Planning Characters - Miss Miller

Characters are one of the most important parts of the narrative. They are used to lead the plot and evoke emotional responses for the audience. In order for the audience to become interested in the narrative they need characters they can relate to and care for. Without any relatable characters the audience would struggle to become emotionally engaged within the film and would quickly lose interest. Many films include an audience surrogate which is a character that shares the questions and confusions of the audience so when things are explained to this character they are also being explained to the audience.

The main character in our opening sequence is Cathryn the soon-to-be victim. Cathryn is a 16 year old, white female. She is a conventional thriller character as she is presented as innocent and the audience care for her as she is shown to have her whole life ahead of her. Having the victims not presented as innocent would mean the audience would struggle to sympathise with them so the sequence would be lens tense and engaging. The victim is also a typical teenager which makes it easier for the audience to relate to her. She will be wearing white/light clothing as this emphasises her innocence.

The antagonist in our opening sequence never has his identity revealed which adds to the mystery and creates a sense of enigma. Our antagonist is conventional to psychological thrillers as he is shown to be deranged and mentally unstable. Our sequence also has horror elements and our antagonist is partly inspired by the masked killers in the Scream series of films. The audience see that our antagonist is deranged and fear for Cathryn as the antagonist is shown to be capable of anything. The antagonist is essential to the plot as the story revolves around him capturing on of girls and he's the person who creates the disequilibrium. He will be wearing dark clothing as this is associated with darkness and evil.

The only other characters are the victims friends who presented as typical teenagers who are worried for their friend and want to find her. There is no main protagonist in the film but these girls are who the audience root for as they also want Cathryn to be saved.

Even though most thrillers feature a main protagonist the characters we do have are very conventional. I think the large contrast between the victim and the protagonist is what emphasises the thriller aspect of our film as well as the good vs evil theme it creates. This will improve our film as getting the audience to side with a character ensures they become invested in the film and will found it engrossing as opposed to boring. Planning the characters was helpful as we now know how we want to present them which makes the rest of the film creation process easier. This planning will help us with the camerawork and editing as we can use some angles and shots to present the characters differently.