Planning Characters - Miss Miller

Characters in a thriller narrative are important as they give the audience a better idea of what is going on in the thriller sequence; having different characters helps express the characters individual storyline as to why they are needed in a thriller narrative, each character tells a personal story through their role. Within thrillers, the key characters are always the victim who is preferably a girl and a killer who has a hidden identity to create an enigma throughout. Within my groups who I'm making my thriller sequence with; we discussed the possibilities as to what we could make our characters out to be and how they should be dressed, and what their overall appearance would be like; within this planning it made me realise that characters in a thriller sequence is one of the key elements to have, especially when it comes to their backgrounds.

My thriller sequence there will be a victim; This character is a young girl who is vulnerable and in complete distress over something she has seen on the Internet; she has been getting cyber bullied and causes her complete distress as she doesn't know who's saying all of these mean things to her. The victim is a young girl as it makes the audience feel more sympathetic towards the character; Within every thriller film there is most likely going to be a girl as girls are seen as more vulnerable and weak compare to boys. The age of the victim is 17, which is young; The character is around this age as it makes the audience feel empathy due to the fact she's young and clueless as to what is going to happen to her; if the young girl was going to die it would be upsetting and a shock to the audience as she had her whole life ahead of her, the audience would begin to form a bond with the young girl as you want her to stay alive. The victim would be wearing a white costume throughout this is to show the victims innocence and purity, which is stereotypical in a thriller convention.The victim is small and innocent, she has brown/blonde hair, the victim is a typical teenager who uses social media. The idea of the victims character role gives the audience a better idea of what the role is and would also show the audience that she is an easy target and will end up being killed by the antagonist. The fact that the victim is a normal teenage girl, who goes to school etc. Makes the audience relate better to the character as she's just an everyday teenager. The picture above is taken from the film Friday the 13th; this young girl is a victim of the killer whom is behind. The young girl is also blonde which mine would be as well, this shows me that the idea of having a blonde girl as a victim seems to be the more popular option as blonde girls are clearly seen as the more pure and innocent type compare to brunettes or other.

Also in my thriller opening sequence their will be the Killer who is the antagonist they will be portrayed very negatively to the audience, so the audience are aware that this character is the bad one on the sequence. The character would be dressed in all black which will show and portray evil and misery; due to black being a dull and miserable colour, this colour could also resemble back to death, as the killer is wearing the colour black it shows the audience that whenever the killer arrives death is about to happen; or some sort of misery/trouble. The killer would be broadly built to show the dominance and the power within the body language being shown through the characters representation of themselves. The antagonist in my thriller sequence will also be wearing a black mask which will resemble to death and violence, it will make it easy to the audience to understand who is the killer who will be played by an antagonist in my sequence. The killers identity is hidden throughout the sequence with the black mask as it creates an enigma throughout which will make the audience feel uneasy throughout, this is conventional to thriller convention as it makes the audience more engaged as to what will happen next. The Killer is a man as it's conventional for a man to be seen as the killer, the reason why my killer in my thriller sequence isn't young is because it isn't conventional to the thriller convention as it wouldn't be as scary for the audience to watch; In the film Halloween it isn't conventional to the thriller genre as the killer turned out to be a young child, which created a shock however didn't scare the audience; Even though my idea is cliché as all thriller films normally have an older male as the killer, it still creates tension on the audience, as males are much more dominant. The audience would also build a relationship from the killer as they would feel intimated and also threatened by the killers intentions throughout the sequence. With the picture above it is an example of my antagonist; the man in the picture is the main killer in this film, who also has a mask on to hide his identity and make it scarier to the audience as he's not revealing his true identity; This built a relationship with the audience as it created suspension and surprise, due to him not revealing his identity and to him revealing his identity to the audience and the family who are all in fact victims of his 'purge', This idea has influenced me on using a mask to hide the killers identity as it built tension and suspense when I watched the film myself.

My characters will be wearing costumes that is conventional to the thriller genre; for instance the female victim would be dressed in all white, this is to show the victims purity and innocence; by having my victim wearing all white it would be seen as cliche but is what people would except to see when watching a victim in a thriller film. The killer will be dressed in all black, this would be to show the killers possible hatred towards the victim; the hatred would be unknown which would be conventional as it would be seen as an enigma; by having my killer in all black it makes the killer be seen as having a hatred towards someone because the colour is seen as a resentful and deathly colour, this could be seen as a negative outlook on the killer. These two are the two main characters in my thriller genre and both of the characters are seen as conventional.

In conclusion the idea of having a clear idea and planning for the characters I will be adding to my thriller sequence has made it better to understand where I will be using each character and also when I would need to add each character to create suspense. In a thriller genre you need both a victim and a killer these two characters are key to have in a thriller sequence as they are both conventional to include; both of the characters create tension throughout. Having characters is key also as it enables the audience to build a relationship with them and feel more included into the thriller, the way the characters are represented gives the audience a clearer idea of how the film/ sequence is going to go. My characters are conventional to the thriller genre and this will further help me develop my creation of my thriller sequence as it's making the narrative more understanding on how to develop our characters as well as our sequence.

This is one of our characters before the filming of the sequence; from this you can tell that the role of John being a killer in our thriller sequence is conventional as he's a male who has conventional characteristics of a thriller film.