In my Ms3 Investigation I have compared British gangster films to closely analyse the action/ crime genre, to do this I needed to look at the conventions of other films in the genre such as ‘Snatch’ and ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ as they are two of the most well-known British gangster films. This allowed me to look at these films and realise that the conventions throughout this genre are very similar with each director offering their own individual tweak to the film. For example in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels Guy Ritchie adds a type of sepia effect to his footage. Other conventions include:
· Use of low lighting in camera shots
· Iconography such as weapons, suits and expensive items (for example drugs in my production)
· And a them with the characters following the rough stereotype.
To demonstrate my knowledge of this genre, I decided to create and opening to a film that had similar conventions to the Guy Ritchie films that I had compared. To make this a successful film opening I had to use the research I had collected on the guy Ritchie films and other gangster films I had watched before such as Gangs of New York (American) and use these in my own production. To show these techniques I would use the easier of the conventions to begin with, such as; Low lighting, sepia effect and a narrative that matched criminal events from similar films.
With lighting I attempted to lower the light but create a spotlight on the scene that I was creating, similar to the Poker scene the cinematographer had created From Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, this was a difficult task as a majority of my scenes were outside. With this low lighting I attempted to make it so that the lighting was always shown to be on the character that was talking, giving it the effect that they were of the most importance at that moment in the scene. By lowering the light in almost all of my scenes and having large shadows cast behind the characters I created the point that immediately these characters were not heroines in the film. An example of this spotlight effect is in the scene where they are by the garages selling ‘dodgy goods’ and I attempted to use car lights to create this effect. (See image 2)
By placing the characters in a spotlight I was using a similar effect that Guy Ritchie used, I would the edit in the sepia effect and together the combined effect would be the film would look slightly older than it is and also give the effect that the characters are not trustworthy as they are being given a ‘shady’ effect, meaning they are not good characters.
In modern British Gangster Films such as ‘Snatch’ and ‘Layer Cake’ the clothing is a variable (See image 1), with suits being used in the older films but tracksuits being used in the more modern ‘gangster’ films. At first I thought about using suits as I was attempting to make the film look older, but then I decided to use clothes similar to those used in Layer Cake. I did this to mix the conventions up from modern Gangster Films and older gangster films. It also gives the effect that the characters in the opening scene I created were not the ‘big time’ characters of the whole film as they were not wearing clothes similar to those in films such as ‘The Godfather’.
Because I was also using conventions from the action genre I decided to use quick cuts. I did this as it creates a more upbeat tempo in the film. This was helpful as when I made my chase scene Similar to that from ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ the upbeat music and quick cut shots make the opening scene more upbeat and exiting to the audience who will be watching the film to see action. This shows a direct correlation between the use of diegetic sounds and non-diegetic sounds and the length of clips used in the attempt to make a scene appear to be fast paced.
My film has taken some conventions of the cinematography used in the Films Guy Ritchie makes through the use of editing which shows knowledge of the British crime genre in film. I also added in some of my own little tweaks to the conventions (such as Filming at night, or not using weapons) to give the film my own individual twist which is what directors such as Guy Ritchie have done with their films. By doing this I have given my opening individuality that is recognisable.
Image (1) of Daniel Craig in Layer cake with casual clothes.
Image (2) of Poker scene in Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. Notice lighting on character and darkness in background.
