Planning Characters - Miss Miller

The purpose of planning characters within a film is that it is vital to create an effective tone, feelings and emotions for the audience to easily understand and relate with characters within the film. There is also a need for the characters within my thriller to create a relationship with the audience, this is in order for the audience to be interested in the narrative and engaging them into the scene as quickly as possible.

My first character within my thriller shown is a blonde female victim, which is conventional within the thriller genre as females in thrillers are always stereotypically portrayed as inferior and weak compared to male characters especially within thrillers. Lucy would be a young teenage student walking home all alone, this will help the audience to engage with the narrative better and build a relationship with Lucy as she connotes innocence and that she may be in danger due to her isolation within the scene.

In addition, my second character within my thriller would be the antagonist - the ghost which would be an unseen character mentally torturing the victim. The only glimpse the audience would get of the antagonist would be right at the end of my opening thriller where there is a shadow seen on the wall behind Lucy. This is conventional within the thriller genre as there is always a sense of mystery, and the ghost would be seen as the culprit in the view point of the audience. Also the use of the ghost not being visible for the audience until the end creates a sense of enigma which would keep the audience engaged right to the end with the narrative. This would therefore help the audience build a relationship with the characters due to their concentration with the mysterious narrative.

Furthermore, the final character/s would be when Lucy runs outside the house and she talks to these characters. This male or female character would be walking past the house like a normal relatable character, looking like they are walking home from work or school. Through these characters the audience would not be able to build a relationship with these characters as they would not understand why they are ignoring Lucy when she's shouting out, this is because they can not see her, but the audience would not be able to understand as they are not shown from their point of view. 

Within my thriller I think that my main characters are extremely conventional as especially the female victim and an antagonist which somehow tortures the victim. My opening thriller sequence is one of the typical thriller genres where the main importance is given to the victim only and the enigma behind what is actually happening to Lucy. Also, one of Vladimir's Propp theory is where there is always a protagonist and an antagonist within a film and the hero is always saving the victim. In my thriller the antagonist is the ghost, but the protagonist is not yet shown within my thriller as it is only the opening, but the Lucy would somehow be saved from the antagonist.

Moreover, through my characters especially Lucy the victim will help emphasis the thriller genre as the whole importance is involved around her, creating the genre to be eerie. Also, the main mystery that keeps the audience engaged and drawn into my thriller would be given through the unknown antagonist. Overall, in planning my opening sequence it has been helpful for me understand and evaluate my characters into a lot more depth and detail, understanding each character individually. Through planning my characters I have realised how helpful it has been planning characters as it will help emphasis the thriller and my narrative.