Character Profiles & Casting

Victim- Katie Preece

Outer presence- young teenager girl, in her fitness clothes going out for a jog. She has blonde hair and is petite. Katie's appearance suits the role of a victim as she has blonde hair and is petite. Blonde haired people are stereotypically dumb and naïve therefore she will be stereotyped by the audience immediately. This could seem like a typical, easy target to the protagonist. As she is a teenager, she will be stereotyped as quite care free and having a bad attitude, thus the villain has something in for her and it reinforces her vulnerability. Katie struts around with attitude to show she knows that she is attractive and popular. Therefore Katie thinks everyone loves her, however they don’t. She has a confident personality as she has never had anything go wrong in her life therefore she finds it hard to understand others and is extremely self centred.

Inner presence- innocent, confident, full of herself

Context- upper class, large house, wealthy family, only child

Experience- Katie did GCSE drama and enjoys acting. She also has an interest in film studies and art therefore she is a very creative person.

Lesson learnt- Katie learns that the attention she is constantly getting is not always good. This is because her confident personality attracts a obsessive psycho. Thus she realises she does not need to be so self centred and needs to consider others.

Villain- Jake Griffith

Outer presence- Jake suits the role of a villain as he is tall and has dark hair. The dark hair can connote the protagonists evil side. Moreover, as the villain is tall he can seem intimidating and overpowering to the audience which emphasizes how he is dangerous and is using the young girl as a target. Jake will be wearing dark clothing which will emphasize his sinister personality and make him seem sly as he hides behind the trees in the woods. The colour black will hide his true identity from the audience. Jake has a bipolar personality thus he has a quick temper and peoples actions annoy him easily. Therefore he jealously reacts to his brothers girlfriend Katie.

Inner presence- evil, sinister, jealous

Context- Jake lives in a small house and shares a room with his brother Frazer. Jake comes from a broken family and doesn’t have a mother. Jake was close to his brother Frazer until he got a girlfriend (Katie) and stopped spending as much time with him.

Experience- Jake did GCSE drama and is currently doing A-level drama therefore he is a confident actor and can play an evil villain. He enjoys acting and is suitable to the role.

Lesson learnt- Jake realises that he should build better relationships with his family and needs to learn to accept that things in life do change. However he will always have his brother around and does not need to get jealous over Katie.

Existing media

‘The gift’ is a psychological thriller film. The film is based on a couple that are intimidated by a figure from their past. A married couple, Simon and Robyn move to LA when Simon finds a new job. While out they run into Gordon, Simon's former high school classmate. Gordo begins dropping in unannounced, and delivering gifts. He makes Simon uncomfortable, but Robyn thinks Simon is being unkind. Gordo invites the couple to his home when he receives a phone call and leaves but when he returns, Simon tells him to stay away from his family. The next day, Robyn finds the fish dead in their pond and their dog missing. Simon drives to Gordo's house to confront him, but discovers it is not his home. In the days following, Robyn suspects she is not alone in the house while Simon is at work. Robyn becomes pregnant and at her baby shower, Simon's sister tells her that, at school, Simon and his friend Greg reported that Gordo was being molested. Gordo was bullied afterwards and had to transfer. As a result of the story, Gordo's father thought he was homosexual and nearly killed him. Later on Simon finds another gift box containing footage of Gordo preparing to molest Robyn after she fainted months earlier but the footage cuts out. Gordo visits Robyn in the hospital to congratulate her. We used ‘The gift’ as an influence for our film idea as it is based on a psychotic man that becomes obsessed with a female due to previous events. The man uses the female as a target and his end goal is to abuse her and get pay back.