CHARACTER RESEARCH

 

Introduction

For our characters, we wanted to present the normalcy of a conventional couple contrasting the gruesome imagery and twisting their relationship into something sinister. The idea of a couple matches the idyllic picnic scene, and contrasts the body in the back of the car and all the red imagery. We deliberately chose an actress with red hair as we felt it added the characterization of a femme fatale. As we also chose to not have any dialogue and not to reveal the characters faces, red hair added a bold feature that would make the female identifiable.

Dream Casting

For my film opening, I would ideally cast Emma Stone and Penn Badgley. Badgley's role in "You", a successful Psychological Thriller TV show, shows his ability to convincingly play a Psychotic character. Similarly Emma Stone's role in "Cruella" (2021) shows her range of capabilities. She has starred in multiple movies and has won many awards, while participating in films of many genres. This range would be especially useful in our film as the actors have to play a happy couple as well as mentally deranged killers. 

Cruella's character, although violent and not entirely moral, could be described as an anti-hero as she was still likeable to the audience and arguably (although her intentions are entirely selfish) she was working towards a good outcome. Although our antagonists aren't meant to be liked, they are supposed to carry a carefree quality that Emma Stone has proved she can pull off - especially as she has starred in romance films such as "La La Land" (2016). 

Another casting possibility for the male lead could be Rami Malek. He has played many diverse roles, such as the villain in "No Time to Die" (2021), but also has experience playing the protagonist in movies such as "Bohemian Rhapsody" (2018). His range of skills makes him an ideal.

Character construction

In order to develop our characters further and to be able to construct their representation within our film opening, Clementine and I created backstories for our characters. In the film the male and female appear to be a conventional couple until the car boot opens revealing a body.

We imagined a couple that are portrayed as predators, hunting and killing for sport and enjoyment. This is reflected in my final music choice of using "Run Rabbit Run", as the meaning behind the film opening aligns the characters with the description of the farmer in the song.