Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Black Water (2007)

play
Email a link to this page
To:
CC:
Subject:
Body:
clip False alarm

Original classification rating: MA. This clip chosen to be PG

Clip description

Jim (Ben Oxenbould) is taking holidaymakers Adam (Andy Rodoreda), Grace (Diana Glenn) and Lee (Maeve Dermody) out on the water in a dinghy in search of a good place to fish. They settle in a quiet spot, drop anchor and prepare their reels. Something bumps the dinghy and everyone gets nervous, including Jim. He stands and studies the water around the boat, then grabs a net and fishes a can out of the water. The relief is palpable.

Curator’s notes

by Sandy George

This sequence starts as an idyllic boat trip but then the suspense cleverly builds, especially with the use of music, but also by leaving space for the audience to get nervous along with the characters. Even after everyone realises it’s a false alarm, a niggling nervousness remains.

‘It is not about the crocodile, but about not seeing the crocodile and building suspense and psychological drama,’ says co-writer and director Andrew Traucki, speaking about the film to The Australian newspaper. ‘If you focus on the crocodile you have an action movie, if you focus on the fear of where the crocodile is, you have a thriller.’

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer False alarm from the feature film Black Water as a high quality video download.

To play the downloadable video, you need QuickTime 7.0, VLC, or similar.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before downloading the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

This clip is available in the following configurations:

File nameSizeQualitySuitability
blackwat1_pr.mp4 Large: 19.9MB High Optimised for full-screen display on a fast computer.
blackwat1_bb.mp4 Medium: 9.4MB Medium Can be displayed full screen. Also suitable for video iPods.

Right-click on the links above to download video files to your computer.

Thanks to the generosity of the rights holders, we are able to offer this clip in an embeddable format for personal or non-commercial educational use in full form on your own website or your own blog.

You must read and agree to the following terms and conditions before embedding the clip:

australianscreen is produced by the National Film and Sound Archive. By using the website you agree to comply with the terms and conditions described elsewhere on this site. The NFSA may amend the 'Conditions of Use’ from time to time without notice.

All materials on the site, including but not limited to text, video clips, audio clips, designs, logos, illustrations and still images, are protected by the Copyright Laws of Australia and international conventions.

When you access australianscreen you agree that:

  • You may retrieve materials for information only.
  • You may download materials for your personal use or for non-commercial educational purposes, but you must not publish them elsewhere or redistribute clips in any way.
  • You may embed the clip for non-commercial educational purposes including for use on a school intranet site or a school resource catalogue.
  • The National Film and Sound Archive’s permission must be sought to amend any information in the materials, unless otherwise stated in notices throughout the Site.

All other rights reserved.

ANY UNAUTHORISED USE OF MATERIAL ON THIS SITE MAY RESULT IN CIVIL AND CRIMINAL LIABILITY.

Copy and paste the following code into your own web page to embed this clip: