Character Profiles

Now that I have the storyline of my production planned out and I understand it in more detail, I've decided to move on and talk about the characters that I plan to have in my film and how I want them to be portrayed.

The film will focus mainly on one character, but there will still be others that play a big part in the development of the story.

Main Character:
The main character is a girl who I've decided to name Clare as of the descriptions in my storyboard. She lives with only her Mum. Because she is the main character and has some terrible stuff happen to her, I want to portray her as being a very vulnerable and weak character. The stereotype of her being a female adds to her vulnerability as in films female characters are generally looked at as being more weak, although I think this role could have worked with a male actor but I've decided to have it lead by a female. To show her weakness, I'm going to make it very clear that she doesn't have a good relationship with her Mum and is generally a very miserable and alone character with nothing to do in life. Therefore, she spends most of her time on her laptop where she eventually meets someone online and her naivety causes her to agree a meet up.

The main films I looked at that relate to mine were Unfriended (2015), and Trust (2010). The main female character in Unfriended isn't really shown as being vulnerable and weak, and is only made to look it by the horrors that happen to her in the film. However, the main female character in Trust is shown as being very naive just as I want my character of Clare to be.

In Trust, 14 year old Annie gets a laptop for her birthday and begins talking to people in an online chat room. Soon she begins talking to a boy she believes to be a similar age to her, but meets up with him to find he is a 30 year old man who ends up ruining her life. I've never actually seen this film, however from reading the plot description online it seems that some of the inspiration for my film actually was used in a similar way in Trust. I plan to watch this film in the upcoming weeks as it could give me some ideas on how to present her female character in a vulnerable way. Obviously the character I will create will be different to the character in Trust, but because they play a similar role in the trust they put in a random person online, research into how this character is portrayed could be very useful.


Susan (Clare's Mum):
Clare's Mum isn't a vitally important character, but I must ensure I portray her in the correct way in order to show the audiences the kind of relationship she has with her daughter. This will further develop the vulnerable character of Clare, and make her situation seem worse because of the lack of connection she has with her mother. To do this, I plan to show Susan sitting around all day doing practically nothing whilst Clare goes to school and comes back. There will be a lack of dialogue between these two to further show the lack of connection they have with each other. This will be most effective at the end of the film because when Clare is murdered, Susan will feel even worse as a Mum because she was never there for her. This will also make her death more sad, and hopefully have a greater effect on the audience.

Tom (Chat Room):
Tom is the character that Clare meets in an online chat room. His character will be mostly developed through the conversations they have in the chat room. I haven't planned at how I'm going to edit my film yet, but in order to develop his character without actually meeting him, I have to make sure that the conversations they have online are clear to see for the audience. In terms of his actual character, I'm going to try and make it clear to the audience that he is lying about what he is saying, but Clare is too naive and broken to realise, and the attention he is giving her is so new to her. By doing this, the audience will straight away take a dislike to him, and be equally as shocked when he emerges from the woods to find Clare's dead body.

Police Officer:
The police officer appears at the end of the film to tell Clare's Mum that her daughter has been found dead. His role isn't very big or important, and we won't actually be able to hear what he's saying as sad music will be playing over any dialogue.

Reflective Comment:
Creating in depth character profiles from my production was a very enjoyable thing to do and has moved me further forward with the planning of my film. As you can see, I analysed a similar product in relation to my main character (Clare), and also created profiles for the other characters that will feature. Analysing the film 'Trust' was very useful. Because it is a similar film with fairly relatable events, I looked at how the main character in that is shown and used that to develop Clare. To improve this task, I'd of like to look at more similar products, and plan to add a post on this later on.