Character and Costume Planning

Efa

Efa is the young woman who witnesses the masked murderer murder someone. I chose the name Efa because it has a meaning of "alive" - which is ironic because she is running away from death. Efa will be played by my friend Heather. She takes drama for a-level so I cast her as this character because I know that she will play the character effectively. I want Efa to be an unassuming and gentle character - thus enhancing the suspense that the audience will feel towards her. I chose a female victim as opposed to a male one because my audience research told me that most people thought that having a female victim character would be more effective in creating tension. Heather has blonde hair which has connotations of innocence and an angelic persona so I think this will work well if I leave her hair down and possibly in curls. In terms of costume, I want Efa to be wearing something white in the initial flash back scenes as this conveys her to be innocent when she witnesses the murder. However, when she is in the woods in the latter parts of the thriller I will put her in red and white. This is to demonstrate to the audience that she is in danger but she is still the innocent character. An example of her outfits would be as below:

Masked Murderer

The masked murderer is a psychotic male. I chose to make the murderer a male because my audience research conveyed that people thought a male psycho would be effective in creating suspense and tension. I chose for the murderer to be masked because I felt that by hiding their expression the tension would be increased because it is unclear to the audience who the murderer is - thus their identity is concealed. I have cast my 15 year old brother - Sean - to be the masked murderer because he has been in various drama productions and I feel he could play the character well. He won't have to do much in terms of facial expression because he will have a mask on for the whole film except the last scene - but the audience will only see his mouth. I want the masked murderer to be wearing a dark costume which conceals his identity. This means that my characters will be following Helmut Nickel's black hats white hats theory. I will buy a black cloak and a mask for Sean to wear in the scenes that he is in. An example of what this would be: