Plot Synopsis

AMERICAN BLACKOUT is a two-hour scripted special event that imagines a national power failure in the United States caused by a cyberattack, showing the impact on America and its citizens over 10 days. This telefilm combines user-generated footage from recent real blackouts and disasters, archival footage of President Obama's speeches and other events, and newly shot video from fictional citizens using their cameras and phones to film the likely chaos. As it tells a tale of America in the dark, AMERICAN BLACKOUT focuses on five different groups, including: a family using a handycam in a suburb of San Diego, CA, as young parents, Erin and Steve, prepare for the arrival of their second child, while Steve tries to entertain their daughter, Molly, during some tough times; VJ, a 15-year-old guerrilla filmmaker and vlogger in Austin, TX, whose mother, a nurse, works around the clock during the outage, leaving him to get into all sorts of trouble; college students -- Dee, Lance, Matt, and Ken -- in a campus elevator in Phoenix, AZ, who use their phone cameras to document the fear that might bring them together -- or completely tear the group apart; Andrew and Gemma, a wealthy Manhattan couple trapped in a penthouse, who are filming the events with their phone camera, as part of a lawsuit they plan to bring against their building superintendent; and a prepper family in Denver, CO, whose youngest child, Hank Jr., uses a camcorder to document doomsday, while his family of survivalists settles into a new routine, because his father, Hank, feels they're ready to winter the storm with years of food and water reserves in his underground bunker.