Action Film Conventions

Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases. The storyline and character developments are generally not as important as other features that make an action film what it is as explosion, fighting, gun battles and high octane car chases usually come first.

A general action film, consists of a hero(s) and a problem for them to solve and then everyone lives happily ever after but these conventions have been challenged by the likes of arguably one of the best directors in the world like Micheal Bay e.g. Armageddon, When an asteroid the size of Texas is headed for Earth the world's best deep core drilling team is sent to nuke the rock from the inside, but at the end of this film Bruce Willis sacrifices himself to save the world, which shows that even though he was a hero and solves the problem not everyone lives happily ever after as others suffer the consequences from his decision e.g. daughter.

 The Action film wasn’t really a recognised as it's own genre as it didn’t really separate from other genres like thriller and adventure films until the 1970’s as it contained many conventions from other genres like espionage and and spy fiction. In the 1980's and 90's action film became more popular but the audience was populated by a high percentage of Men as it was a more 'manly' film. 

One of the best action films out this year (2010) was Expendables:

This trailer is of Expendables, a very action packed film. It starts off with a narration with a very deep manly voice and then contrasts with explosion and gun fights. It contains many action hero e.g. Jet Li, Jason Statham.

It starts off with gun fights, fist fights and explosion etc, and also finishes the film the same way. You don't really get the story line within the trailer, but there are flashes on the screen giving the audience of an idea what this film is going to be about, as it says it was a job that no one wanted and in doing so they will change history, so it makes the audience expect an action packed film and makes us almost forget about other features that make film, e.g. storyline, which is a common problem with action films. 

Preliminary Task

In the preliminary tasks we was asked to do 3 shots these consisted of, match on action, shot-reverse shot and 180 degree rule. I did the production in a group of 3 involving myself, josh and jordan. We allocated the roles of me being the camera man, and josh and jordan acting. Our production was about a confrontation between two people.
The first shot we did was match on action which i believe we did good and didn't have any problems, this was when Jordan walk through the hallway and opens the door, and then the camera was inside the room and saw Jordan enter.
 The second shot that we did was the shot reverse shot which i believe we also did good without any problems. We used this continuity shot when jordan storms off then the camera goes on josh looking off screen to where Jordan would be.
The third shot we did was 180 degree rule which we did do alright but during the end of the film, when Jordan gets up and storms out the room we forgot to use this rule.
I believe this production has many good features like the use of the continuity shots but was let down due to other features e.g. lighting, As we used natural window light Josh's back was turned to the window so when Josh and Jordan are in conversation when the camera goes to Josh's face the lighting isn't very good and you can hardly see his face.
Overall I believe this production was good as the use of camera angles and also the improvisation of the script which I think worked extremely well, but was let down due to other features like lighting, which we I will remember to correct during my next production.