Planning Characters

Planning Characters

The use of characters are crucial to any genre of film; characters provide the entire narrative to the audience and are therefore the foundation to any film. As the characters present the over all story line this in turn mean the audience can build a variety of relationships with the characters. Conventionally in a thriller film there are two types of established characters, the protagonist and antagonist. Our thriller film technically has a total of four characters; the characters we planned are described below:

Protagonist's

The protagonist is the character the audience can relate with the most and build a relationship as the film focuses predominantly on their lives. They are typically presented as the victim and in turn, made to seem vulnerable. With in my thriller film myself and my group have concluded that we shall have two female protagonists. Aged 17 and 18, these two best friends are on their way home from celebrating one of their birthdays. We have chosen their ages based on our teenage target audience and the data collected, through the use of our thriller film questionnaire. Mostly all of the teenagers I asked said, they would prefer the characters to be of a similar age.In turn this then fits perfectly with our the age certificate of 15 our group decided on. The reasons behind this were that, they could easily relate with the characters and this in turn would provide an enhanced, realistic thriller film. Also this allows the audience to easily build relationships with these characters, meaning they could therefore sympathize and empathize with them. As well as this, the protagonists are highly conventional of a thriller film at this age, as the antagonists is attracted to their youthful vulnerability, especially a male antagonist, such as ours. Due to the characters ages we agreed that they would be attending sixth form, this made it easy for the actors as they also attend sixth form currently, so they could relate to their roles easily. 

The girls will be wearing out going party clothing, which emphasises their night prior to our thriller film i.e. their birthday celebrations. Their clothing also represents their vulnerability, especially with older males which realise that their attire serves the purpose of attracting attention, and presenting their naive view of wearing something to impress others. The characters innocence will help to create a greater shocked response from the audience as they witness the horrors of the girl's evening, and sympathize greatly for their characters, as they did not provoke this series of events in any way. To make sure our thriller is highly conventional, we have decided that at least one of the girls will be blonde. Blondes are stereotyped as ditsy, dense and generally highly unperceptive, with this reputation inflicted upon this character it makes it immediately obvious to the audience that they are the victim in this situation. The other female protagonist is brunette and due to there being no immediate stereotypes towards her character, this means it is not obvious to the audience whether she is a victim or not, therefore enhancing the theme of the unknown and mystery. As well as this it will shock the audience more so when she is found in serious danger, caused by the antagonist. I feel the two female protagonists help to create an exciting and interesting thriller opening, especially through their abilities to convey a distinct difference between, protagonist and antagonist, or as some might perceive it, good and evil.

(Young-flashback)Antagonist

Our thriller film begins with a flash back, featuring a young boy who is representing that antagonist's younger self. Although the flashback does not full explain his background, the audience can infer, from the brief snippet of an unwelcome female voice, which calls the young boy, that he is not safe or happy in his current situation. His background could be possibly evolved around a car crash or incident involving both himself, and his father, but with only the young boy as a survivor of the incident. This leaves the step mother inflicting her grief upon the child, blaming his for the death of her husband. Thus causing the young boy physical pain and permanent emotional damage. This type of back story is highly convention of a thriller film as it sheds light over why this person would be committing such horrific crimes. As well as this, the antagonist's background is used to confuse the audience as they start to sympathize for a killer. Thus making the viewer conflicted and subsequently gripped, wanting to watch more of the film to full understand what they feel towards the antagonist. We decided that the young boy would be aged between 7&8 years old. This age will clearly convey a distinct image of purity and innocence we wanted to create, in order to produce a clear juxtaposition between, the antagonist's younger self and his character in the 'present day'. The quick transition of the young antagonist conveys to the audience how his troubling past meant he had to mature extremely quickly, leaving behind his childhood innocence.The clothing he is wearing will be predominantly black and very worn in appearance, this will mirror the clothing of the antagonist in the present day, emphasizing that they are the same person. As well as this, the colour black, presented through his clothing, holds connotations of darkness and hopelessness, feelings that the young boy will be experiencing.  Within the flashback the young boy will not expose his face, presenting the theme of hidden identity from the outset. The young boys hidden identity will connote how the years of physical and emotional abuse have dehumanized him, robbing him of his identity, and leaving him voiceless, isolating himself to cope with his life. The hidden identity of the character will create suspense as the audience does not yet know who the character truly is, or why they are hiding their identity. This in turn will make the audience intrigued by the mystery and therefore want to continue watching, to find out who the young boy is and what purpose he serves, within the narrative.

Antagonist (Present Day)

The antagonist featured waking up within the present day we decided would be aged around 17-18 years old. This age appeals to the target audience of 15 and above as they can easily relate to this age, therefore enhancing the prevalent tension as the viewer can place themselves in the position of the antagonist, shocking them as they can relate to such an evil character. The actor playing the antagonist is also 17 and subsequently does not have to explore out of the comfort of his average day life, meaning he can easily relate to the character, providing a believable adaptation of the antagonist. The antagonist will be dressed in black or very dark clothing, mirroring the same style of costume as they young boys. This lack of change in costume will portray to the audience how they are the same character, but also how the antagonist still grasps on to what little childhood he had, expressing how he has not mentally developed from that physically and mentally scarred young child. The idea he has not mentally evolved from his younger self suggests to the audience that he is committing these evil doings not to spite, but simply because he does not understand right and wrong. Simply through the sustained clothing the audience are left to feel conflicted about the antagonist, after all, they did not witness how the first protagonist died. The black clothing also creates a type of camouflage in the darkness of the ill lit street at night and aids his hidden identity throughout. The theme of hidden identity is highly conventional as it builds tension throughout the film as the audience become uneasy with their lack of insight into the antagonist, making their character extremely unpredictable and threatening to the viewer. The back story to the antagonist is unclear but we are led to believe that his troubled up bringing, explained above, lead to him running away from his family and eduaction. This abandoning of his education and humanity have left his numb to all social conventions and general knowledge essential to leading a fulfilled and normal life.

The characters myself and my group have agreed upon were chosen as they are highly conventional of a typical thriller film. The protagonists present innocence within the film and therefore the theme of damsels in distress, classic to any thriller film as the female protagonists are placed in danger and the audience are left tense, searching for someone to save them. The antagonist follows the typical conventions linked to their character as they are male, have an abusive background and maintain a hidden identity (through the use of a mask). When first creating the narrative to our thriller film, I felt as though the characters would be too clique. However, I have come to realise that although the characters are highly conventional, these are the types of characters an audience enjoys viewing, no matter how seemingly predictable. The conventional characters easily provoke the shock, suspense and surprise, the three key characteristics of a thriller film that an audience watch a thriller film for. The planning of the characters helped our group discuss in depth and create a detailed character profile of each person featured within our thriller film. This universal and clear knowledge of each character in our group means, we can easily explain to the actors what they will need to convey through their characters. Also by providing them with our now set back stories it will allow the actors to fully grasp their roles, providing a more realistic performance for the viewer. Thus meaning the audience can easily relate to their character as they seem like genuine people and create a relationships with them. When filming I will use this planning post as a basic plan and also to make sure the actors are presenting a believable and sustained character.