Las Vegas Footage from Bethany on Vimeo.


 I took this footage whilst on holiday in Las Vegas on a monorail. I had intended to use it with a previous idea as the beginning of the OTS to show some of the titles/credits as it moves across the Las Vegas strip. The previous idea and the reason I had wanted to involve the bright and beautiful views of Las Vegas was because of its history, how gangsters had been the main developers of the gambling side of it.  Which links in with how Film Noir sometimes embraces the genre of gangster film. As in early mob films, there is some overlap with film noir and in the forties and fifties the gangster genre died down and was replaced by film noir, however in the seventies there was a revival of mob films.

The choice of music (Elvis Presley-Viva Las Vegas) is not the song or music that I would put over the Las Vegas footage if I were to have used it in my OTS because I dont think it fits in with the seriousness and crime feeling of film noir, instead it sets the scene in an upbeat way. I chose the music to put over it because of how Elvis Presley had gone to Las Vegas a lot of times and was very well known there as a celebrity and for his fantastic shows. I also thought it fit in with the footage as the song is basically about Las Vegas
" Lady luck please let the dice stay hot
Let me shoot a seven with every shot
Viva Las Vegas, Viva Las Vegas,Viva Las Vegas"



 

The other possible song choice (that I found when I searched film noir style music and songs- http://www.film-noir-alley.com/film_noir_music.html) could have been used in the Las Vegas footage because of the time it was released in (the 50's) and because of the jazzy feel to it, the sexy voice being similar to that of how a femme fatale would lure the man. The song was from the crime/film noir/drama film 'Dark City' (released in 1950) which was about some gamblers who "took" an out of town sucker in a crooked poker game. But this event leads a shadowy vengeance to close in on them. The use of dark streets and a sexy night club torch singer Fran Garland, lends ambience to the film.