut from Rishi Kaneria on Vimeo.

Rishi Kaneria's collated the clips from Kubrick's work to highlight the auteur's penchant for red, from The Shining's elevator of blood to the colour's prominence throughout 2001.

Zoom Shots Supercut

What zoom are you staring at from OFFBEAT ESTUDIO on Vimeo.

Christopher Nolan on 'Following'

Here Christopher Nolan talks through the making of his first feature - Following. It's a neo noir tale with a twisty turny plot that keeps you guessing right up to the end. In this interview he elucidates on how having no budget can be used to your advantage, from choosing to shoot black and white, to the use of sound, and elements to include or not to avoid betraying your lack of finance, as well as how it helped him develop directorial techniques he's been using ever since.

Despite his budgets increasing to astronomical figures, Nolan hasn't changed his methods, he still prefers to shoot single camera, still draws a lot from the crime and film noir genre, and still uses inserts for both storytelling and editing reasons. It's an in-depth interview where you can learn a lot about first time film-making, as well as the story behind the production of a very strong début feature.

Edgar Wright - How to Do Visual Comedy

This video compilation by Tony Zhou perfectly demonstrates not only the cinematic flair and comedic talents of Edgar Wright but also analyses how the English auteur uses every frame as an opportunity to tell the story visually. And it reminds me how pissed I am that he's now not directing Ant-Man. Stupid Marvel.

Tony's beef and disappointment with American comedies is well articulated, calling them out for their lazy filmmaking - "the use of picture and sound to deliver jokes is... boring." He rightly argues that when you're predominantly using close up shots of your actors delivering dialogue, you're not using the full potential of cinema. And this is what Edgar Wright does so well - visual storytelling. In Tony's words, "the frame is a playground, so play."

Creative England - Talent Development Scheme

I've been fortunate enough to get on to Creative England's talent development scheme - a series of seminars and networking events for filmmakers looking to shoot their first feature.

Last night there were 2 talks, the first on story telling from Kate Leys, was particularly interesting. Kate is a feature film script editor who works on screenplays at all stages of development from first outline to pre-production and she spoke about the dynamic between story and character, the importance of the hook, and the top 10 things that most commonly go wrong with a story. Below are the key takeaways. 

Story in General

Satisfaction at the end of a story comes from character and us caring/relating to the character on some level.

Character flaw - the story forces them to confront it and get over it.

It's interesting when characters DON'T want to change, rather, they want the world to change around them so put them in a situation they can't get out of and continually throw trouble at them.

In any story, you main character is facing something (could be small and simple) that they've needed to for a long time.

Ending is the answer to the question posed at the beginning. A tragedy might not answer the question. 

Character is more important than story. 

Most stories are about CHANGE.

A stranger comes to town and they bring trouble, and it's the thing that goes wrong that instigates change - the inciting incident. The 'stranger' doesn't have to be a person, could be love, death or a box of matches.

Film Story

Hook - tell the story in a sentence that makes sense and is interesting. Titles can be hooks - 'The Astronaut Wives Club'

Check big name/cult movie hooks on IMDB. 

Stories at their core are precise.

Strong characters - big, recognisable, they can be ambivalent but always FLAWED. 

Clearly defined characters that DO things, NOT well meaning, they need to cause trouble. 

What is your character doing wrong? Secondary characters add pressure to the central character.

Characters WANT things and they're going to do something about it. 

Got to have stakes, it has to matter - especially to the main character.

When planning try writing in bullet points and tell yourself the story out loud.

Whose story is this? What do they want and why can't they get it? What do they need? And remember, you don't have to give them what they want, as is the case in tragedies.

What does my character have at the end, that they didn't at the beginning?

10 Things that Most Commonly Go Wrong

1) Veering - sliding off track. 

2) Nothing happens - no problems, no confrontation, no action. 

3) Not knowing whose story it is.

4) No one wants anything.

5) Not enough going wrong.

6) Leaving the story off the page.

7) A plot with characters you don't connect with.

8) Whole 1st act is a set up. 

9) Not about anything, no emotional pay off.

10) Don't have anything to say and therefore nothing to connect with.

The idea of knowing whose story it is resonated with me. I'm currently working on a short about 4 hipsters who rob a bank to pay off their student loans, but they come up against this grizzled old bank teller who hates her job and isn't gonna take it any more. I've been struggling and think it's because I don't know which character owns the story - is it Horse (they wear animal masks for the heist) the ringleader, or is it Janet - the grizzled bank teller? I'm going to crack that tonight and then HOPEFULLY the prose doth flow.

The Art of Close Ups with Edgar Wright

He's got one of the most distinctive directorial styles of any auteur working today and his collaborations with Simon Pegg and Nick Frost have resulted in some of the best British comedy films ever made, not to mention my favourite British sitcom Spaced. Here Edgar Wright talks to Slash Film about the art of the close up, as well as whip pans and snap zooms, all shots he's particularly fond of and the use of which is a large contributing factor to his visual flair. He shares some tricks and techniques, for example the whip pan onto a close up is usually done in reverse, although their camera operator was such a don he didn't have to do this.

"I'm a big fan of getting into a scene late and getting out of a scene early." Good advice often cited for writing an affective scene, in any form be it for the page, screen or stage. Edgar Wright also references James Cameron's tooling up montages as a big inspiration in Shaun of the Dead where he applied it to typically mundane sequences of everyday life such as boiling the kettle and tying shoe laces. Then in Hot Fuzz he took the Tony Scott and Michael Bay fetishization approach of slick cuts and sexy visual affects to the usually boring parts of police procedure such as the paperwork.