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Critical Reflection

My component 3 tasks included the creation of a short film, lasting approximately five minutes, together with an official social media page for the short film and a postcard advertisement for the film at a short film festival. I was working in collaboration with one teammate, and together we produced The Tenth Man, a noir detective short film, set in 1940s Los Angeles. In this essay, I will delve into topics like our representation of social groups/issues, how elements of our production work together to create a sense of branding, how our products engage with the audience and the role my research played in constructing our use or challenge of conventions. 

In terms of reprsenting social groups/issues, our products involve several sublte and more explicit elements. In classic noir films, there is usually a hero detective, battling against outside forces such as crime, corruption, or moral dilemmas. In The Tenth Man, we borrowed these genre tropes, but we had two detectives instead. The young and idealistic rookie Cliff Hemingway and the more cynical and seasoned senior detective Russ Whitaker. In our story Cliff represents a type of person who is driven by moral principles in a corrupt world. Meanwhile Russ exploits the hierarchy, as he tries to cover up for his troubled brother A.J, because he is still his family. Through this character dynamic we tried to depict a power imbalance and show how in institution hierarchy, corruption may breed under the mask of integrity and justice. Our character Adeline Adams has only two scenes, but we tried to make her more significant than just a “murdered whore”. In most traditional noir films, a woman is either a femme fatale or a a mere victim, but here we tried to show that she drives Cliff's obsession, appears as his hallucination symbolising innocence, and the fact that she doesn't have any lines or dialogue subtly points to a real life issue that women's voices often remain unheard and devalued. In our film, Cliff seems to be like the only person who sees her as a human, and not just another sex worker, and he is genuinely impacted by her death. Also, our short film includes a Spanish accented caller in our climatic phone scene. We did this because we wanted to depict the diverse and cultural landscape in urban Los Angeles, and avoid the tendency of classic Hollywood noir films to center only on American born, white male characters.

To create a sense of branding through the elements of my production, first thing we did, was our fictional production company "Studio Eyepatch" including the logo. While the name was inspired by John Ford, the concept behind it was taken from real indie studios that we studied, like A24, NEON and Focus Features, who make bold character driven films, use carefully chosen fonts and colour palettes. That's the kind of brand we wanted to bring to life, but with our noir twist. Noir element became consistent across our film, instagram account and the postcard design. For example we maintained a consistent typography across all three. We used bold serif and typewriter-inspired fonts such as Droif Serif Pro, Antonia and Roboto. This uniformity would ensure that for example when our audience sees the text promotions, whether on instagram or on the postcard, they will immediately associate those fonts with the style of The Tenth Man. Furthermore, all of our three products have a monochrome colour scheme which further reinforces the identity of our film, making it more recognisable. Also, we included noir iconography like guns, fedoras, suspenders and smoking throughout all branding materials. To make our company name more memorable, we used our logo in the first post in our instagram page, and in the opening titles of our short film.

To engage our audiences, we made use of our noir mystery and the whole detective puzzle. Our short film's narrative introduced various hooking elements that immediately spark interest, such as Cliff's fixation, his hallucinations, the the torn receipt pages, the elusive “tenth man”, a shady character Russ, and especially our ending which undercuts the more conventional narratives (where the hero prevails), leaving audiences both in shock, and compelled to relfect on morality, betrayal and obsession, and asking themselves questions like, "Would I put family above the law?", "Would I care about justice in this situation?". The story gets told from Cliff's perspective, but to hook and immerse the audience into his psyche even more, we included things like Cliff's inner monologue, we emphasised on his cluttered evidence board, hallucinations of Adeline and etc. Beyond the film, I tried to extend this engagement to our Instagram account. I posted a few behind-the-scenes pictures that many fans and viewers would find interesting. To generate hype, I added interactive stories that included a poll "How many takes do you think this scene took?" and a post release Q&A "What would you do in Russ's position?". These features create a participatory atmosphere, allowing potential fans and viewers to share theories, impressions and opinions, insetad of just passively observing. Also I added a story in our Instagram account that had a countdown which would keep the audience up-to-date and create a sense of excitement. To spark interest we also added our opening scene as one of the posts, which would give the potential viewers a taste of our short film and keep them captivated. We also added other teaser posts, showcasing our characters and a few shots from the film itself. We also used captions effectively, by including release dates, a quote from our film and hashtags like #TheTenthMan, #StudioEyepatch, #noirfilmfestival2025, and #filmfestival2025, which increased our exposure and facilitated searching us up. Our postcard includes two awards which helped to establish credibility, give our design a more professional look, and create intrigue, which altogether sparks curiosity. For our final social instagram post we included a catchy caption saying "One dead woman. "Nine" suspects. A missing name. And a detective that can't sleep" which engages with the audience by inviting them discover how this entangled story might play out.

My research was essential for all aspects of my production. I started out researching film festival postcards, and I examined its conventions like displaying awards, including a primary image/art, crediting director and actors, etc. This has really helped me when creating the postcard for The Tenth Man, but I didn't include things like a tagline and social media link because I believe they didn't fit our noir vibe. I also analysed the mise-en-scène of Se7en and we took a lot of inspiration from its detective costumes and props like diaries, police reports, and polaroid photographs. My noir genre research was probably the most important one, because we eventually incorporated a lot of its elements into our own products. For example, cigarettes, fedoras, suspenders, venetian blinds, vintage phone, monochrome visuals, voice-overs, mystery, corrupt detectives, complex themes like crime, and all set in 1940s Los Angeles. The only real challanges to the typical noir were, as I've previosuly discussed, featuring a character with a Spanish accent, the decision to keep our female character deeper than a typical femme fatale, and the decision to kill Cliff at the end, which might feel grittier than many classic noirs. So, I don’t think we challenged the genre conventions that much, but I can say that the research has certainly guided our decisions and we have utilised our findings.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Final Coursework | Major Task

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Social Media Instagram Stories

Here are the 3 stories that I added.

First one includes our postcard, and a countdown with a text "THE TRUTH UNFOLDS IN..." which grasps attention and keeps the audience hooked.

The second story could be published either before or after the short film release. It was done to engage with the audience, so I added a slightly playful poll regarding how many shots they think this scene took.

The third story includes a post-release Q&A to which the audience can answer and therefore express their opinion. It is related to the film's conclusion, but we tried not to spoil anything. In fact this story may even spark curiosity for those who haven't yet seen the film.

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Social Media Posts #2

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Social Media Posts #1

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Official Social Media Page

Hey guys.

Here is what our social media page looks like! Like I previously mentioned, we chose Instagram. I was mainly responsible to make it so here is how it went:

We uploaded 9 posts and 3 stories in total.

The first post was made to present our fictional film company, so it includes STUDIO EYEPATCH logo.

The second post is a photo teaser. For it I chose one of my favourite shots, where Cliff is staring at the evidence board. I added "COMING SOON" text on top.

Next 3 posts were made to present our 3 main characters (and actors, in the captions)

6th post is a 44 second reel, which includes our opening scene (the steak and Adeline Adams) and ends with our opening credits (title card)

7th post includes 3 behind-the-scenes photos

8th post is another photo teaser, but this time I added the award on top. I was inspired by one of the posts I saw in NEON instagram profile

9th final post includes a segment from our postcard, with the title

Also I added two fictional links, and made a biography, typical of a film production company. For the page logo, Ruben wanted to include only the two eyes, without the text, and I liked that idea. As you can see, we maintained our black & white noir aesthetic. Lastly both Ruben and I added captions under each post, which included release dates, a quote from our film and hashtags like #TheTenthMan, #StudioEyepatch, #noirfilmfestival2025, and #filmfestival2025

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Postcard Advertisement

To create the postcard advertisement for our film at a short film festival, I used Photoshop 2024 and I chose the standard size of postcards 6×9. Ruben and I discussed a few different options for the primary image and the overall composition. But we both really liked this shot where Cliff and Russ are smoking on the balcony, so I decided to use it.

I tried cutting out the silhouettes of both characters to see how it would look, but the edges didn't look clean enough, and even then I wasn't sure how to arrange them. That’s why I decided to keep the full background and I actually think it works better.

Also, the dual character composition adds some symmetry and tension, and we got the conventional noir iconography visible (fedoras, cigarettes and suspenders)

Then I played with brightness, curves and contrast to make the characters more defined and visible. But I sticked to our monochrome palette as it's a noir film.

For the title, I used a classic noiresque font Droid Serif Pro WGL Bold Italic.

I placed the credits at the bottom and I increased the font size of the names to add emphasis. Then I added a subtle black gradient in the bottom to create more contrast with the white credits.

In the end, I placed the two festival awards. The one in the top left corner was found online, and the right one was made by me as I wanted to specifically include noir genre and the current year.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Editing Process Recap

After we wrapped our shooting, Ruben had all the footage on his phone, and all the dialogues recorded on the sound mixer. He took them both home, and the editing was mostly done by him.

I decided to make a quick recap of the whole process, which took several days:

🔗 First he had to transfer all the files to his computer and sync them. For that he used a software called Wondershare Filmora. During our shooting, we would clap and say “scene X, take X” before each take, which helped him to sort out the clips and align them. After that, the proper editing started in a software called DaVinci Resolve.

✂️ Ruben assembled all the clips, then used L-cuts and J-cuts to clip the conversations, in order to give them a nice flow and realism. Then he did the sound mixing, which involved making sure that music and ambient sound effects were lower than the dialogues.

🎨 Then he transformed the raw footage into a film noir by removing saturation, playing with brightness, highlights, and contrast.

🔊 Next he added a lot of sound effects (which he sourced from a website called FreeSound) like ambient rain, light buzzing, a gunshot effect, etc. All of this enhanced the overall feel of the movie.

📞 Then Ruben had to rerecord his own voice, because he didn’t like his delivery for the final scene. He used software called audacity (and added reverb and EQ tweaks). Also, that’s when our friend Mateus voiced the comic caller guy with the Spanish accent.

🎙️ As planned, Ruben included a narration from Cliff (at the start) and from Russ (at the end) to add more drama and emotionality. “I'm sorry Cliff, but he's my brother, if it helps I didn't know the girl either.”

🔠 Ruben has also made the subtitles using Filmora’s AI tool. He thought this might be helpful for viewers during the parts where audio is a bit unclear. As for the fonts, the title sequence uses Antonia, and the credits use Roboto. Both are reminiscent of the fonts used in typewriters in old salient films, which once again fits our 1940s noir aesthetic.

🌧️ Ultimately, Ruben added some visual effects such as a smoke from puffs in the balcony scene, and a damaged reel film effect overlay.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Dialogue Rewrite for the Phone Call Scene

Me and Ruben felt like the original phone call dialogue lacked quality and didn't reveal much. So our goal was to bring more questions for Cliff, such as:

Who tore out the pages? Is Russ lying?

Who could be this mysterious 10th extra name?

Is there a key to all this?

So we decided to rewrite it, and here is what we came up with:

It was a bit too late to reprint the final script draft, but we made sure to stick with this rewritten phone call dialogue instead of the one from the script.

Our voice actor for the spanish caller guy will be our friend Mateus, because wanted to partake in the movie. He won’t appear on screen so we will record his voice separately.

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Going Full Noir

Originally our concept was leaning towards neo-noir but we made a final decision to take the noir film route, and here is why:

Our blue toy gun would look too funny in colour, break the dark gritty atmosphere and therefore distract the viewer.

Monochrome palette emphasises shadows, textures and shapes more than hue, so other colourful objects in the room wouldn’t be a problem as well.

Chosing noir allows us to embrace our 1940s mise-en-scene, venetian blinds, and the black-and-white palette.

Also this would simplify the whole colour grading post production process. To add to the aesthetic, we also plan to use 4:3 aspect ratio.

I believe that this creative reframe, helps us to manage our limitations and elevate our aesthetic.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Day 3 of Filming

Hello guys! Today was the final shoot day and I once again I want to recap on all the main things that happened behind the scenes.

Once again, me, Ruben and the rest of the crew met early this morning, and began shooting.

Bernardo, our sound guy, had to replace batteries in the audio mixer during shooting, and I had to hold the mic in a few scenes when Ishaan or Mateus were not available. Also Ruben forgot to wear his black dress shoes, so he had to ask Bernardo to use his, for the telephone call scene (where Cliff puts legs on the table). Also we didn't really use our Aputure LED Light, but it was still worth trying it out and experimenting with it.

It was sunny in our town for the past few days, but today we were actually lucky with the weather, as it was rainy and cloudy, which helped to make the balcony scene even more atmospheric. Remember I mentioned that we had troubles finding prop cigarettes? Well, for this scene, we improvised and simply used rolled-up paper. Not ideal but it works.

One very important thing is that we made a major last-minute change in the story conclusion. It happened after our crew member Mateus proposed to make the ending more logical and realistic by making Russ kill Cliff (because Cliff knew too much), instead of Cliff simply killing Russ which we had initially planned.

I think that this idea actually worked a lot better, and makes way more sense for Cliff's and Russ's arcs. Also, this ending is darker and has a stronger impact. In terms of cinematography we took inspiration from the scene from the show Breaking Bad where Jesse shoots Gale.

Ellie arrived on set at 4 PM to do her scene where she appears as Cliff's vision. We did a few shots without makeup with slightly different expressions: one with a smile, one neutral one with a slight smirk. And then the same but with makeup (blood on the neck and face).

By the time I am writting this, we have already finished filming the only missing scene which is the one in the kitchen (at Ruben's house) and unfortunately Ellie couldn't be there, so we had to use another actress Ana Rodrigues for that scene. But it's not a problem because we didn't have to show the face.

We did many takes today and my teammate Ruben was very dedicated to make every shot perfect. Even after a good take, he would say, “Let's do another one”. I was annoyed at times, but looking back, I can say that it was all worth it.

Lastly, I wanna say that those last 3 days really felt like an authentic filmmaking experience. Althought we were all tired at times and had arguments, it was very fun. Now that everything’s been filmed, it’s time for editing. Ruben said he wanted to take the lead on this part.

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Crafting the Evidence Board Prop

Hey! As I told previously, in this post I will delve into the creation of one of the most crucial props in our short film — the evidence board. Its goal was not only to show that the scene takes place in the 1940s investigation room, but also to reflect the mental state of our protagonist Cliff Hemingway who is obsessed over this case.

So I knew I had to make it look authentic, messy and layered with mystery — like something you'd expect a real detective to have built over weeks of obsession and frustration.

I did some online research, and I've found a lot of inspirations and a list of items that could be present on an evidence board. Then at home, I started printing everything.

However, by the end of first filming day, I had to print even more stuff (around 30-40 pictures) because both me and Ruben agreed that the board felt a bit empty and didn’t depict Cliff’s obsession.

I printed stuff like mug shots, fingerprints, police reports, vintage letters, vintage Los Angeles maps, classified documents, polaroid pictures created with chat GPT (because I don't own a polaroid myself), etc.

I avoided modern evidence board pieces, to stick with our 1940s setting and aesthetic. Also I found this website which allowed me to create my own fake newspaper. I added a title "WOMAN MURDERED" and some fictional text.

I put all those pictures in a PowerPoint presentation in order to print them and then I had to cut them out and stick onto the corkboard in that school classroom, using a tape.

Some pieces were intentionally placed unevenly, or on top of each other, and looked slightly aged with crumples, torn edges, scribbles, which was done to achieve a messy realistic crime scene look.

Ruben proposed to add "WHO ARE YOU" poster, which I think nicely reflects Cliff's mental state (questioning, trying to uncover the mystery).

Later the same day at school, I replaced those original red strings (that looked too thick and cartoonish) with thinner ones, to join potential suspects, sites and documents and build a kind of a web.

Looking back, if I could make something differently, I would probably also use pins to stick pictures, and I’d make the photos look more weathered.

Nevertheless, I was quite happy with the result!

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Day 2 of Filming

Hey guys! Today was a lot better in terms of productivity and focus. This time we were much more well-prepared and it made a difference, and we managed to adhere to our shooting schedules this time.

Before we started filming, I spent the first hour of the morning on improving the evidence board. I added more photos, used a thinner string, and managed the layout. I will delve finto the making of this prop in more detail, in another post later today.

We finally had a bunch of primary and secondary props on set, which helped to establish the mise-en-scène in our scenes:

Two fedoras

Vintage black phone rented from a Portuguese company "Prop It"

Gun (in the end we bought one from Toys“R”Us)

Ashtray

Coat hanger

Handcuffs

Full black tie and blazer for Angelo's character

Lipton iced tea as whiskey

Receipt booklet (designed by Ruben)

What we wanted to get out the way today, were the two most challenging scenes—two master shots from different angles, in one take with no cuts, each approximately one minute long. Ruben wanted to use a shooting coverage technique, so we shot the entire scene from one angle first and then replicated it from the other side to allow flexibility in editing. We used same technique later for other slightly shorter scenes.

Angelo's performance was much better today, and he remembered all of his lines. Our crew member Mateus assisted by scribbling things on the whiteboard, which made the set look more authentic and lived in. We met with our actress Ellie today and she told us that she will be availabe tomorrow to film her scene. Also, this time Ruben brought his phone charger to school, after his phone passed out during yesterday’s shoot.

After many takes, we managed to complete all the shots we had planned for Day 1 on our shot list (althought technically today is Day 2). Therefore, I hope that tomorrow we will do all the shots we had schedules for Day 2 and wrap up our filming.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Day 1 of Filming

Hello again! Today we had our first shoot day, and I will be honest, we had some unexpected challenges. But still, there were plenty of valuable lessons and progress made. Below is a recap of the whole day:

I came to school at around 7:40, and met my teammate Ruben (who plays Cliff) outside to help him bring all the equipment into the class. First we moved out most of the tables and chairs, and then we started to assemble and set up the lights, tripod, plug in the sound equipment, and test it all out.

Unfortunately Ruben forgot the detective hats and the gun at home. On top of that, one of our lead actors, Angelo (who plays Russ), had trouble remembering some of his lines, and the first takes weren't working the way we had hoped. In fact, 25 minutes per shot as we planned, wasn't enough. Me and Ruben decided that we may need one more day to finish our shoots, therefore we plan to end on Wednesay 2nd of April, instead of Tuesday, 1st of April.

I was resonsible for making the evidence board, but I wasn't satisfied with how it ended up looking, because as you can see on the pictures, only a small segment of the corkboard was used, which looks empty and kind of unrealistic. Also, I didn't like the red yarn, because looked too thick.

To improve this, today I will print more stuff so I can put it all on the board tomorrow morning, and I will find another string. I will make a separate post regarding the evidence board production.

Despite those challenges, this day was still very useful because we have spent a lot of time rehearsing the lines and going through each scene again and again. By the end of the day both Ruben and Angelo were more relaxed about acting.

We also had a lot of time to expriment with the lighting for each scene, and cinematographic elements such as camera angles, framing (rule of thirds) and camera positions.

Then, Ruben and I have worked closely with Angelo to guide him on the body language, facial expressions and intonations that we wanted from his performance. Also, we came up with some ideas that we didn't think of when writting the script. For example Ruben suggested that when Angelo's character walks into the room, he should put his hat on the top hanger which is a subtle detail to show his superiority in the room.

Also I made and added some behind the scenes pictures which you can see below!

Even though not much made into the camera today, the work we put in today, will definitely pay off tomorrow, so stay tuned for the updates.

[ivanpshenichnyy]

Production Crew

This list contains the names and outlined roles for everyone in our crew. All of these guys are our peers from school, who were eager to help us, so I hope we will be able to work collaboratively and effectively.

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Shooting Schedules

The deadlines are close, so we need to stay organised and make the most of our limited time. To do that, we produced the shooting schedules which you can find below.

We decided to film 9 scenes on March 31st and 11 scenes April 1st. I think that 25 minutes for each shot should be more than enough time. We have coordinated the booking of the school classroom for us at this time, and we ensured that all our actors and crew members will be available during those two days.

We decided not to make a whole new page for the single kitchen (one shot), and it will be filmed after the main shoots, either on day 2 or 3.

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Equipment List

My teammate Ruben was managing this part. He emailed a local production studio called "Digital Azul" (which he knew since he rented from them last year for AS project) from which we will be renting. Here is what they recommended us:

2x SWIT Flexible SMD LED Light

2x Aputure Light Storm LS 60x Bi-Colour LED Light

Zoom F8 Sound Mixer + Headphones and SD Card

Sennheiser Shotgun Mic + Boom Pole and Wirin

But ultimately we decided to take 1x of each light, to lower the costs. Below is our final list of all the equipment we will be using during the two filming days.

1x SWIT Flexible SMD LED Light (for key light)

1x Aputure Light Storm LS 60x Bi-Color LED Light (for counter light)

Black sheet 1 x 3m (to cover the TV in the classroom)

Zoom F8 Sound Mixer + Headphones and SD Card

Tripod CAMBOFOTO 205c

iPhone 12 mini

Sennheiser Shotgun Mic + Boom Pole and Wirin