2. The Detective
On the left there is a photo of my brother Jacob Warne. Jacob
is 18, although we wanted the Detective to be nearer the age
of 30, Jacob looks a lot older than he is, and at 6'4" he has the
right build for the role, tall, with an average, slightly more slim
build. Luckily the only commitments he has were for University
and he studies at the local one, therefore we had a lot more
time to be able to use him for filming.
We have dressed him in a long, high-collared coat to match the
character profile of the Detective; typically in films such as
"Shutter Island" and "Seven", this is a typical Detective
costume, which we compiled through our character
profiles, taking inspiration from ‘’Shutter Island’’ as our main
priority. We decided he was right for the role after producing a
brief script for him to act out, mainly to see if he could recreate
the correct facial expressions and reactions we needed of him
to show his fear and anxiety in the opening sequence.
3. Charlotte Adams
Next is the actress for the girl, Charlotte Adams, and
she is played by Joe’s sister, Ellie Weston. Ellie is
13, which enables us to match thriller conventions such
as portraying young girls as vulnerable. The character is
portrayed as psychotic through the Detective's eyes
despite her innocence, and so in order to make sure
Ellie was right for the role we needed to make sure she
could replicate blank expressions and off-putting stares
for her brief appearance at the start of the sequence.
She draws a lot of parallels with young girls
in other thriller films, remaining as expressionless and
emotionless as possible to not give away anything
about her character, as in "The Ring" where the
character is portrayed as almost lifeless. Contrasting
these expressions with the costume creates a very eerie
atmosphere where the audience cannot decide if the
girl is the villain or victim, creating an
enigma, conforming to thriller conventions.
4. The Shade’s
Below are images of the three actors to play the Shades in our opening sequence:
Josh Marshall, Elliott Doyle and Nathan Harding. Nathan was used throughout but
we only needed Josh and Elliott from the forest onwards. Little acting capability
was needed from them so we cast the actors on their build, and as you can see
they are all a similar height and build, and are all dressed in black, this creates the
effect of there being multiple, identical Shades, adding to the confusion. They are
dressed in all black as black has connotations of darkness, evil and mystery, all
typically associated with the villain in thriller films. It is difficult to compare any of
these Shade’s to any other films as they have never previously been involved in
thriller films, therefore challenging conventions.
