Planning characters - Miss Miller

Within our opening sequence we will be using four characters these include our victim Brittany, antagonist Steve, protagonist Carol and miner character the nameless jogger/runner who Brittany encounters along the alley way during her walk home form school. We are currently considering whether we will have extras through various difference scenes. Characters are very important to our thriller as without them there would be no narrative.

Main character Brittany is a sweet, easy to get along with young girl who's still at school, we want our victim to have a strong like ability factor so that the audience grows a stronger relationship with her therefore routing for her more so than they would without this bond hence creating further suspense and tension for audience members as they hope that the outcome for Brittany is a safe one without her being too traumatized by this scary situation. If the character of Brittany was to appear rather unlikable it would be likely that audience members would question why the antagonist was going after her with the effect of a hidden identity it is likely that they would come to the conclusion that she had in some way done something to discourage the antagonist hence urging them to resort to such extremes to seek revenge on her. Even so without this theory if Brittany was to come across as a nasty girl then audience members wouldn't reach such a bond with her hence loosening the tension and making the ordeal she is suffering less sad as there will be less empathy for her. Brittany is of a young age this is representative of her being weak as well as having a lack of knowledge on the world hence making it acceptable for her to appear a bit more clueless when it comes to Steve. The audience sympathies with her because of her disadvantage of her age again this is a factor which is making her more likable to the audience. This is conventional to the thriller genre as it means that we will show scenes of the victim appearing rather dumb and hopeless next to the ever powerful antagonist. Brittany herself is a convention to a thriller, being the typical young blonde female victim, this is shown through her supposed paranoia as well as her reactions towards certain situations. In her day to day life Brittany is a normal every day fifteen year old girl dedicated to her GCSE'S trying to get into a good place at a sixth form this emphasis's on the added stress she is under. The main character represents themes of innocence and vulnerability both of which are conventional to the thriller genre as they display aspects of a victim. None of Brittany's costumes will be revealing again this adds to her being a nice, well behaved, sweet young girl who would be the last person audience members would connect with being able to cope in such a situation. For the scene where Brittany is planning to kill herself she is wearing a jumper. I opted for this to be a bright pink one so to remain in the frame of her youth and innocence as well as juxtaposing what is happening within the scene. After all you wouldn't expect to see such a bright happy colour on someone who is about to take their own life. It shows how unlike Brittany said act is which really demonstrates how far she has been pushed over the edge as well as suggesting the idea of a safe ending for Brittany as she is still able to remain dressing in a happy way.

The antagonist otherwise known as Steve is of a strong, tall, masculine build this makes him become more intimidating to the audience as it displays him to be a strong person who is able to enflick harm onto his victims. He shall be dressed in as much black as possible, a key piece of costume for the character will be a hoodie as it is a good piece of clothing to use in order to cover yourself hence keeping to his hidden identity as well as the hoodie symbolising that he is someone of a fairly young age again displaying him to be more physically able suggesting that he is able to course more harm. Through out the entire opening sequence not even a glimpse of Steve's face will be shown, this keeps up the suspense and added tension of having a hidden identity. It is important that we don't give to much away during the opening so to leave key aspects of the film left to explore through out the duration of the film. Steve himself will have a negative relationship with the audience if any, the audience are set to dislike him as they simply recognize him as the people willing to do all of the nasty things shown to Brittany aside from that nothing else of later has been shown about his character the audience simply no that he has a fixation with Brittany and isn't of sane mind. This is conventional to a thriller as often within the genre there is a mentally unstable character.

Protagonist Carol is a female of around twenty years of age she is fairly young get old enough to offer caring support and advice to Brittany which she is able to take in as more than just something coming from a fellow peer. Her costume is too fit with her personality so she will be dressed in rather calm, sweet, welcoming and warming clothing which let's her caring side shine through and makes her more believable when taking to Brittany so that the audience won't become suspicious of her when comforting Brittany which thriller watchers are often encouraged to do. Carols death comes as an even sadder lose to the audience as she was such a lovely character, she was so helpful to a girl she'd never met before, her words really made a difference the matter being and what makes it so sad is that she lost her life attempting to save somebody else's out of the sheer kindness of her heart. During her day to day life Carol worked at a dog sanctuary hence she is walking dogs as she discovers a vulnerable Brittany.

The miner character of the runner although he personally doesn't do much or even receive much screen time his presence is crucial to the film. They will be dressed in grey sports wear to indicate relief to the audience as they realise that his is just a jogger the light colouring themselves making him appear as a more friendly person. The character is used to empathise on the paranoia that Brittany is experiencing which is conventional to a thriller as often characters emotions are brought up to showcase the seriousness of certain events within the genre.

As you can see characters are a very important part of my thriller film without them there would be no film so it is important that they serve a sufficient purpose so to maintain a worthwhile viewing film. I didn't want too many characters within the opening sequence as this can become very confusing for some viewers and I didn't want them to distract from the main points which are needed to be obtained from the opening.

As you can see the characters within our opening sequence are very important as they are what carries our narrative. A lot of planning needs to go into our characters so to make sure they suit the film individually as well as the genre itself, we also need to make sure that the character remains within the character profile which we fit them to, if a character was to do something which appeared odd for someone of their character build to do within our film then audience members could come to question it and state that it seemed out of character for them to do so. There are various other elements to our characters which we need to deeply consider such as the way they present themselves and continue to present themselves both in the way they dress i.e their costume for instance we couldn't have the antagonist dressing the way we are through out the sequence and then suddenly for one scene have them dressed as a clown as not only would this not make sense to the film or the character's profile but it would also throw viewers off sent with the film and they may not understand who this character is and question the relevance to the film or even what it is that is actually happening. The entire film is based around the goings on of the characters so everything needs to remain within the same detail.