Our female runner is am archetype of vulnerability in young females, the stereotype would be to have a young, fair skinned, light haired, blue eyed girl running through the woods wearing feminine garish clothing and bold colours such as bright pink or blue. Our representation is a dark skinned, dark eyed, dark haired girl wearing a masculine hoody and dark leggings. However as to not rule her out of being a victim for the audience we made sure that our actress (or 5th backup actress) had dark hair with maybe a blond highlight, and if we'd used one of the other actresses we would have used a temporary hair colouring spray or something of the like. Having highlights of blonde amongst the dark hair shows the audience that there is an element of femininity. We also used bright blue headphones, a typically feminine accessory, but we didn't use any other typical feminine props or items of clothing to again show that the running girl is vulnerable to a degree, but isn't guaranteed to be harmed in any way in the Thriller. The girl is wearing expensive looking trainers and running leggings, and also the emphasis on the blue headphones shows that she is wealthy enough to pay for such accessories. This is all a suggestion that she is upper class and again hints that she is a potential target without having her wearing gold jewellery.
We also chose an actress who is of a healthy build rather than a girl who looked stereotypically very skinny and weak. Our running girl appears strong and stands at an impressive 6 ft tall (Simone is very tall) to reverse connotations of weakness and to adhere to the archetypes of women being strong and dominant.
The sniper has a rugged look, bearded with long hair suggests a manual labourer or perhaps ex-military which was the look we were aiming for. There is more of a stereotype leaning towards the working class being killers or related to crime so we wanted to have an actor that looked the part, someone that the audience will expect to kill someone. Of course these apprehensions are confirmed once he opens his case to reveal a large, black sniper rifle.The sniper is seen wearing worker's boots instead of trainers or 
other footwear. We chose workers boots to again reinforce the fact that the sniper is from the working class, as you can see he is entirely dressed in black. Black has colour connotations of being evil and dark.
I directed the sniper to not smile or smirk, obviously smiling in a film unless there's reason to looks un professional, but when we were filming the actual murder of the male runner and the sniper has to acknowledge the death of the runner, we firstly instructed the actor to smile, however when re-watching the footage we decided that actually we didn't want the sniper to break out of the dark and mysterious character as it would destroy an pre-conceptions of him being evil and borderline psychopathic.
Similarly to the sniper, the male runner is dressed all in black, as said before black expresses connotations of evil and darkness. However the following plot reveals that the runner was innocent and was simply out for a jog without intention of killing anyone, a harmless person. We dressed him to look like a "villain" as we only see him through the scope, through the sniper's eyes and through his mind. In his mind he is evil and out to get his daughter (the female runner). I had to step in as the male runner but I fitted the profile of tall and threatening looking, despite the character not actually being threatening, it is again the sniper's perspective through the scope. The runner's clothes are dirty and he isn't wearing expensive looking clothing which suggests that he is working class, this has both connotations of the audience feeling more sympathy for him being killed as there is a known stereotype of the working class being very hard working and under appreciated so there is the sympathy for a working class victim is increased. 
The opening shot is a large, craning shot executed using the drone, the shot rises up above the woods and then tilts down to look at the treetops below, the camera moves above the trees for a while before cutting to a shot of the running girl, this shot was used to show how small and insignificant the girl is amongst the wilderness and how large and daunting the world outside her headphones is. High angles are then used to represent the girl as weak and vulnerable, we played towards the gender stereotype of women being weaker than men to create fake foreshadowing of the female runner being a target.
When we see what the sniper sees through the scope we are looking down on the girl from the sniper's perspective which again reinforces the stereotype of male dominance.
We used the prop rifle as a masculine symbol of power to maintain the stereotype, and it is also used to show the potential threat to the female runner which again makes her seem weak and above all vulnerable.
We used a series of close ups to portray the girl in our thriller, the shots are claustrophobic and show that the girl is in her own compact world. This greatly contrasts the huge opening drone shot showing the large size of the forrest she is in. This contrast shows the audience that she is not aware of how vulnerable she is and that in her mind she is strong in her own world and is oblivious to external threats.
In regards to sound we made all sound effects of the girl quiet and subtle as to not make her seem prominent or domineering, not only did we make the sound effects for the girl quiet , but we also made the sound effects for the sniper louder as to make the the difference in power and status between the characters more severe. For example the noise of her feet crunching on the dry leaves is very quiet in comparison to the heavy footsteps of the sniper as he walks across the gritty rooftop. Also the noises of the sniper cocking and loading his rifle are enhanced as they are short abrupt noises that help to create tension and to also establish quite a bold and intimidating character.
No comments:
Post a Comment