The Taking of Pelham 123

Hollywood Legend, John Travolta stars in this action, gritty noir film as the mysterious Ryder. Travolta is known for a string of memorable bad guy roles on such films as Face/Off, Broken Arrow & Pulp Fiction.

this film featured many noir elements such as the dark lighting down in the subway and the common noir clothing for petty criminals.

Max Payne

I never thought a pop star turned action hero would make a good neo noir character. To be honest Mark Wahlberg kicks ass as Max Payne!

Notice the smoke effect in the background and the pale moonlight illuminating his face from above.

Report on the The Exchange

We were all still a bit new to the cameras and project planning but we still gave it our best shot. Our roles were immediately decided when this project was assigned to the whole class. Seb & Caroline were the Cinematographers, Nathan & I were Actors and the Editors for our new short sequence. We decided to have more depth with the detail this time as the Preliminary Exercise was very plain and basic. The actions and shots were planned out only as we decided not to add any dialogue to make it more of a classic film noir to the audience. The sound we added in the mix related a lot to the situation and the theme which we used during planning of the storyline. Costumes & Lighting were not touched this time as we did not have enough time or did not have the clothes to go with the theme.
Characters (Me & Nathan) were quickly established into the scene. Nathan was introduced as a shifty, up-to-no-good kind of guy and I was introduced as the mysterious, dangerous guy that did not really contrast with Nathans character which was good because these were the types of characters that were found in a classic film noir with a criminal genre.
The location we used was located on the burned out, rough looking area at the docks. This was the perfect setup for our characters to meet and the ideal place for an illegal activity to take place. A very rare amount of mistakes were found which was a major improvement from last time and I believe that I will be much better prepared for future filming projects.

Here is some of the feedback we received from the audience when we presented our Exchange piece in class-
"Very cool music to go with the actions cause it creates more of a noiry setting for us lot" Martin

The Exchange (Video Clip)

Report on the Preliminary Exercise

Our plan for our Preliminary Exercise was quickly made up and put into action the day of shooting. We decided not to contrast our scene with Sebs & Martins in order to keep it simple and easier for us to get done a lot quicker. We wanted to leave our audience wanting more of our short sequence so we decided to add a cliff-hanger at the end of the scene.
Seb is established as mysterious, the lone wolf. Martin is established as a calm, cool second party waiting in the wings for our lone wolf to show up. These characters worked well in the particular theme of our storyline because both of them were not alienated in any way from the situation at any time. We did not focus on costumes, lighting and depth of detail with our props (blank piece of paper to represent “The Documents”) as this was our first time shooting we thought it would be best to get used to the whole camera work in the field projects.
The location was extremely nearby and easy to find. However we were delayed for some time by students making their way past and through our shooting scene. The hallway was the perfect setup to introduce our lone wolf character: Seb. The small, tight little room created a claustrophobic effect for the duration of our seedy exchange between Seb & Martin. Unfortunately some mistakes were made by me and Nathan but as it was our first time we were let off with minimum punishments. Our mistakes noticed were dead space and silence but next time I will definitely be sure not to make the same mistake again.

We were given feedback on our work when the day came that involved us presenting it to the class. Here are some of the comments that were provided-
"Great work guys but i think you went a bit off with the sound in a few places and your choice in camera angle did create an amount of dead space in one or two scenes" John
"I liked the silence between both characters because it created tension and suspense for many people" Cameron
"I thought the choice in setting was interesting as it was a small space to work in but did not affect the fact that it created a claustrophobic feeling during the secret conversation"

I will take in these comments in order to create a more solid piece of work next time.

Preliminary Exercise (Video Clip)