Whether it's a style or a genre, film noir has that signature high contrast look we've seen in many old black and white films. Modern filmmakers also adopted that style of lighting and post-processing in their drama and thriller movies. In this video you'll go behind the scenes of how to achieve that film noir look in camera.
Film Riot have released a great new video describing what film noir is and how they got the look with simple lighting. Film noir is mostly related to the old 40s and 50s styles of drama black and white films. The term means "black film" and known for its stylized lighting, framing, and cuts. Although the video in this article describes the lighting style for filming it is exactly the same for stills, because light is light.
Back in the days those films were lit by hard lights. This means you can accomplish that look without the need of special expensive modifiers other than a few black flags, homemade cookies, and light bounce. For those who are hungry, it's not the cookies in your kitchen. It's a term for flags with cut outs in a specific shape so you get specific light and shadow patterns.
For more tips for shaping light, including homemade cookies, watch this old video of Film Riot's:
Those guys are pretty funny actually. I enjoyed the vid, cheers.
Yes, they really are