FILM NOIR - Trouble Is My Business

[Thor Melsted]

A dark tale of a doomed romance, of murder and betrayal, told in the classic style of black & white film noir.



I wanted to share this with the RED community. I figured you might appreciate this kind of project.

Shot on two Scarlets with ARRI primes.

Cinematographer: PJ Gaynard
Lighting supervisor/gaffer: Ralph King

Director: Thomas Konkle
Writers: Thomas Konkle & Brittney Powell
Starring: Thomas Konkle, Brittney Powell, David Beeler

Producers: David Beeler, Thor Melsted

Two and a half months ago, we ran a successful Kickstarter campaign and not only met, but exceeded our fundraising goal.
The goal for that campaign was to generate funds to shoot the opening scenes of our film. A private investor matched what we raised on Kickstarter, and with the help of a professional crew who believed in the project sufficiently to defer their salaries for those days of work until full funding was secured, we shot the opening of the movie.
Post production is well underway and the first 20 pages will be complete within 2-3 weeks.
We are currently trying to raise $10,000 as first money in towards the modest $250,000 budget.

We have a new website and kickstarter campaign up, with a look behind the scenes.
Feel free to take a look.

Here are a few frame grabs. Click the image for the 4K TIFF.







Any and all feedback is appreciated. I'll do my best to answer any questions anyone might have.

If you like what you see, please share this with your friends. Share it with someone who loves film noir.

[Thor Melsted]

Anybody have any comments? We're open to both criticism and praise, obviously. Just want honest feedback.

[Daniel Soderberg]

The lighting is great! Like the cinematography too.

[Tim Whitcomb]

I enjoy the lighting but the sharpness is excessive - skin looks plastic and unflattering
Ironically I would suggest degrading the image more to get rid of the digital sharp look
But that's jist me - I watch a lot of film noir - and these movies rarely had big budgets

They were moody - I think you have the lighting right, and production design
But right now it looks like a modern film "trying to look fim noir"

Make sense? I mean this in a positive constructive criticism kind of way
It's too clean (damn 4k resolution! Lol) noir it up!

Cheers

[Thor Melsted]

Appreciate the feedback!

This is not the final grade, so rest assured we're taking this as constructive criticism.

Thanks!

[Philipe Ratton]

What Tim said.
Like the lighting, dont care much for the camera work, like the actors.
Maybe less noise reduction ?(If there is any)
Nice work anyway.

[Matt Ryan]

Just as a suggestion for the future, try shooting with a net or heavier diffusion filter (pro mist). It will help soften the image and give the light sources and highlights a bit of a glow.

[Kirk.Attard]

Like the overall look and feel - Perhaps as the other users suggested. Some more polishing and its there. Very well done.

[Thor Melsted]

Here's what our director had to say when I talked to him last night (I'm paraphrasing somewhat):

I really want a kind of alternate universe noir, in the regard that if cleaner image had been possible then I highly doubt Huston, Welles or Tournier wouldn't have gone for it.
We are making an original work in the same style, rather than a copy of the technical limitations of the time.

I probably should have mentioned this at the outset, but the goal was never a "warts and all" noir look, but rather that lighting and story telling style, which was born out of severe limitations of budget and/or equipment.
The feel is supposed to be a kind of Maltese Falcon meets Raiders of the Lost Ark by way of Blade Runner, if that makes sense.
We're also ultra low budget, but we have access to much better equipment than the classic noir, so it is going to look different. For one thing, noir films of that era were not 2.4:1 aspect ratio. We also did chroma key on several shots for set extensions, seeing as we have in-house VFX which allows us to do stuff they couldn't do back then, so there's that too. But anyway, I digress.

All that said, we most definitely appreciate the feedback - some of which we'll take to heart and some of which we'll disagree with, but that's how it goes :)

Oh, and we only shot the leading lady with a half Hollywood Black Magic filter, the rest was "natural."

Thanks guys.

[Joel Devereux]

I agree with Tim for sure about the sharpness, but its better that it that sharp to begin with, it will definitely help when downgrading to DI 2K for cinema. All in all, everything is textbook :) good job