Planning characters

Planning characters

The most important thing in any film, even a thriller is the characters. Characters are very important in a thriller film as they are the people that play the narrative and explain the narrative to the audience. Therefore, the audience build a relationship with characters. The audience always build a strong relationship with the characters especially the victims as they always feel sympathetic towards them because they understand the emotions the characters are feeling and they know that the victim is going to die or be in danger from something. On the other hand, the audience also build a strong relationship with the antagonist. However, feel intimidated and menaced by this character as they are portrayed as being capable of murder which the audience see as making them strong and overpowering. Characters also set the narrative and the genre of the film by the way they act and their appearance. The audience building a good relationship with the characters lead to them being more engaged into the film making them wanting to watch it more and see if the character will be safe or if they will die. The fact that it will be a male would also mean he will look more taller and bugger built so would be shown to the audience as being strong compared to the victim who would be much smaller and portrayed as helpless, weak and vulnerable. My male antagonist will have a hidden identity. This is so that the suspense and thrill being created will  create enigma to the audience and engage them more into watching the rest of the film wanting to find out what else is going to happen. In every other film, a hidden identity will create dramatic tension because the audience will not know what the killer will look like so the plot would not be revealed straight away. The antagonist will be wearing a black costume as it shows the audience that the killer is evil and capable of murder as the black symbolises death and darkness. A black costume will also foreshadow instability in the characters personality and will make the audience realise he is cape of killing people. The audience therefore will build a strong relationship with the characters as they feel threatened and intimidated by the victim feeling more sympathetic towards the victim. An antagonist is conventional to every genre especially thrillers as there is always one to harm a protagonist. A killer most importantly determines the narrative and lets the audience know what the genre of the film is. The convention of having a antagonist in a thriller is to scare the audience when they least expect it by building a sinister atmosphere and creating suspense, shock and surprise. 

My other main character in my opening thriller sequence is going to be a victim. I am going to make her teenage girl so it shows the audience that she is weak and cannot protect herself as much as a grown man would stereotypically do. The fact that she is a teenage girl would also mean the killer has more of a chance of killing her as she will be an easy victim. She will also be a blonde girl who is wearing a white costume. She will wearing a white costume so that the audience can clearly see her innocence and purity through the colour white and so that the audience feel sorry for her as she is portrayed as helpless. She will have blonde hair so that she will be portrayed as weak and not intelligent, which would mean she is an even easier target for the killer to harm. My audience will build a better relationship with her and relate with her more because I made her seem as a typical teenager who is at home on her laptop browsing through social media sites which the audience probably do themselves so they can put themselves in her shoes and understand how she is feeling more. By me making my victim look like this will build a relationship with the audience more as they will feel sorry for her due to the idea that she is portrayed as; weak, innocent and vulnerable and would make them not want anything bad happening to her. Doing this would create an enigma for the audience because they would not know what is about to happen to the victim and they do not know whether or not she will be safe and survive the pain the antagonist will be putting her through. Also, having a female victim is conventional to the thriller genre as they are shown to look as they are helpless which makes them an easy target for the victim as they will not fight back and will have less of a chance of escaping safety. Lastly, a female victim is typically in a thriller film because they are shown to be powerless and weaker compared to male victims, which shows the power and innocence they have.

In conclusion, planning characters for my opening thriller sequence is important because in a thriller you always need an antagonist and protagonist to set the genre to the audience. Having both antagonist and protagonist gives the audience an idea and foreshadows what events is to come later on in the film. The audience can straight away see which character is portrayed as good and which is portrayed as evil and this can be shown through; actions, speech, body language and costume. The audience builds a relationship with the characters and relates to them even more throughout the film. Once the audience build a relationship with the characters they are enticed and intrigued in wanting to know what will happen in the rest of the film so created and enigma keeping them engaged and waiting for the rest of the film to find out more. I believe that my main characters are very conventional as they are what everyone expects to see in a triller film and having them in my one would mean that my opening thriller sequence would be more successful than it would be without these two main characters. A better relationship is built by me having conventional characters because for example; me having a teenage girl as a victim instead of a young, strong male made the audience more scared for the victims safety and made them more sympathetic wanting her to stay safe and not get hurt. In my opinion my characters are conventional to the genre because of many different reasons that engage the audience and help them build more of a relationship with them. 

The pictures on the left are pictures of our female victim and our male antagonist before in costume and the pictures on the right are pictures of them when they are in costume with make up on before filming.