Angel Bird

Representation

We have two characters in our opening sequence. To a certain extent we wanted to
include some codes and conventions so that it would be obvious to our audience that
it is the opening sequence of a horror film. However, we didnt want to make the
characters too stereotypical as they would have no depth and the audience wouldnt
connect to them.

Character 1: The Victim (Sarah)

Gender: The victim is a female. We decided to keep this aspect stereotypical and
have the weak and vulnerable character female as this is one of the main
conventions of a horror film. Throughout the sequence, she is portrayed as the
damsel in distress who is in need of saving. Her look is quite innocent, to heighten
sympathy for the character. We decided to have her dressed in normal work clothes
so that it connects with the back-story of our film, and we didnt want to make the
stereotype too obvious by having her wear a dress.

Race: The victim also conforms to the stereotype of race as she is white. We
decided it would be easier to film with a white actress, as where we are filming is
going to have low key lighting. Therefore with a Black or Asian actress we would
have had to rethink how we were going to light the area, which would have changed
our idea of mise en scene.

Age: The victim in our opening sequence is quite young. We were quite limited when
finding actors, as our film didnt have a very large budget. It was essential to the
storyline that the victim looked old enough to work, which she did. Although we were
sceptical to start with that the victim looked quite young, we found that this added
innocence to her character. This helped us to create a character that the audience
would sympathise with.

Disability: The victim has no visible disability in our opening sequence. We decided
to do this as we thought it may shock the audience too much if she had a disability,
as she is the first character seen to be killed.

Sexuality: In our opening sequence it is not shown whether the victim is homosexual
or heterosexual. We didnt draw the audiences attention to this as we didnt think
that it was relevant to the narrative in our opening sequence.

The victim in our opening sequence is quite stereotypical to the victim of a horror
film. As she is just a character seen in the opening sequence and does not play a
main part in the rest of our film, we didnt mind if plays is a stereotype. We thought it
would be a good opportunity to include the codes and conventions of a horror film,
and since this character doesnt feature heavily in the rest of our 90 minute film, we
dont need the audience to form a connection with her.





Angel Bird
Character 2: The Killer (Jessica)

Gender: Our killer is female. We wanted to have a main part of our sequence that
was countertypical to misdirect the audience and keep them interested in the
storyline of our film. However, to keep the tension we decided not to reveal the
antagonists gender until the end of our opening sequence.

Race: The race of our character is also not revealed until the end of the sequence;
however she is white. Again, we decided it would be easier to film with a white
actress, as where we are filming is going to have low key lighting. Therefore with a
Black or Asian actress we would have had to rethink how we were going to light the
area, which would have changed our idea of mise en scene.

Age: Her age could be debatable, however it is likely that she is around the same
age as our victim. This is quite countertypical as normally in horror films, the killer is
at least in their mid-twenties.

Disability: The killer has no visible disability in our opening sequence. We decided on
this because we needed our antagonist to scare the audience and have power over
the other characters. However stereotypically disabled people are portrayed as weak
and vulnerable.

Sexuality: In our opening sequence it is assumed that the killer is heterosexual as on
the board you see a photo of a man, who she appears to be in love with.

The antagonist in our opening sequence plays a main part, yet is mysterious as
hardly any information is revealed about her until the very end of the sequence. We
wanted keep her backstory and traits concealed from the audience as it is a
juxtaposition to the fact that the audience see where she spends her time (the
garage) so feel they have a personal connection to her that way. We also wanted to
keep her description concealed as we thought this would be more frightening, keep
the audience enticed and make them want to watch the rest of our film to find out
more about her and her motives.