QUESTION 1 (Part 2)

Conventions in action films:


A strong leader


Evil character


Action


Usually big budgets

Exotic location

Good guys normally win







Conventions met and challenged in our film opening:

The first convention of action films im going to talk about are the characters. We fitted the convention of a strong male good guy character with Leo; Then we challenged the stereotypical view of male boss using Lara, with this we also challenge the view that normally in action films, women are weak and unuseful in the storyline.
About the costume we just tried to fit the convention that normally assassins wear suits or leather jackets instead, as it´s the case with James.
We have satisfied the convention of the enigma that normally appear in every film opening. The enigma in our opening is good and clear i think. The questions you have in your mind when you watch it are: Who are the assassins?   Why does the boss want to kill the girl?   Why is Leo protecting the girl?
About the themes, normally in action films the most seem themes are revenge, money or personal interests; in our opening, the themes that appear are revenge (The boss may want to kill the girl for some reason) and money (both assassins accept the money for killing her).
The conventions in action films say that this genre normally have fast and tense music; so we used it. In the first part we broke the convention not using any non-diegetic sound, but then in the second part we played the music to add tension to the opening, and i think it works well.
Usually, the locations in action movies are exotic places or in the other hand dangerous and dark places. We were in Market Rasen, so it was obviously impossible to have an exotic location. So we had in our opening dark places and then we used well lightened places to break with the convention.
We used some of the typical props in action films such as the gun Lewis is holding or the car James is driving. Although are costumes, i think we can consider the clothes the characters are wearing as props.
We followed the convention about narration in action films; because most of the times action films doesn´t have any narration at all so we didn´t add any narration.
Ad it´s the convention in our genre, we tried to use the same type of editing in action films but we have modified it a little bit. This type of editing consist in fast paced scenes, but we made it a bit slower to add tension to the film. Also we added some effects and sounds to make it better and to fit more the conventions with things as lighting.
We have several camera shots very similar to some that we normally can see in action films. In the firs bit of filming in the office of the boss, we used most of the scene a shot with the camera placed behind the assassins so we can´t see their faces and in front of the boss to see her reactions and movements. Another good shot is the dark shot with the camera placed in outside in front of the car; this one makes tension and increases the sense of danger and the enigma. The last relevant shot is that one in Leo´s viewpoint where we can see Lewis pointing him with the gun in the face.