Characterisation

Our opening narrative includes only 2 characters. Our group felt that having less characters would make it less complicated, and easier to follow the conventions of the thriller genre.

We had a classic thriller villain. he was unidentifiable, but hints are given with things such as his face being in the shot, but out of focus, so we cannot tell exactly who he is. This is our unidentifiable menace.

The other character in our opening, is the cliche thriller genre helpless woman. The so called 'damsel in distress' is the typical vulnerable woman victim, that apparently can't fight back, but simply run. We feel these characters were the best fit to an achievable effective opening sequence. The male villain character shows dominance from the start of our narrative, as all the camera shots show the man as being at a higher level looking down on her. The victim is also tied to a chair, and has duct tape on her mouth, therefore she is not only scared and vulnerable, but she is unable to help herself in anyway.

Our opening scene has influences from each of the different theories. Theory #1 (Vladmir Propp) fits in with our narrative because there are 2 of the characters included that fit in with Propp's idea of the different roles in the characters. It then fits in with Theory #2 because of Todorov's idea of an equilibrium, and a disequilibrium. The equilibrium is seen in the planned flashback, and the disequilibrium comes when the villain abducts her. The narrative then fits theory #3 because of the idea of an antagonist/protagonist. The protagonist in our story is the unidentifiable menace.