Storylines/Narrative
the general story line of a film noir is crime, it includes a detective who is normally either in trouble or gets caught up in some sort of trouble, it also includes a feme fetal and a hero which one of them normaly ends up dead and it has something to do with the other one,
film noirs are normally shot in a dark and depressing type location where there is very little light and normally someone is smoking.
Cinematography (shots)
in film noirs they use a number of different shots this is to keep the audience on edge and in suspense, these shots include a dutch tilt which is where the camera is tilted so that the horizon is not straight in the shot this makes the audience have to adjust their eyes as our eyes are not made to see a tilted horizon this makes an interesting and exciting shot which helps to make for a sinister shot, another shot used in film noir is a wide shot which zooms in this is where the camera focuses on a wide area and then zooms in on one person or a group of people to bring more emphasis to the group of people or the one person who the director wants us to focus on
Editing
film noirs where B movies which means they where made cheaply and using filters meant that they could film at any time of day and make it look like they where filming at night this made it easier and cheaper for them to make the films look dark and dreary without having to find a dreary location and having to shot at night time.
the normal editing for a film noir is to start at the end of the film and then to recall the action of what unfolded in flash backs through the film this is called non-linear.
Characters
the main characters in a film noir are the feme fetal who is usually a very attractive youngish female willing to do what ever she can to get her own way whether its the money or the good looking guy, the detective who normally gets caught up in trouble either helping the feme fatal or in interigating her and the hero who normally ends up dead.
film noirs represent these different characters by their costume for example the feme fetal usually wears casual but revealing clothes when talking to the detective and the detective wears smart clothes and normally a hat, in film noirs they also use music for the different characters to get the audiance to feel a certain way about each of the characters.
