A heavy influence on the visuals I'd like to produce is the style named film noir.
I have also used this as an influence for my undergraduate film 'My City'.
Iconic still from The Big Combo (1955).
If you aren't entirely sure what "film noir" is, it is basically a French term meaning films that are dark/black visually, with rather dark content such as murder. The style was adopted and adapted by French filmmakers, however its origins are from the Golden Age of Hollywood, in the post WWII period. There is evidently a lot of dispare in these films. The term was coined by a french journalist, and the Hollywood directors weren't entirely conscious how historical and cliched their films may become.
Particularly notable aspects in this look is it's high contrast, fog, backlighting and silhouettes, shadows of characters and patterned shadows...
The darkness and mysterious atmospheres, to me, are clearly cinematic and appealing.
