Film Noir OTS: Mise-en-Scène: Costume and Props ideas

Mine and Chloe Smith's narrative is of a protagonist who gets dreams or episodes of premonition, like flash-forwards into his life. He only sees himself doing bad things (conventional Film Noir types things) such as, meeting a manipulative femme-fatale, killing a femme-fatales ex and getting into trouble. So that he doesn't forget what he's seen in his last premonitory dream, the protagonist films himself on cassette tapes and also draws sketches of the people he sees. 

Our opening title sequence will be of our protagonist filming himself talking after one of his dreams and then sorting out his tapes. On the cassettes we will write on the main casts' names as they are typically in the OTS of these films.We are undecided on how to show the title of the film but want them to fit with our neo-noir horror film noir theme of how psychotic we would like the sorting out of cassette tapes to look.

Props:
Props wise we will obviously need cassette tapes. I have managed to find 5 at my home but will also probably nip into a charity shop during the Christmas holidays to see if I can get some more for not much money. We will also need the sketches of the people he's seen, probably within a creepy-looking photo frame. Me and Chloe also said we'd like to have some cardboard boxes within the shot that will be taped up saying something to do with what'd be on the tapes inside the box, something like 'tapes me murdering somebody' so the audience gets more of a feel of what sort of flash-forwards he has. We may need some fairy lights or something for some lighting, as we're filming either in a shed or in a loft to give it a dark, derelict, and cold feel. All of these probs are easily accessible and won't be hard to gain before we start filming. 
In the SlideShare below (pages 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) are some ideas of the sorts of things we could use.

Costume:

Traditional film noir dress would be a male in a suit of a 1940s style (as this was when film media was most popular and most produced) and a femme fatale character in a red or black laced, exposing and provocative dress. This was so that a male would instantly notice and be attracted to her. 

The Slideshare below (pages 6, 7, 8 and 9) are of possible dress ideas she could wear/wear similar. 

As mine and Chloe's production will be Neo-Noir  we can break these conventions and will for the male character but probably will keep the femme fatale similar to the original style as long as our actress does not mind. Obviously it'd be quite rude to request our actress to wear something she's not comfortable in so our first step would probably be to ask her if she has any red, black or laced dresses and hope she has one of them. 

Our main protagonist, a man who often sees snippets into significant parts of his life, will be slightly crazed by these weird goings on, for this reason his hair may be a bit messy as if he hadn't slept very well. Me and Chloe have also discussed our Everyman wearing a long white coat of a laboratory style but, although this would make him look more mad, I'm not sure how it would fit into the story as if he records his flash-forwards on a cassette tape there're no chemicals or anything messy involved where he may need a white lab coat. However for our opening title sequence you may only see the end of his sleeves handling the tapes. 

In the Slideshare below (pages 10, 11, 12 and 13) are possible items of clothing our Everyman could wear. 

For our femme fatale will be a women who may be seen for a couple of seconds if we have our recording in the opening title sequence of the protagonist being involved in the femme fatale in the snippet of the future he has seen. If we don't have a femme fatale the Film Noir element will be more lost however having one will involve more organisation into when to record who and when're who available for him to film. Also we've planned those who have study periods when we have Media Studies lessons to be the actors and actresses in our production, as these people will also be 16/17 it may be strange having a 16/17 year old looking into his future for him to be falling I love with another 16/17 year old as it would look like he liked people much younger than him or like it was the present; however there are ways of making people look older than they really are (e.g. heavier and more mature make up). Femme Fatales are usually wearing heavy make up involving lots of blacks and reds. 

In the Slideshare below (pages 14, 15, 16 and 17) are possible make up ideas me and Chloe could try and reproduce.

Props and Costume for mine and Chloe's Film Noir OTS from Emily Ventress

Reflective Comment: I am proud of this piece of work, it took a lot of time to write this up but am glad I did so. I know I need to do another write up of what we did actually use for our final thing but this gave us some really nice ideas when it came to filming. The make up of Beth Reid in the photo of our 'femme fatale' and Harry's costume ideas were used. The props of the tapes and the cardboard boxes were also used in our filming in my shed. I am glad I did this piece of work.