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.

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.

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.

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.

Light Metering