BLACKOUT: Genre Conventions - Character:

The characters in our sequence are very common characters of the action thriller genre, but our opening sequence also creates enigma surrounding these characters, leaving the audience vunerable to twists in the storyline.

Characters:

BAD GUY:

We included a typical, but modern, 'bad guy' in our sequence. Dressed in black with a balaclava and a gun, this is a very common character associated with action thrillers. They usually say very little.

GOOD GUY:

Matthew Lockwood, is our typical good character in the opening sequence. He is young, inexperienced, scared, careless, and eventually he inevitably get caught and captured by the 'bad guy'.

The two characters used in our opening sequence are ones conventional of the action thriller film genre, and this familiarity to real media allows the audience to easily relate to the characters and the situation.

For example, COMPARE:

 Left: OUR modern 'bad guy' from Blackout.

Right: 24's 'Tony Almeida'- Real Media 'bad guy'.

Except for the balaclava, both characters are dressed more or less the same, in all black armed with a handgun. This is the typical conventional dress of the modern terrorist/bad guy/assasin!

Genre:

Our chosen genre was ACTION THRILLER. Influenced by films such as the Bourne Trilogy and James Bond, and popular tv drama such as 24 and Spooks, we tried to follow conventions of the genre as it is a very popular and iconic.

My thoughts on our final cut:

I am very happy that we have successfully finished the opening sequence of our film 'BLACKOUT'. It is definately not perfect but it has still exceeded my expectations and proved to be very popular with our target audience! I think it looks as professional as we could have made it, with both actors proving to be very strong in their roles. The final scene worked well and also looks convincing and the continuity and narrative flow throughout. I am happy that we have received very positive feedback about our opening sequence. 

Final Cut:

Planning Our 2nd shoot:

The weather forecast for sunday 28th of february was that it would rain all day, and that the rain could change to sleet over the course of the day.

Everything was looking very unpredictable, so shooting the bits we needed would only work if the weather was the same.

So we had a group meeting and planned for the different weather situations.

-If the weather looked the same as in the test shoot, we would film all the shots of the 'bad guy' outside.
-If the parked cars on the road were the same as in the test shoot, we would film the shots of the 'bad guy' outside.
-If the weather looked the same as in the test shoot, we would shoot the shot of 'Matt' coming through the back door again.

If the weather was not the same as the test shoot, we will:

-Shoot the scene in the final room all again, extending the fight scene to make the 'bad guy' look like more of a trained assasin, rather than a thug!

Rough Cut Feedback:

Overall, our rough cut went really well with only a few, very minor problems to report:

- 'Matt' leaves the back door open on entering the house.
- Fight scene could be longer.
- Costume on the 'bad guy' isn't perfect.

Everything in terms of continuity an narative clarity worked perfectly and there were no problems with camera work and framing.

It was decided then, with our teacher, that we would keep all the core elements of our sequence and just change the parts that needed changing.

Rough Cut