Sound
Music
Dialogue
Graphics
Grading
Camera
Framing
Techniques
Editing
Pace
Techniques
Titles
Music is a key part of creating the atmosphere of the film. We tried to blend together modern popular music to work with the teen drama side of the film, with funkier jazz music to work with the noir atmosphere. The former music that plays over the opening credits was easy, because we just had to research music that we and our peers liked, although we did try to keep it in line with the crime aspect of the film- thus we didn't pick an upbeat pop song, but rather a smoother instrumental piece to compliment the later music.
For the later music that plays over the interviews, we took cues from older detective films like 1974's 'Chinatown' and the oldest reference film we looked at, 1958's 'Touch of Evil.' We were wary of alienating modern audiences by going too far back, so we really only looked at music from films like this. However, it was still important to our style, especially considering how the crime genre and its style has its roots in films like this.
'Chinatown' opening music: Chinatown
'Touch of Evil' opening music: TouchofEvil
Dialogue was important in creating the feeling that the characters are undergoing legal proceedings. We couldn't just have the characters talking like they were having a normal conversation, so we made sure to include lines about respecting authority and talking to lawyers. In this way the audience should hopefully be more immersed in the film's universe.
We liked the gloominess of each film- when darkness dominated, there was always a light, and vice-versa, whether it was fire on a boat at night in 'The Usual Suspects' or rainfall during the day in 'Se7en.' We used grading as an opportunity to fix our half-light, half-shadow lighting into a real atmosphere, with strong chiaroscuro and a recognisable and eye-catching style. We also boosted the colours a bit with contrast and similar tools, to keep everything looking nice despite the decreased brightness.
Unlike other parts of construction, which typically had one or two primary influences as well as many secondary influences, style was an amalgamation of every single film of the correct genre that we researched. Thus films we looked at as influences for other areas come up again, and there is possibly nowhere this shines through more than during grading. 'The Usual Suspects' and 'Se7en' have such strong senses of style that we had to look at them both again during this step, or we feared we would produce a substandard opening.
Titles were also something that needed to be taken into consideration when deciding on the overall style of the opening. We decided to follow the lead of similar films and have them simple but striking, so they didn't detract from the atmosphere, and in fact complimented it.
Pace was something we had to take into consideration as well. Although it could be argued that the pace of the opening has less of an effect on the style when compared to, say, the grading or the music, our group decided it was still intrinsic to the perfect style. Although by the end we weren't totally satisfied with the style we had crafted, we knew we had at least paid attention to things such as pace. We decided to keep our pace quite high, to compliment the background music during the interrogation. This meant the segment had the feeling of a constant flowing conversation with rapid-fire questions.
While pace could itself considered an editing technique, it wasn't the only thing we did to create a flowing conversation. We used sound bridges to make certain shots and pieces of dialogue blend together, which really helped to keep all the character interactions natural, which in turn contributed to the smooth style we were aiming for. We also used fades and manipulated sound diegesis to separate certain sections from each other- for example, when the detective presses the audio recorder to actually start the interviews, the pressing of the button starts off the background music which lasts throughout the whole interrogation, plus this very same shot fades to black to allow for a smooth transition to the next character. All of this of course added to the flowing style we tried to create.
See underneath this webtool for a GIF.
The use of framing was something we considered while constructing the style of our opening. We ended up deciding to try and be neutral throughout most of the opening- by this we meant show as much as possible of each character while staying relatively close, so that the focus is on their shared conversation. However, we wanted to be impactful at certain times, for example when something big in terms of plot or emotion, or both, happened. A good example of this would be when the detective reveals that Peter Smith is dead, and not simply missing, eliciting a shocked reaction from all the interviewees. This use of framing contributed to style, as it allowed us to keep the conversational style we were aiming for while also adhering to the style of the mystery genre.
See underneath this webtool for a GIF.
Aside from framing, there are many techniques that can be used to construct style using a camera. One we used was camera movements- we had a pan after a fade to make the camera's movement mirror the movement of the conversation into a new segment. We also had a tilting effect, where the camera would move back-and-forth between characters as they delivered their lines, almost like a game of tennis, in order to represent the back-and-forth conversation between these characters. Movements like this contributed to the natural yet dynamic style of conversation we wanted to create.
See underneath this webtool for a GIF.