Similar Products - Conventions of Film Noir

The most obvious convention of Film Noir is that the picture has to be in a Black and White format. Other conventions can be put into different sections such as the following: Costume, Lighting, Characters/Actors, Location and Camera Angles/Shots.

Costumes is important because help to define Film Noir such as Male actors wear a hat and a coat and most of them smoke as shown in this picture.

On the other hand the Female actor needs to be attractive and that they are wearing glamourous clothing because this is a common convention of Film Noirs that they are attractive and stand out from everyone else, as shown in the other picture below.

The Lighting is an important Film Noir convention because it is known that there needs to be as little amount of light as possible to gain the maximum effect of the film, but you need the lighting in some parts of the scene to show the most important aspects of this scene.

The Location of the Film Noir needs to be in a city location as some of the main genres of Film Noir are Crime, Corruption and this isn’t a normal representation for this to happen in the countryside, whereas the city is a big built up place where crime and corruption is going to happen in a typical Film Noir production.

Finally the Camera work is one of the most important factors of Film Noir because it can help project what is going on in the best possible way, this is portrayed using such angles as Low angle, High angle, Dutch Tilt and wide angle shots, also there are ways in which camera skills and lighting work together because if in the right position this can cause silhouettes to appear and this is also a convention in Film Noir.