Character Background - Rhys

Rhys’ background is very much covered in the film synopsis. Rhys has always heard a voice inside his head; the voice of a woman; as a result of his schizophrenia. He was not diagnosed with this illness until he became 17, and so, much of his behaviour has been incomprehensible to his peers and he therefore has become rejected by society as he’s gotten older. However, as a result of his late diagnosis Rhys’ condition has developed and worsened as oppose to being treated. With the combination of his drug habits his illness has manifested itself in his mind; his smoking of cannabis since he was 13 and recent mixture of prescription drugs with LSD at a certain rave. This manifestation included the production of a visual hallucination to go along with the voice in his head; this being the woman in the gas mask. This covers Rhys’ mental situation.

Rhys’ family and friends are hardly that which you would call them- they have become too afraid to be in close contact with him and therefore Rhys is a very isolated character which contributes to his lack of acceptable social behaviour and thinking. It’s a mystery to why his condition wasn’t recognised earlier in his life – probably because he was fairly secluded to begin with, so no one was really close enough to him to notice.

Drugs and music is how Rhys tries to cope with his abnormal life, in actual fact he fails to realise what is normal or reality. His mind is so distorted that he is unable to conform to the regularities of human behaviour. Perhaps his relation to music is an exception to this- as most people do enjoy music as a form of expression. Aside from this, he is quite out of the ordinary.

This character doesn’t care for appearances, or doesn’t understand the need or desire to, and thus dresses very casually and perhaps fairly scruffily. Clothes are clothes to him; material objects don’t hold much importance in his mind. In his spare time it is apparent that he spends quality moments with himself – either held up in his flat or out on walks to goodness knows where. Nobody really knows what he thinks about or what he gets up to. 

Initial Ideas (Brain Storming)

Here's a mind map with some of my initially brainstormed ideas for our thriller opening and plot. Eventually we went with one of Rebekah Bigwood's ideas as we all preferred hers to our own.

Thriller opening ideas mind map

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Prelim Task Finished.

Here is the end product of our Preliminary Task :

(Posted a little late..)

Comment on Synopsis

Film Synopsis (Jos' Blog)

 We all discussed what the main plot of the film would be, and how our main character would end up in the woods according to our opening. We went through ideas of a childhood hallucination or imaginary friend being carried on into adulthood, and as Rhys got older people tried to convince him this character wasn't real. This made him angry and hostile, and overall put in chosen seclusion from other people - in turn this causes the creations of his mind to become violent (and this is how the Lady in the Gas Mask would differ from in the mind and in reality). This was one of our initial ideas.

 However we then collectively came up with the idea of drug involvement, and Jos came up with a storyline that combined a mental illness (schizophrenia) with drug abuse and we all agreed that this was an appropriate storyline (click above link for details).

 Me and Jos also discussed that if this was the background story, and the character was in the forest (having run away) in the beginning - what would happen in the rest of the film? Therefore we decided that the end of the film is what is to be shown in the opening - and the background story is therefore unravelled in the rest of the film (the drug taking, development of schizophrenia etc). So, evidently the film's structure is jumbled- with the end at the beginning. This is often a popular narrative (such as in Brick, 2006) as it catches the viewers interest with an exciting scene that is yet to be explained (makes the viewer want to watch the rest of the film to understand what on earth happened for such a shocking climax to occur at the end of it).

Character Background – The Lady in the Gas Mask

This character dresses in dark clothing and a gas mask. This is meant to portray her mysteriousness and the audience's (and other character's) unsureness of her. The character is in fact a long term hallucination that is manifested by the main character, Rhys. The Lady in the Gas Mask is first brought into existence by Rhys' condition of schizophrenia. At childhood, Rhys' mind only holds this character as voice in his head. When he mixes his prescription drugs for his condition with LSD at a rave, his hallucination changes to a visual which continually develops it's 'power'; eventually her existence differs from in his mind to in his reality. Consequently, she can not only manipulate his mind but interact with him physically as well. 

Rhys' relationship with his family and friends decreases significantly over time, making him more secluded, paranoid and hostile as his mental illness and drug abuse takes over. In turn, this causes the uncontrollable part of his mind to also become more hostile, resulting in The Lady in the Gas Mask becoming violent.

This idea was derived from the character of 'Frank' from the move 'Donnie Darko'. In this film, the main character (Donnie) is kept in the company of his sort of 'imaginary friend' which is a large grey bunny rabbit with a scary face. Donnie seems to change over time in the film and ends up doing crazy things, he also goes for therapy sessions and hypnosis as a result. At the end of the film we meet a character that supposedly exists in reality that looks like the bunny Frank, in reality it is a normal man called Frank in a halloween costume. The idea of a character moving from in the mind (in intellectu) and in reality (in re) appealed to us as a group and therefore decided the derive our own character of a similar nature - but with our own little quirky twist.

Thriller Opening Costume Ideas 2

Here are the original annotated sketches and image compilations of the other main character's (Rhys') costumes.
We will probably go ahead with these ideas as we want this character to appear fairly simple and scruffy, therefore his outfit is not too complicated.

Sketches

Image Compilation

Thriller Opening Costume Ideas

Here are the original sketches and computer application of costume ideas for one of our characters (the lady wearing the gas mask).
A character background with details on casting should follow shortly.

Sketches
Image Compilation