Production schedule of "Three's A Crowd"

Permission Report

For our two-minute clip, we have decided to set the scene in the lounge of a home or possibly a posh hotel.

To be visually effective it would be better to have our film shot in a hotel, however, gaining permission would be a lot harder to do for the shooting element of the production, therefore it is more likely that the scene will be shot in one member of the groups home. Permission will be obtained from the home owner to use the space as well as checking with them that it is ok to use fake blood of some sort for dramatic effect on the victims in their home. College are providing ourselves with camera for filming and lighting, so we will need to check with them if it is possible to film away from the college site over a period of time using their camera and also lighting.

"Three's A Crowd" Script

A female sitting in a chair, MIRIAM BROWNE is smoking a cigarette with one hand, holding a martini in her other, by the pained expression on her face she looks stressed and her tear stained face suggests she’s been crying. She is of a young age, mid-twenties possibly, and undeniably beautiful with her brown curls pinned, red lipstick highlighting her plump lips and a cocktail dress perfectly accentuating her figure.

The home is comfortable and undeniably luxurious, the Browne’s are obviously a wealthy couple, there is fine wallpaper on the walls, giving the room a homely feel, whilst the sofa MIRIAM is sat on, looks delicate. There is a window behind MIRIAM but the curtains have been drawn closed, the drapes hanging delicately over the curtains themselves..

(A sound of a door opening occurs accompanied by some laughter. MIRIAM instantly composes herself upon hearing the noise. A Couple, of the same age as MIRIAM appear through the door to which MIRIAM is awaiting. MARIA is a few years younger then JOHN and MIRIAM. At first JOHN and MARIA do not notice the figure waiting for them and proceed in laughing and talking to one another, MIRIAM then clears her throat, JOHN turns the light on)

MIRIAM:

Well, what do we have here then? I Knew I couldn’t trust you John, I Knew it.

JOHN:

Now baby, this is not what it looks like… (Remaining calm, a relaxed expression on his face)

(JOHN goes to comfort MIRIAM)

MIRIAM:

(Shouting at John, pausing between words, monotone) Don’t, you, dare. (Shaking as she pulls out a 9mm handgun, JOHN steps back as she aims the gun at him and places her glass on the fireplace)

(MIRIAM aims the gun at john, then shoots MARIA)

(Gunshot sounds, MARIA is on the floor, lifeless and MIRIAM turns the gun to JOHN. Instantly knowing that his life is at risk, he tries to grab the gun from MIRIAM even though she has a firm grip, they struggle. A gunshot sounds. MIRIAM is too, lying on the sofa lifeless with a bullet wound in her chest, JOHN rushes to MIRIAMS side, she whispers into his ear something no one else could possibly hears before taking her last breath, the gun beside him as he is looking down at the MIRIAM, lying still.)

JOHN:

What have I Done?!

Target audience of "Three's A Crowd"

We are aiming to produce our film for both young couples as well as male and females in the adult age group of 30-75. We have based this upon the use of violence between both genders in the clip of our film and the content of smoking and alcohol. Although we have decided to certify our film as a 15, it was felt that the topic may be too sensitive for a younger age group and as we have chosen the film to be based on the generic crime convention of film noir, in which murder is the dominant subgenre.

List of equipment

1. Spare recording tapes

For use if original tape runs out of use

2. Tripod

To steady the camera and enable smooth movement of the camera

3. Camera

To record the clip

4. Spare batteries

To use if power runs out whilst filming

5. Lighting; lamp

Dramatic effect for convention of Mis-en-scene

6. Script

Guidance for actors

Props and costume list

1. Fake handgun

For Miriam to use when shooting Maria

2. Glass of ‘alcohol’

For Miriam to hold whilst waiting for John and Miriam to return home

3. Silky wrap /scarf

Stereotypical femme fatale accessory, worn around Miriam and Maria’s arms.

4. Male suit; braces, blazer, trousers, shirt and tie

For john to wear to co-ordinate with the date of the play, typical 1940’s male clothing

5. Cigarette’s and cigarette holders

To hold Miriam’s cigarette whilst she waits for John and Maria, dramatic effect of seduction

6. 1950’s style dress

7. Red lipstick and mascara

8. Stiletto’s

9. Pencil skirt

10. Blouse

(6-10) For Miriam and Maria to wear throughout the clip, adds to femininity and seductiveness of the clip being shot in the convention of film noir

11. Fake blood

To emphasise the murders committed in the end shot of the clip

Cast list of "Three's A Crowd"

We have chosen to have three characters in the opening clip to our film these are as follows:

Miriam- Wife Of John- Played by Whitney

Maria-John’s Lover- Played by Vanessa

John- Miriam’s Husband- Played By Adam

Plot summary of "Three's A Crowd"

As a group, we are producing a film based on the trials and retributions of love with the theme of crime being the recurring topic.

The film is in a linear format. Set in the 1940’s, it commences with two murders being committed, A wife, discovering her husband is having an illicit affair with another woman, kills his lover, before he then kills her after a violent struggle. The husband is caught by police and interrogated about what happened, the film mainly consists of flashbacks of him and his lovers relationship as well as the one he had with his wife, changing in tenses, divulging to the audience, his thoughts and feelings and problems that may lead to him being charged for multiple murder rather than let free for self-defence. The film then focuses upon the detective gathering evidence for the prosecution after the story doesn’t coincide with the bullet wounds and fingerprints on the gun. The detective sets about interviewing those close to the victims and suspect, yet again, as the trial grows closer. The suspect grows more and more hostile in aiding the detective after being disallowed to attend his lover’s funeral and eventually commits suicide, unable being able to cope with the pressure. Answers are still needed, however. Will the detective discover the truth? The final scene will end on this cliffhanger to keep the audience at the edge of their seat

Certifying "Three's A Crowd"

The film that has been created by our group will be rated a 15 certificate.

This is based on the following information found on the BBFC website:

Imitable behaviour

Dangerous behaviour (for example, hanging, suicide and

Self-harming) should not dwell on detail which could be

copied. Easily accessible weapons should not be glamorised

This applies to the murder that is committed at the beginning of the clip

Violence

Violence may be strong but should not dwell on the infliction

of pain or injury. The strongest gory images are unlikely to

be acceptable. Strong sadistic or sexualised violence is also

unlikely to be acceptable.

There may be detailed verbal references to sexual violence

but any portrayal of sexual violence must be discreet and

have a strong contextual justification.

This is related to the shooting that takes place between the 3 characters

(As found on http://www.bbfc.co.uk/downloads/pub/Guidelines/BBFC%20Classification%20Guidelines%202009.pdf – 7/1/2010)

The film that myself and my group have created has been named “Three’s a crowd.” The film is based upon betrayal and murder, two main conventions within the film noir genre, in which we have chosen to create our opening clip as. We found that when studying film noir, the climax of the film is normally in the opening scene and we have chosen to recreate this convention.

The opening scene will consist of Miriam, sat waiting for someone to walk through a front door and notice her presence. She looks upset and smokes constantly for a short while. Then, a key turns in the door and laughing between a male and female can be heard. John, Miriam’s husband, appears with Maria, a beautiful young woman. As the two characters enter the parlour where Miriam is waiting, she clears her throat to announce her appearance, much to the shock of John and Maria. John instantly tries to deny any form of relationship with Maria and as he is trying to do so, Miriam shuts him up by shooting Maria with a handgun that has been resting on her lap for the entire scene. Pointing the gun at john, he misses the first shot aimed at him and then struggles with his wife for the gun, accidentally shooting her in the process. The final clip of this scene ends in John standing over the two bodies in tears.

As a group, we have discussed the idea of sound effects and music within the scene, as we know that these effects are also key within the film noir genre. We have chosen to create some form of instrumental, dark and intense instrumentals to add to the climax of the scene as well as enhancing the audiences want to see what happens in the remainder of the film.

We chose to incorporate the stereo-typical “femme fatale” role into the film, however, choosing to have 2 we felt gave the scene a twist. We also felt that by doing so, the connotation of the scene being a love triangle is very modern day, often seen in soap drama’s, music video’s etc. However, in contrast to this, rather than taking the audience through the illicit relationship that occurs, at the beginning of the film and work our way through the storyline, that we would use this in our plot as an anti-climax to the opening scene so that the audience don’t lose interest in the plot, but, as I mentioned previously, to stay in keeping with the film noir genre

Poster of my crime film

History of crime genre

Crime and Gangster Films are developed around the sinister actions of criminals or gangsters, particularly bankrobbers, underworld figures, or ruthless hoodlums who operate outside the law, stealing and violently murdering their way through life. In the 1940s, a new type of crime thriller emerged, more dark and cynical - see the section on film-noir for further examples of crime films. Criminal and gangster films are often categorized as post-war film noir or detective-mystery films - because of underlying similarities between these cinematic forms.

Criminal/gangster films date back to the early days of film during the silent era. One of the first to mark the start of the gangster/crime genre was D. W. Griffith's The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) about organized crime. It wasn't the first gangster movie ever made, but it was the first significant gangster film that has survived. There were other one-reel 'gangster' films before Griffith's film, such as Biograph's The Moonshiners (1904), Edwin S. Porter's and Wallace McCutcheon's primitive chase film A Desperate Encounter Between Burglars And Police (1905), and McCutcheon's docu-melodrama kidnapping story The Black Hand (1906), but their importance or availability have been problematic.

It wasn't until the sound era and the 1930s that gangster films truly became an entertaining, popular way to attract viewers to the theatres, who were interested in the lawlessness and violence on-screen. The events of the Prohibition Era (until 1933) such as bootlegging and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 1929, the existence of real-life gangsters (e.g., Al Capone) and the rise of contemporary organized crime and escalation of urban violence helped to encourage this genre. Many of the sensationalist plots of the early gangster films were taken from the day's newspaper headlines. The allied rackets of bootlegging, gambling and prostitution brought these mobsters to folk hero status, and audiences during that time vicariously participated in the gangster's rise to power and wealth - on the big screen. They vicariously experienced the gangster's satisfaction with flaunting the system and feeling the thrill of violence. Movies flaunted the archetypal exploits of swaggering, cruel, wily, tough, and law-defying bootleggers and urban gangsters.

The talkies era accounted for the rise of crime films, because these films couldn't come to life without sound (machine gun fire, screeching brakes, screams, chases through city streets and squealing car tires). The perfection of sound technology and mobile cameras also aided their spread. The first "100% all-talking" picture and, of course, the first sound gangster film was The Lights of New York (1928) - it enhanced the urban crime dramas of the time with crackling dialogue and exciting sound effects of squealing getaway car tires and gunshots. Rouben Mamoulian's City Streets (1931) from a story penned by Dashiell Hammett was reportedly Al Capone's favorite film, starring Gary Cooper and Sylvia Sydney as two lovers trapped by gangland connections. And Tay Garnett's violent Bad Company (1931) was the first picture to feature the gangland massacre on St. Valentine's Day.

Other highly dramatic films in the crime genre are actually a subgenre - the prison crime film. These are focused on the regimented setting for criminals - the prison and life behind bars. Prison films have portrayed the tremendous impact prison life has on prisoners as well as on wardens and guards. They are often populated by vindictive wardens, innocent men wrongly imprisoned, or stool-pigeons. Themes have also included methods of evasion, attempts to escape or prove innocence, social consciousness and concern about the prison system, and the death-row experience.

As stated earlier, as the decade of the 40s and the post-war period emerged, crime films became darker, more brutal, violent, and cynical -- many crime/gangster films were actually film noirs. After World War II, gangsters were often businessmen who represented large and corrupt corporations (often anonymous). The first film to illustrate changes in the character of gangsters after WWII was Byron Haskin's I Walk Alone (1948). Burt Lancaster took the role of Frankie Madison, an ex-con who faced a changed world and a double-cross by his partner after his release from 14 years in prison. He learned that Noll 'Dink' Turner (Kirk Douglas) was now a pseudo-legitimate and respectable, high-flying Manhattan night-club owner/racketeer, unwilling to share in bootlegging profits from an earlier promise (Turner: "This is big business. We deal with banks, lawyers, and a Dunn and Bradstreet rating. The world's spun right past you, Frank.")

1970s films showed the untiring, violent and abusive counter tactics of detectives fighting crime including William Friedkin's The French Connection (1971), with two narcotics detectives (Gene Hackman as Jimmy "Popeye" Doyle and Roy Scheider as Buddy Russo) facing an international narcotics smuggling ring. [Two semi-sequels or follow-up films also emphasized tough and violent police tactics: director Phil D'Antoni's The Seven-Ups (1973), with Scheider in the lead role as a tough NYC police department investigator, and Badge 373 (1973), with Robert Duvall as an avenging cop.] Director John Frankenheimer's official sequel French Connection II (1975) resumed the tracking of drug dealers in Marseilles by Doyle.

In the early 90s, young screenwriter Quentin Tarantino made his debut film as writer and director. He turned toward directing his own scripts set in the unusual, volatile world of the criminal element. His own directorial debut for a feature film, after having others direct his scripts for True Romance (1993) and Natural Born Killers (1994), was for the ultra-violent crime thriller Reservoir Dogs (1992) - in which six thieving strangers were assembled to conduct a diamont heist that unraveled rapidly in the aftermath. Afterwards, he perfected his mix of humor and ultra-violence in the popular, critically-acclaimed film Pulp Fiction (1994), a complex interweaving of three crime stories.

It may be argued that the best genre match for 'serial killer' films is the horror genre or thriller films category, but they could also be categorized within this area of crime films. Early horror films (including the Dracula and Frankenstein cycles), various pieces of Gothic literature and accounts of real-life killers have all been sources of inspiration for these films. They are noted as cinematic productions that feature a psychopathic, mass murderer/killer (not known as a 'serial killer' until the 1980s) on a homicidal spree. Within the last decade or two, most horror films with a mass murderer have deteriorated into slasher films or erotic dramas/mysteries, characterized by random killings by a maniacal individual.

Analysis of 3 crime posters of denotations to be studied for my assignment

Textual analysis of the first scene of Crime films

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994)

The opening clip of this film shows the audience a male character sitting in a car, waiting for someone at night, listening to the radio. He slowly begins to pull a gun out of his glove compartment.

The use of dim lighting is used at the beginning of the opening scene, creating an atmosphere of mystery to the audience as a male character sits in a car in silence. The use of non-digective sounds of an old 1950's era song has been used to create a date in which the film has been set in. Ironically, the 1950's is probably the most popular era of crime films, especially as film noir and gangster films are predominantly set in this time period and were created at this date in time. Slow shots used of the character revealing a gun and a bottle of alcohol suggests to the audience that he is waiting in the car for someone he knows and that this character is going to be central to the plot, committing the crime. The opening scene being set in a car suggests that the character is trapped into a situation, he has no freedom and has no choice but to commit the crime.

2. Sin City (2005)

The film opens with two characters in a passionate embrace on a balcony overlooking New-York City. As they kiss, the audience are shown the female character being killed by the male and he holds her as she dies.

A film noir effect has been visually used here. The use of black and white is predominant to the film as well as in the opening scene the use of Red, which the female is wearing on her lips and her dress. This suggests to the audience sex, passion and love and emphasises the relationship between the male and female in the scene as they kiss. The use of narrative gives the audience a sense of the male characters point of view, he seemed to love this woman after mentioning her held the woman until she had died. It creates an atmosphere of sympathy. Slow shots are used in this clip also; this can emphasise the fact that men are more powerful than women as he is narrating as well as being the murderer in this scene.

3. Goodfellas (1990)

The film begins with 3 male characters traveling in a car whilst a woman is in the boot tied up. As she makes noise the men stop the car, and stab and shoot the female character.

The image of a car driving fast in a dark setting and red tail lighting suggests danger to the audience.3 Italian men are sat in the car, which is a convention of crime films (Italian mafia, mobs etc) The car is black and white, symbolising a possibility of good and evil, there is more black on the car suggesting that Evil has overtaken good. A digective sound coming from the boot of the car suggests that someone is inside and creates an atmosphere of suspicion as the audience see the men pull out a knife and gun and open the boot. The use of the red tail-light now shone all over their body is symbolic to blood.

Target audience of crime films

Crime drama has become one of the most popular genres of film in society today, dating back to the early 1900's. They appeal to their audience by dealing with themes and issues the viewers are aware of through their engagement with news and current affairs, such as murders and love affairs. Just as important as the themes and issues it deals with are the values and attitudes presented and the view of the world it offers. The ideologies presented usually reflect those of their target audience. The target audience for crime drama is usually teenagers to adults. Men are normally the target audience of crime films because for decades the main characters are more commonly played by masculine characters rather than feminine. However, the appeal has changed over the years with women beginning to take an interest in the genre as society is more forthcoming and forward in its right to equality and women and men treated equally so they are more knowledgeable and independent today then 40 years ago per say. Women have also had a common role in crime films as glamourous and feminine, making sexual advances and seducing men, such as films like James Bond.

Typical conventions of crime films

Analysis of crime films