Planning characters - Miss Miller

It is essential to plan for characters within a narrative so that the producer can establish how the characters are going to interest the viewer in the narrative, and to also enable to the audience to build a relationship with the character on screen, by doing so creating responses and emotions for the viewers watching the film.

Planning sheet my group and I produced
for the characters in our narrative

The antagonist (played by myself) is the stalker of the narrative. The antagonist is present post argument between the characters, as he is the one chasing the female victim after the boyfriend has left her alone in a deserted car park, being chased through the alleyways. His occupation is unknown, as his is age, name, and background. The antagonist shall be wearing all dark clothing, consisting of a  black hoodie and black tracksuit bottoms, making him hard to be visible in the dark, as the later scenes consist of mainly low key lighting. This shall be done to connote to the audience that he is a dark person, portraying him as the antagonist of the narrative without having any prior information given. The character is stereotypical to the thriller genre as no addition information is given on the antagonist, creating an enigma with his character, an enigma in the opening sequence is typical to thriller films as it engages the viewer with the narrative, making them want to continue watching. The audience will create a relationship between the antagonist as they are going to associate him with evil and mystery in the narrative, due to the enigma and the way in which the character is perceived by the viewer, through doing such this will allow the viewer to engage with the narrative better due to them establishing a connection with the antagonist.

Nicole, the victim (played by Samantha Apperley) is the young girl in the narrative. She is the focus of the narrative, as she is present in every segment of the opening sequence. Firstly, she is shown arguing with her boyfriend at the beginning, after the argument where she gets left alone by her boyfriend she gets attacked and chased by the antagonist. She is a 17 year old, has blonde hair, is a student, is white British and shall be wearing jeans, jumper and a coat during the film. Her character is extremely stereotypical to the thriller genre as the victim in such films are identical to the one of our narrative, as she is a young blonde girl who is portrayed as being vulnerable and is put in a position of danger. The argument between Nicole and her boyfriend is sparked due to her being cheated on, which from the off makes the audience to feel sympathy for her, which is only increased due to the nature of the events to follow in the narrative. The audience will feel further sympathy for her because of the way in which she is portrayed as being a "damsel in distress", from creating this relationship between the viewer allows to make the producer to create responses and emotions towards her as they want her to escape from the antagonist unharmed.

Zak, the third and final character (played by Mikaeel Khaliq) is the boyfriend of Nicole in the narrative. He is 17 year old student who is brown British and shall be wearing Jeans and a coat during filming. He is only present before and during the argument scene, in which she ditchs his former girlfriend and leaves her alone in a deserted car park. From doing such, the audience will instantly dislike him as a character as he is portrayed as being in the wrong, yet he only further worsens his perception to the viewer from doing this. This will make the viewer favour Nicole over him, making them create a hostile relationship with him as a character, making the events of the victim to follow seem worse, making the viewer feel further sympathy for her. He character is stereotypical as he is portrayed as being the abusive big boyfriend, his girlfriend being the damsel in distress who is unhappy due to his actions. The audience will further engage with the narrative because of his character as due to his actions, the viewer feels sorry for the girl and creates a relationship with her, due to this the viewer is put on edge because of the events to follow.


I believe that the characters in our narrative are very conventional, as they are extremely similar to that of characters in thriller films of a similar nature, and are portrayed in the same way and to the same affect for the viewer. They will emphasis the genre of the sequence as the viewer will associate the sequence we produce to those of real ones, as we will follow the conventions of the thriller genre, be that with the production and the characters themselves, as they have typical characteristics of characters in similar types of thriller sequences. I have found planning helpful in preparation for the filming process as I am now aware as to how my group and I need to portray the characters when filming, making sure we do it in a way that portrays them in the intended way.