Film Noir Conventions

These videos effectively present the key conventions of film noir films:






After analysing these videos, I have researched that the key conventions for traditional film noir are:

Themes and hyrbid-genres: Crime, detective, drama, action, romance, gang violence.
Characters, costume and mise en scene: The main characters are the anti-hero, femme fatale, villain, redemptive woman, and gang members/leader. The characters usually promote smoking, carry pistols, and are dressed in suits and fedoras, or seductive clothing for the women (especially the femme fatale).
Setting: Urban cities, and some rural settings. America (where film noir originates), dystopian rain, smokey alleyways and police officer rooms.
Lighting: Use of chiaroscuro (strong contrast between light and dark), barn lighting which projects a strip of light imitating the film noir blind filters - which are another convention. Black and white filters and lots of shadows and silhouettes.

Conventions explained in greater depth in this post: http://codonnellasmediaproductionschs2014.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/film-noir-genre.html