Over the past few days, I set out to launch a YouTube playlist that will focus on my love (and knowledge) of Film Noir called “All Things Noir.”
I’ve spent the better part of several very long days learning many things: how to “rip” clips from my DVD library of films, then use film editing software to merge clips, stills, audio files (at least I’ve gotten better at this last part from my podcast series, “Hemingway, Word for Word”). I had to find sources for royalty free music I liked, research copyright rules for using film clips, and go through the arduous task of finding appropriate clips, copying them into individual files, and then converting those files into something my MacBook could recognize and use….
I am now all the more impressed by those who work in film production full time, and after just one, not even 5-minute video, I’m painfully aware of the effort it is going to take to bring the vision of my project to fruition.
I’ve recently been fascinated by “Light and Magic,” a documentary series that looks to the groundbreaking work done by the special effects crew for the early Star Wars films—how tirelessly they worked to bring Lucas’s vision to the screen. I’m grateful I won’t have to purchase hundreds of airplane and tank model sets to poach small plastic pieces to then painstakingly glue to the sides of Death Star and Empire Light Cruiser set models, but I do have to stress about the limited capabilities of my laptop and my not so elastic, 61-year-old brain.
I’ve begun work on the first of the “Femme Fatale Series,” on Barbara Stanwyck’s Phyllis Dietrichson of Double Indemnity, and have ideas for many episodes to come, including close looks at individual films (The Killing, Killer’s Kiss, and Kiss me Deadly—will cover some of the many “kill, kiss, killer permutations of so many Noir titles). I also plan to take a deep dive into Out of the Past and Gun Crazy, two of my favorite Noirs, as well as in depth looks at sets, lighting, photography, over voice, cinematography, and many other other elements of the genre.
Here, without further fanfare is my introductory film for my new YouTube playlist, “All Things Noir.”
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You can listen to my podcast on the works of Ernest Hemingway HERE