Character Profile: The Detective
Age: 39
Gender: Male
Description and Character Background:
As a rookie, the detective was studying the disappearance of a young girl, but the case was closed as there were no leads to help solve the case. The detective got so involved with the case that he continued to investigate it after it was closed, and as a result he was slowly driven insane. He was subsequently dismissed, casting him into a disarray of guilt, with all his time , for twenty years, devoted to trying to figure out what happened to the girl, with his room converted into a makeshift detective lab. He was to reported to the mental asylum as being unstable and was hence put in their custody. Over time he convinced them and proved to them he was sane but as soon as he was released again he began to imagine seeing the girl everyone he went, as he did before, along with a strange, paranormal man that taunted him. He matches typical detective backgrounds i.e. operates alone, no relationship status, social exile, no close friends, but they prefer it that way- but this contributes to his insanity. A mild schizophrenic, paranoid, psychotic man who is very unstable, the asylum are attempting to track him down before he does something out of his control.
Character comparisons:
The detective could be based on several characters in his appearance, the way he acts, mentality and background.
The detective is based on a merge of the two detectives from “Seven”. Typically, detectives have quite long coats with high collars, like Morgan Freeman is wearing in this still. He won’t have a hat, however, and will appear more like Brad Pitt’s character. He will be quite tall, with quite an average build, perhaps more slim. On the whole the character is most comparable to Leonardo DiCaprio in Shutter Island. His appearance is very similar to that in Seven, with similar clothing. Stereotypically the detectives are intelligent, perhaps overly-analytical, and different in some sense. In Sherlock Holmes, the character is very eccentric whereas our character would need to be slightly darker and misguided. From this physical description and description of his mindset we can make decisions as to who to cast as the detective.
Character Profile: The Girl (Charlotte Adams)
Age: 12
Gender: Female
Gender: Female
Description and Character Background:
Through previously recorded group discussions, we have decided to settle with the name of 'Charlotte Adams'. This name, though seemingly simple, is memorable and the name 'Charlotte' can be deemed mysterious in comparison to other simple names such as 'Beth' which we also had discussed using. Names we also discussed were echoing other thriller films, such as 'Orphan' in which the main character is called 'Esther'. However effective this name would be, we were sure that we needed a unique name that had not been used in great detail within thriller films.
When this girl was captured, we have decided she was around the age of 12. This is because at this age, young girls are especially vulnerable, which fits perfectly to our plot as this girl was kidnapped. Also, 12 year old's are starting to find themselves and their personalities. Even though the girl in our film will have elements of vulnerability and a sense of weakness, we want her to be memorable and a strong character in the respect that she has her own eerie personality and easily shows this across to the audience. When researching other thriller films such as 'The Others', 'Orphan' and 'Panic Room', there is a constant theme - younger ages within the children. None of the children are relatively above the age of 13, nor younger than around 6. This gives us an age gap to work with in order to conform to thriller conventions, however a higher age would provide us with larger opportunities to manipulate the characters actions, hence why we also supported the age of 12. As our plot actually reveals that the viewing of the girl is merely a figment of The Detective's imagination, in reality this girl would now be around the age of 32. Because of our plot, the older current reflection of the girl will never be seen, therefore we do not need to decide her appearance now. Even though we will never see the adult transformation of the girl, we will have a mental idea in case we decide it would be important to feature her later on.
Appearance:
The images on the left are all from thrillers. The girls in these thriller films tend to have darker hair. This may be because it adds elements of mystery, fear and the darker colours are a huge conformation within thriller conventions. In many of the thriller films, the girl's hair is tied back with an almost Victorian bow. I believe this is because the hair is then away from the child's face and every part of the child's facial expression can be shown and evaluated by the audience. This fits in with our idea that in our thriller opening, the young girl will either lose a button or a bow and if she were to have a bow in her hair, this develops our ideas for our thriller opening. Therefore when casting for our young girl, we will aim to have a darker haired child who will have it tied up in a bow that eventually falls out. All of the girls featured in these thriller films also have old fashioned costumes, this is exactly what we aim to do with our thriller film as it the actual kidnapping of the girl was 20 years ago and naturally her clothes will be outdated, this means we can conform to thriller conventions and also add factors of horror as the costume we are aiming for may be deemed scary, which will add to the overall effect of the girl on the audience.
Through studying many different thriller films, the younger, eerier characters always have very cold facial expressions and a lack of affectionate body language. Because we want to deceive our audience into believing that the young girl is the villain within our film, this will be highly successful. In most thriller films, firstly the facial expressions are very blank, no genuine smiles, only sinister smiling/laughing. The younger characters also keep very direct eye contact in order to make the other character feel very intimidated and uncomfortable, which in effect makes the audience feel uncomfortable. This is constantly used throughout the film of 'Orphan'. This is incredibly effective and if we can complete similar feelings within our thriller, will be very successful. Another facial expression that is a common theme, ironically is the lack of facial expressions. The young female characters tend not to make many facial movements. eg. Not moving their eyebrows for expression, not blinking, lack of mouth movements etc. So our young female character should aim to be as expressionless as possible, except when she is hauntingly laughing, and the previous lack of expression will further emphasize the fear for the audience when they hear her laughter.
Her body language will also be very cold towards every other character. In many thriller films, the villain, no matter what age, tends to attempt to hide personal thoughts and emotions and therefore do not reveal anything about themselves through their body language. This will be portrayed by the girl always standing directly facing the main character but with no warmth displayed. She will also keep her arms hanging by her side in order to further show that no body language is apparent, this means that the main character will never understand how she is feeling. In 'The Ring', the vanished body language technique is used and this displays the idea that the girl is almost lifeless, and begs the question on whether she's really there or not. As our thriller movie plays heavily on psychological ideas, the audience questioning themselves would be dramatically effective as we want the audience to be both confused and shocked at the end.
In conclusion, the young girl within our thriller movie will be generically similar to young female characters in other thriller films as she will have darker hair tied up in a bow. Also, her clothing will be outdated but only recently. Most young thriller characters have costumes dated back to the Victorian era, whereas ours will be clothing that is noticeably different but only from around the 90s. She will have very minimal use of facial expressions and body language in order to reflect her emotions of being numb and full of anger. She will be cold towards every other character and the only piercing thing about her overall image will be her deep, dark eyes that will constantly stare directly at the other characters. Overall, this will give the girl a highly dark persona, yet eventually the audience will discover that she is the absolute victim and this image is purely his guilt transforming his ideas of her into a 'horror child' to convince himself that she is the guilty one, not him.
Age: Unknown
Gender: Unknown, presumed Male
Description and Character Background:
The Shade is a mysterious man that torments the detective in his mind. A psychological villain, he represents the kidnapper of the girl; he has no identity, as he was never identified in the investigation. He appears as completely black to have connotations of evil, typical of thriller conventions. He is portrayed as hostile to the detective but pursues and taunts him more than attacks him to wear him down psychologically. There appears to be more than one of the Shade as the detective cannot escape his guilt. Sometimes the Detective will envision himself as the Shade as a symbol of his guilt, but this creates the enigma to his identity, as to whether there is actually a kidnapper or if the Shade is a figment of the Detective’s mind to prevent the truth. This red herring is similar to in“Shutter Island” where the Detective makes up several characters in order to cover up his own guilt.
Comparisons:
Fantastic detail and well done for linking to existing characters.
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