Group ideas - Character Profiles

Character Profiles

Sam: The Hero

Nearly all films, programmes or stories in any form include a hero or heroine. It is this character whom the audience are supposed to support the most, whom the majority of the plot revolves around and most likely has the largest amount of lines and screen time. Stereotypically, hero characters are fulfilled by male characters, however, we have broken this sterotype and taken a more liberal approach by making ours a 'herorine'. Following Vladimir Propp's character type theories, we have chosen Sam as to play the role of the hero. She will be there one who takes a dominant role in that she is one who arrives at Eve's house, initiates the hunt around Alice's old bedroom for an insight into why her suicide occurred, and who sees her ghost in the graveyard. 

We have also intertwined Carol Glover's 'Final Girl' character; her theory was that educated, middle class, conservative characters survive while those who take part in drugs, alcohol and sexual intercourse are the first to be killed by the antagonist. Portraying this, Sam is in covered clothing, with minimum makeup, and a journalist. We has also named her such as Sam is an androgynous name - another aspect common in Glover's theory. 

Costume:

Sam is dressed in clothes that aim to reflect her mature personality and establish her as the central character who the audience will relate to, as she is not wearing anything particularly unusual.
White button up shirt (white showing her innocence, button up giving a professional look)

Black military coat (quite masculine unlike Eve, black showing her seriousness)

Eve: The Helper

A second character is commonly included to help the hero in their mission, as Propp fittingly identified a 'helper' in the majority of stories. Our helper is Eve, as although she has a closer relationship to Alice, she is also simultaneously in a more vulnerable, passive position. Therefore, she takes more of a secondary role in looking for Alice; we will include her looking in the garage and in her old bedroom besides Sam, however, we will also film footage with her of a more frightened, anxious expression, compared to the sterner, more serious looking hero.

Costume:

Eve is similar to Sam in that she is wearing in clothes that our audience won't be shocked by, and so won't feel disconnected as we want the audience to feel sympathy for. However, she is not supposed to be as mentally strong as the main protagonist and so is wearing slightly less formal clothing.
Black fluffy coat (black in keeping with her mourning, dismal attitude, but fluffier than Sam's showing her more feminine vulnerability)  
White lace top (white is a colour typically associated whit innocence, projecting how Eve is not an evil character, and the lace detailing adds to her femininity)
Black skinny jeans

Alice: The Villain

All horror films will include an antagonist, who is against the protagonist and who the audience are supposed to oppose. It is the villain who is responsible for the mayhem and atrocities that take place in the plot. Alice is our villain, as she is the character haunting the others and whom her sister and Sam are trying to find and set a rest. The footage of her will be in dark lighting, meaning the white, ghostly makeup we will use will contrast and make her stand out further. We will experiment with shaking the camera in order to enhance her haunting, unsettling effect on the audience. Because of the backstory to our plot, Alice could also be classified as 'victim', as she endured years of bullying. However, because our trailer is much shorter than the story duration, the audience do not gain this insight from less than two minutes of content.

Costume:

Alice is wearing a stereotypical school uniform, but the rips and damage to her clothes will highlight to the audience that she does not conform to the innocence normally associated with school and young girls.
Light blue button up ripped shirt (the rips will connote the unkempt, raggedness of a dead corpse)

Black/blue striped tie (this will portray how she was a school girl, making it easy to tell her age in such a short amount of time)

Black school skater skirt (part of the simple, school outfit) 

Black tights (school outfit, not showing much flesh as she is not meant to be sexual or revealing)

Black pumps

Hair long, dampened (enhancing her drowned appearance)


Liam: The Victim
In order to fulfil the role of antagonist, the villain must have someone to victimise. Liam could be classified as a 'stock character', in that little is revealed about his own life or personality, but is more useful to develop the story of others. In order to increase the horror element of a trailer, it is important to make the audience understand what they could be put through themselves. Because of this, victims are usually 'everyday' people who fit the target demographic and that those watching could relate to. Liam is a young male played by an eighteen year old, and as our target audience is those aimed 16 to 25 many people will relate to him. We have chosen a male character as every other role is played by a female; as we want our film to appeal to both genders, we felt it would be beneficial to include characters of both (as all female or all male casts can sometimes deter the other sex from wanting to watch it). Liam is the first character introduced in our trailer, and he is only on screen for a short few seconds. Because we only see him for such a short amount of time, it is important to get through that he is being victimised; to accomplish this, we layered a with a male scream over the footage (which the audience can deduct is from him), and used medium close up showing a scared, frightened expression.

Costume:
Because we wanted to Liam to be shown as 'normal' as possible, we asked Brandon to wear his own clothes that he usually would on any other day.
Black skinny jeans (casual, commonly worn)
Dark green jumper (darker colours are usually associated with males, over more typically feminine shades like pink and white, as worn my Eve)
Sneakers