Other references to film noir

There are also a few good examples of modern film noir, sometmes coined as neo-noir. These are:
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (Black: 2005) - Shane Black's noir thriller in which an ex-thief teams up with a private detective to investigate  a murder helped to reinvent the genre. It has a femme fatale, a MacGuffin and numerous plot twists. It shares similar themes to our film in that the detective is called to investigate a murder. The films opening credits are also quite flashy and intriguing, telling half the story in just a few minutes to a slightly 40s jazzy soundtrack. It is well worth bearing in mind when dveloping our own title sequence.

The Present

We decided to set the film int he present, after much debate, as it allows us freedom in costume and location/props etc. However, as with films such as Sin City (Rodriguez: 2005), there are elements of the film which appear out of place in time; for instance, the telephone that the detective is called on will be an old fashioned 40s/50s telephone. His clothes, whilst conventionally similar to te classic image of a 40s private detective, will be modern. The apartment itself would be the main factor for setting the film in the present, as creating a whole room in the style of a 1940s film noir would be hard, expensive and time consuming! Therefore, we can have it in a contemporary/retro style, with props from different times.

Film opening synopsis

We decided to do a noir thriller, based on 40s film noir but set in present time; it follows a private detective who is employed by a woman to find her husbands murderer. Eventually, it turns out it was her all along, hiring someone else to contract the murderer so that she can distance herself from the crime. In the opening of the film the private detective is called to the scene of the crime, where he looks around the apartment for a clue. As he arrives at the apartment, he throws his cigarette and pushes the unlocked door open and steps into a messy room. Police tape and a white body outline indicated where the murder had taken place. He sits in the victim’s sofa and eyes up the two glasses on the table, next to the bourbon. One of the glasses had red lipstick around the edges. He sparks up another cigarette and pokes a crack in the blinds looking outside. He draws back to the kitchen as the phone rings. He picks it up and answers. A woman asks for the victim and after a brief exchange she hangs up. He walks over to the table again and puts his cigarette out in the glass. The title appears as he leaves the apartment.


The story is told using narrative device by the protagonist, as is conventional of film noirs. Charlie and I are currently writing the script for the narrative, which shouldn’t take too long. We will also film/edit it in black and white, to further connote the 1940s noir feeling. Charlie has been working on the storyboard for the film, which we will upload soon. Once this is finished we’ll have an idea of what we need for filming, in terms of location and props.

Film opening ideas and genre references

Working in a pair with Charlie, we started to produce some ideas for our opening to a film. We threw a lot of ideas around and tried to specify a couple of them, but couldn't find anything we really liked and felt comfortable with. So we did a bit more research, looking closely into film openings for westerns, musicals and crime genres. After a loose, faux idea for a Musical Western, we scrapped that in favour of a Film noir thriller. We wanted to create a mixture of 1940s noir with a present setting, but keep the essential elements of what it is about the 40s Film Noirs that make them so great. We looked at some pieces of music and also some films, such as the classic Double Indemnity(1944) and The Big Sleep(1946)

High Rankin - The Tale Of Clarence Baskerville



The Big Sleep



Double Indemnity



These films are extremely helpful in understanding the genre as they are generally considered a few of the best films in the canon. Double indemnity is a defining film noir text, with all the conventions of film noir; the femme fatale, the flawed protagonist, the witty, sharp dialogue and the complicated plot twists. The Big Sleep is also a big part of film noir, with Humphrey Bogart one of the leading faces of the genre. It's use of the MacGuffin is also a convention to the genre; a MacGuffin is a plot device that has no other function than moving the plot and characters forward i.e the stolen money in Psycho (Hitchcock: 1960) or the falcon in The Maltese Falcon (Huston: 1941). A device used in many film noirs, the MacGuffin for our film would of course be the murder that occurs before the start of the film, which the detective is introduced as investigating.

Also, the inclusion of the dubstep song The Tale of Clarence Baskerville in this list is simply because it was part of our inspiration. When stuck for ideas, we were playing music and Charlie played the song. It has a narration from a film noir detective character, who meets a femme fatale and then gets a phone call from an old enemy. Then the music drops as the detective says "although I didn't know it, things were about to get very, very heavy". Although not really useful to our film, it shows the film noir genre can adapt and change to all texts, with music being present here.