Character Discussion - Miss Miller

Character Discussion 

The purpose of the characters is that we need people for the audience to build relationships with in, in order for them to be interested in the narrative. Before we start filming the actual sequence, we need to start planning each characters description and role within the sequence so that it makes it easier for us to start filming where exactly each characters is positioned within the sequence. Furthermore, if we already plan each characters then it will be easier for us to plan how the audience can build relationships with each character.

Character Roles

Bettie;

For the majority of the sequence, Bettie would be represented as any typical 16 year old girl. She would be a sixth form student just walking through the forest with her average friends. Her friends at the same would have the same background as her so at this point we assume that they are all within the same background. Bettie would be dressed in casual clothes just like any of the other group members so there background would be seen as the same. She would be seen as a typical teenager until the point where the sequence reveals her true identity of being a cannibal killer. This will help build relationships with the audience because Bettie throughout the majority of the sequence would be typically the same as the viewers of our sequence as the ages of our characters are the same as our target audience.  As Bettie is classed as 'normal' throughout most of the sequence the audience build a trust relationship with her as they are similar within their background so when Bettie's true identity is revealed this gives the audience a shock and breaks the trusted relationship that they had, so this helps the audience engage with the narrative better. This would make it easy for our audience to engage with the sequence and to the characters as they live the same lifestyle,are the same age and typically have the same background of being students. Bettie's character is conventional to a thriller genre as she is referred as the antagonist who is killing people, so her role as the murderer would be typical to the thriller genre. Furthermore, during the sequence she also has blood around her mouth which is a typical convention towards the thriller genre. However, she can also be classed as unconventional as her character is a female. Typically, females tends too be the weak, vulnerable characters however in this sequence the female is the strong, dominant character in contrast to the rest of the characters. This is unconventional as the female is not weak and contains a lot of power in which she has the ability to murder other characters. 

Before                                                                                     After

  

Kane;

 In our sequence, Kane is referred to as Bettie's victim. Just like Bettie's role near the start of the sequence, Kane would be seen as a typical student just like her. Kane is a typical 16 year old boy who is a student in sixth form who does not have any peculiar behavior unlike Bettie.  Kane would be seen in normal, casual clothing just like the other characters so the audience assume that everyone is within the same background. Kane's character would be stereotypical to a thriller genre as Kane is displayed as the innocent victim so his role of playing the victim is stereotypical to the genre as his characters consist of him being vulnerable. I find that the characteristics consist of will help the audience engage more because Kane's characters is more relatable to the audience in contrast to Bettie's characters so because he is more relatable, the audience will then have the ability to build a more trusted, stronger emotional relationship with him as they can relate their everyday lifestyles to his. Furthermore, his character is also the same age as our target audience which makes the character even more relatable to build a relationship with. Also, most of our audience will most likely still be in education at school and Kane's character is seen a sixth form student so this can help develop a stronger bond with the audience so that they can engage and sympathize more with the narrative of the story as they will tend to build a more emotional relationship with Kane more than any other character because he is the only victim that the audience have witness be murdered.

Before                                                                                             After

The remaining characters within our sequence will not have a big role and are only seen as background characters. However, they way that they will be displayed will be very similar to Bettie's and Kane's appearance; as everyone in this 'group' has a close relationship with one another, they are all from the same age group and go to the same school. The characters will be a mixture of 3 boys and 3 girls so that the gender is balanced as a whole. All the background characters will be dressed the same, keeping their appearance casual but not too eye-catching as we would like the main focus to be on Bettie and Kane as they will have the bigger impact on the audience. This enables the characters to be stereotypical to a thriller genre as they will make the sequence more realistic as they are making the sequence more relatable too any of our audience's lifestyle so they can allow the audience to be more engaged within the sequence. The background of these characters are the same as our target audience, so they will have the ability to build the trust between them and the audience as they audience can relate their lives to the characters. Furthermore, the gender is balanced between the group and we find that our audience is most likely to have a balance in gender so this will help the audience become more engaged and build a stronger bond and relationship.


I find that all our characters have different roles on purpose so that we have a wide range of characteristics which then impacts on the audience more. I find that each character is conventional to a thriller genre is their own perspectives; Bettie is the antagonist who is also a cannibal which is extremely conventional to a thriller, Kane is seen as the vulnerable victim which is also very conventional to a thriller genre. The background characters will help make the sequence more realistic which will help make the sequence more conventional. We hope that this will emphasize the contrast in roles and help impact the audience by building two totally different relationships with the different characters. Bettie's role will help emphasise the evil that lives within her, and Kane's role will help enhance a more sympathetic relationship with the audience. The background characters will help emphasize the reality of this scenario and build a more emotional impacted relationship with the characters. Together, this will help create a wide range of emotions which will then allow the audience to become more engaged within the sequence.

I find this planning as been very helpful in preparation for our filming as it as helped us create a small character profile for the characters which then will give us the ability to start planning how each individual character is going to be displayed in order to support our ideas. Furthermore, it has helped us create a better understand of each character so now we know how to represent each character and how each character will impact on the audience based on their backgrounds and characteristics. It has also given us the ability to develop our previous idea's as now we have a better knowledge of how it impacts the audience and how it's conventional.