Creating Charlotte Westbridge

This is our Psychotic Character, inspired from a range of different characters from famous films, (obsessed, The Roomate, Single White female and more) we have created 'Charlotte Westbridge'. We have looked at conventions of a trailer and researched psychological thrillers in depth. We chose a talented drama student to be this character, which is key to make the character convincing and as psychotic as possible.

There is a picture of me creating the dark circles under her eyes, this makes the character more neglected and 'hard-done-by'. It also show her tiredness and desperate attempts to get close to Charlotte. At first she has to seem fairly normal but with a unusual and strange way of speaking and body language. Her behaviour gets worse and eventually deteriorates. However, the resolution to the trailer is not shown and is a mystery, making the film appealing and leaves the audience wanting more.

The Characters

These pictures show the particular characters we will use in our film. There is a general description about each one. We feel confident about our cast, most are drama students with a lot of talent, it should be easier to make our film look more effective.
The group of friends of friends are Summer’s ‘gang’, she is a popular girl so we wanted to portray this by having a big group of friends. In some scenes Summer will be chatting and laughing with them, this is to show the audience what character she is. This is not yet the definite group as we will cast properly near the time, but we wanted some shots of boys and girls laughing and having fun together.
The pictures are of the popular girl, Summer, is shown here, Imogen will definitely be playing this role. One picture shows the confident and quirky side to her and the other picture shows the more arrogant and 'knows she's popular' look.
The picture of the older male is Mr. Swain, who is the teacher who asks Summer to befriend Charlotte.
The next picture is of Chris, Summer's boyfriend. He looks friendly, good looking
and also conserved 'knows he's popular' look. He is in a happy relationship with Summer and they both go well together.
We also took a picture of Chris’s best friend, as he may have a role to play in it/
Summer's best friend is friendly and caring, her a Summer have a strong friendship however, while Summer sees good in everybody, Chloe does not. She tries to warn her about Charlottes behaviour but Summer at first brushes it off

Our Location Shots

These are some photo's we took for our location. It was done so that the scenes we shoot will show these types of location. A shot of the front of the house is shown when Summer comes out of her home and Charlotte is waiting there for her. We took shots at both night and in the day to get a contrast of what it will look like on film.

Taking the photos in the night also show the eerie feel when Charlotte's mad behaviour increases, for example, there are some shots in the evening when she is in Summers Garden.

The shots of the side of the house are used to show when Charlotte hides and spies on Summer.

There is also a picture of Summer's room where Charlotte breaks in and drugs Summers boyfriend.

These location shots are important when deciding whereabouts to film our trailer.

'Obsessed'

Our ideas are now coming together and soon we will be taking shots of our chosen characters, location shots, doing a written description on them and planning our script.

While our plans are progressing I still want to broaden my knowledge on our chosen my genre. I just watched the film 'Obsessed' and looked at conventions, including the conventions of the characters. The film relates to our story line very well therefore it is a good film to research, similar to 'Fatal Attraction' a women becomes romantically obsessed with a man who is a husband as well as a father. The male is a successful business man which is the same in both films. This made me think that power and status has something to do with why the females become romantically obsessed. In our film, a girl (Charlotte) becomes obsessed with a pretty popular girl (Summer), she doesn't have high status because of her work but because she is popular, therefore has a high social status.

Researching films such as these gives me not only inspiration but helps me look at conventions. It also gives me a better insight to how to portray characters our own film by looking at the camera work, how the characters are shown and conventions of our genre - a psychological thriller.

Storyboard

We have taken all of our research and development ideas - put them together and created a final storyboard. We have sketched out some potential shots of the characters and added some description.

The Story as it stands...

* Fade in from black. Establishing shot of the classroom with voice over of Charlotte and office lady. The classroom door opens. Summer is there with a group of friends.

* Teacher asking summer to keep an eye on Charlotte and help her out.

* Summer is kind and friendly towards Charlotte and convinces her friends not to make fun of her further.

* (Two Shot) Summer speaks to Charlotte about her past and why she's moved. Charlotte doesn't reveal much.

* A Mid-shot of Charlotte looking in the mirror fixing a wig to her head, exactly like Summers hair. She looks sinister as it zooms in. A voice over of Summer's boyfriend ''The girl is kinda weird'' ''Shes not that bad'', while this is happening.

* Charlotte starts being obsessive with Summer, following her everywhere. A reverse shot of Charlotte outside Summer's bedroom window is shown. Music intensifies.

* Another shot of Charlotte outside Summers house is shown. A conversation with Summer and her mum, Summer trying to explain to her that Charlotte is acting weird and obsessive, but she is reluctant to listen.

* Charlotte acts jealous whenever Summer is with anyone else. Summer avoids her and this infuriates her even more.

* Charlotte drugs summers boyfriend and takes pictures of them together on the same bed.

* Cuts begin to quicken, the audience is unaware of what going to happen/happening. A shot of Charlotte crying hysterically with Slashed wrists is shown.

* Another quick cut of Summer crying in a dark room 'Why are you doing this?' 'Because I love you'. - this hasn't given too much away. How did she get there? What does she know? are some questions the audience might be thinking. Music is quick and creating tension.

* Another quick cut of summer screaming trying to get away, while she is being dragged back.

* The last shot is of Summer's boyfriend laying down on a bed, opening his eyes. Then, as if from nowhere Charlotte's crazed face appears and goes to stab/strangle him. Music stops and the title of the film appears. The audience does not see the resolution and does not see if he dies or not. Fades out to black.

THE ROOMATE - Official Trailer

Here is the trailer for 'The Roommate'. It is similar to 'Single White Female', in the way a roommate becomes obsessed with the young female. We wanted to show a new modern and relevant way of constructing our own film and taken ideas from this as it is very recent. Although the trailer seems very cheesey and unoriginal some of the camera shots are very effective. For example, the last shot when the girl is laying in bed and suddenly the girl appears as if from know where. Also, the one where she is in the library and the male protagonist moves the book and she is there looking through at him. This shows her increasingly obsessive behaviour in which we hope to portray also in out film.

Our Synopsis

We have decided to go with the idea of the psychotic character taking an interest in a particular girl at school. This has been inspired by a range of films we have researched. The Roommate, Fatal Attraction, Single White Female and One hour Photo.

The trailer will begin with an establishing shot of the popular girl, Summer, in a classroom laughing with all her friends and boyfriend. This would be aligned with a voiceover of the new girl, Charlotte. A voiceover would consist of one of the characters at any time during the film, providing insight into who they are and what they think. Charlotte then is seen at the office coming in as a new girl at the school, so the audience see the contrast between the confidence in the two characters.

It then cuts to a teacher talking to Summer saying something along the lines of 'There is a new girl coming to the school and she needs someone who knows the school well to show her around' Reluctantly, Summer agrees as she is scared it will ruin her reputation. Surprisingly, Charlotte is actually alright, with slight hints of social unawareness here and there. Charlotte starts impersonating Summer by wearing similar make up and buying a red wig in private. Reverse shots are used here in the mirror. Summer's boyfriend, Chris, is reluctant to welcome Charlotte as she seems odd to him. Summer reassures him that she is a friendly person even if she is a bit weird, so he has to be nice to her. He agrees until, she makes a move on him and he rejects her so she drugs him and takes photos of the two of them when she is impersonating Summer. In the trailer Charlotte goes to kill Chris but there isn't a resolution so not too much is being given away at this point.

We will aim to build suspense while showing this throughout the trailer with effects such as music and slow fades to make it seem more building in tension.

Scriptwriting - Planning & Deciding Our Final Plot

(This useful and relevant information was taken from 'The Guardian - How to make a film' leaflet)

When you have an idea for a film, the next step is to write a treatment (also known as a synopsis), which summaries the key events in the story. A simple story line can be broken down into a 5 step structure.

1. Exposition - opening premise and setting of the scene.

2. Development - the situation is built on and moves forward.

3. Complication - An event changes the situation

4. Climax - A decisive point where everything comes together

5. Resolution - The outcome is reached. However, a resolution is never shown in a trailer

otherwise it defeats the object.

The protagonist is the central character in a narrative whose actions propel the story forward. There are three classic protagonist:

Dramatic - They succeed due to their efforts

Tragic - They fail in spite of their efforts

Comic - They succeed in spite of their efforts.

This information is mainly used for films, the audience wouldn't be able to tell what kind of protagonist our actress is because the whole film isn't shown. However, some aspects of the Dramatic and Tragic character may be shown through some of the script. A comic character would not be appropriate in this film genre.

Trailer Single White Female(1992)

This is a trailer from the film 'Single White Female'. Originally our media teacher told us about this film so we decided to research it. We could use the idea of a film based around the psychotic character who 'would kill to be her'. We feel like it will be a fairly easy thing to interpret into our film. Again, like all trailers the character seems fairly normal to start with however the tension and her unusual behaviour increases. We would then need to change the age of the character to two young females instead of a middle aged protagonist.

Choosing Our Character

Here are some pictures we took of two possible characters we could use for our coursework. One is a middle age female protagonist as the psychotic character, and one middle age male. We wanted to portray the inner psychopath

therefore we used close ups to show facial expression. We wanted the male pictures to be similar to the photos of 'Hannibal Lector' in 'Silence of the Lambs', therefore lighting would be an important factor; highlighting the eyes creating shadows underneath him and from behind.

The pictures of the female are to also represent 'Alex' from 'Fatal Attraction', showing a empty and vacant expression.

These pictures, we found, really capture the essence of the 'Psychopathic' character. Choosing this character after these photos was decided relatively easily. We may also use these pictures for ideas in our magazine and advertising poster.

Mood Board

Here is a mood board we constructed to show all of our research on different films and ideas that we have come up with. Its useful to extract important images from the types of films we've been looking at to inspire our own. We feel that these pictures capture the emotion from the films showing main scenes and also the film's advertising posters.

We took pictures from 'one hour photo', 'the omen', 'fatal attraction', 'Haunting in Connecticut', 'Silence of the lambs', 'The hills have eyes' and 'Obsessed'.

From the pictures gathered we can see the most appropriate psychotic figure would be either an older male, middle aged female/young female, or a child. For our film we we're thinking or a boyfriend or mother figure (or someone who has a close connection with the protagonist) to be the psycho.

The lighting in most of these pictures is very effective, look how Hannibal Lecter in the bottom left hand corner has lighting from below and behind him to give a frightening look about him. His eyes and face look dark compared to the rest of him. The picture of Damien from 'The Omen' shows him standing in front of hundreds of graves showing he is in control of evil.

Some of the characters however, look like victims in themselves. Sye from 'One hour photo' seems scared and alone in the pictures and in a way the audience feels sorry for them. In 'Fatal Attraction' the audience cant help but feel sorry and sympathy for 'Alex' in some parts of the film. I feel this is what makes a good psychotic character.

The Psychotic Character

Norman Bates. One of the most influential 'Psychotic Characters' from the well known movie 'Psycho'. He is based on a real person with a split personality disorder. He frequently throughout the film becomes 'his dead mother' When faced with situations Norman lets his once highly controlling mother take over. The crazy, deluded character of a seemingly boy-next-door is influential in most psychotic characters today.

'The shining is considered one of the best films ever made. Jack Torrence (the neurotic character in this film) takes up the responsibility of a caretaker of a hotel. He is troubled by alcohol and writers block which slowly takes over him. His son Danny has a unique ability of 'The Shining' which allows him to see the past and future, its interpreted that the dark spirit uses Jack as a way to kill Danny.

The Uninvited, a new horror film also contains the mentally disturbed character, Anna. After her mothers death in a fire, Anna was admitted to a mental hospital, and was released 10 months later having to recollection of the incident. However dreams with 3 children and the strong belief that her mothers killer is the carer and her fathers new girlfriend constantly reoccur. Strange occurrences mount and the ending has a very big twist to the film, she is the killer all along without realising it. I wanted to add this character as I feel it is a good change from the typical middle-age male character. Its giving me the idea to use a younger psychotic role and helps show variety within my research.

This research has helped me look at the conventions of a psycho-type character and helped me conclude my own storyline. I believe that the character that is often portrayed in most psychological films tend to seem perfectly fine at the beginning of the film, however, the unusual behaviour builds up as the film progresses, ending with them having their final break down and the conclusion is drawn to an end. In a trailer, only the key parts of their behaviour is shown. For example, the ordinary behaviour/equilibrium then the disturbances mounting and dis-equilibrium - this is the ending of the trailer as the makers key aim is to make the audience want to see more.

Fatal Attraction Trailer

I recently watched 'Fatal Attraction' and really enjoyed it. It helped me develop some ideas on my own piece. While researching Psychological Thrillers, we decided to include the 'Psychotic Character'. This is conventional in many psychological thriller films, such as 'Psycho', 'Obsessed', 'The Uninvited' and many more.