1. What makes film noir distinctive By Joe Osborne

2. Contents Visual Extras Themes Genre convention

3. Visual Low lighting – Using as minimal lighting as possible to add mystery and horror to a film noir. Low lighting adds an emphasis on shadows and gives the film a sense of mystery. Low lighting also makes it easier to show silhouettes of what is happening without actually showing it. Black and White – Using a black and white film was a good way to save money and also added to the inspector/criminal events that occur during the film. Whenever you see a black and white film nowadays people instantly assume that it is a film noir due to the amount of films that were made in the 40’s/50’s. Voice over Narratives – Voice over's basically allowed the main character to narrate the events of the film as it played, the way they usually worked was to start at the end of the film and then have a flashback to the beginning of the story with the narrations of the main character telling you the events throughout the film.

4. Themes Fast talking – One of the main themes in film noir is the fast paced talking of the characters. In the years of which film noir was made many actors were fast talking (gangster like) it also emphasised the fast paced antics an events that occur during the film. Gangster – Many of the villains in film noir are based around gangsters of the 1940’s/1950’s. The bad male characters in film noir are usually shown as being big and powerful and have followers/minions that do their work for them. Black widow – The black widow theme in film noir is a reoccurring theme, were a young and attractive female that seems all sweet and innocent, lours an unsuspecting, law abiding male citizen into her grasp and uses the power of ‘sex’ to manipulate him and get him to do her bidding, whether that be murder or robbery, etc.

5. Genre Conventions Mystery, crime – Mystery and crime are genre conventions that always appear in film noir, they are aspects of the film that when the public see unfolding in a film they instantly know that it is film noir originated. Heists, Murder – Heists and murder seem to always be in a film noir, in every single film noir the aspect of murder or robbery always makes an appearance. Heist and murder are what make a film noir, without it, it’d most likely just be another film. Hays code – The Hays code was a set of rules and regulations that stated what could and couldn’t be shown in a film at the time. For example, sexual acts were not to be shown and neither were drugs and violence.

6. Extras Venetian blinds – Venetian blinds were used in film noir to show that the black widow(attractive, evil, lead female role) had cought the innocent man and lured him into her trap. Whenever the venetian blinds are shown the audience instantly see jail bars/ spiders web and this gives them a sense of the plan will go wrong and the victim wont be able to get away with it no matter what happens.