FILM NOIR - Narrative Image experiment

This image was the result of a small task given in class. We formed a group of three and together had to create a narrative image to create a scene from a movie. Each group had to choose from the genres within narrative imagery, we chose Film Noir. With a little background research into to the film noir genre we chose our scene. A lot of the images involved spotlight style lighting or Rembrandt lighting with industrial backgrounds or dark backdrops where the light has simply fell off! I found a great background scene from deviant art for our scene, a disused warehouse. Given the light source I thought it would be a good idea to use silhouetted figures to create some mystery on the hidden identity of the characters. We set to task in the studio and used a single light set up with white backdrop to create a Silhouette. John was the victim in the chair, hands tied behind his back. Karl was the hit man with the gun, I was the big boss with umbrella? Why the umbrella I hear you ask? Why not? It does what we wanted it to do, it makes you question why? It's odd, an umbrella indoors, the sprinklers were due to come on any minute due to a fire in the next storage room, I needed to witness the execution to ensure his job was done before I left to safety. Oh and in case you were wondering where we got the gun, it was a cardboard cut out! (The joys of silhouettes, hides a multitude of sins hey.) each Silhouette was shot individually, it was only in post editing that they were all brought together. To see how the final piece was put together see below.

For a two hour mini task I think the result was quite impressive and very effective in narrating the film noir category. If I had more time I would add the sprinklers into the scene! Let me know your thoughts. Lea x

 Background; I created a levels adjustment layer to lift the darkness as the original image was very really dark and I wanted to highlight the light entering the room from the windows to enhance to silhouetted figures.

Silhouettes Layer was created by opening each individual silhouette portrait, I then used the Magic Wand Selection Tool and refined the edge with a 25 feather I then created a new layer with the selection and dragged this onto the background image. I used this same technique for all three silhouetted figures. I then used the free transform tool and the perspective and warp tool to correct the size of each subject to allow them to sit correctly within the background scene.

Shadow Layer was created quite easily. I simply duplicated each subjects silhouette onto a new layer then reduced the opacity and free transformed to flip and manipulate making sure I was aware of the light source from behind.

Smoke layer was created by opening a smoke texture as a new layer, I downloaded a series of textures from Deviant Art. I placed this as the top layer and changed it to Exclusion and reduced opacity to 53% to create the effect I desired.