Costumes in our Thriller Film

Costumes in our Thriller Film 

Costumes play a broad role in not just in the thriller genre of film, but in all motion pictures released.  Costumes are a storytelling tool, communicating subtle details of each character’s personality and history quickly and economically to the audience. They help actors leave their own personalities behind and become new and believable people on screen. A great example of this would be in the form of Sean Bean's character in the film 'Essex Boys'. The shirt that character Jason is wearing is very floral and flamboyant which creates an image to the audience of Jason that he is not afraid to be seen and portrays that he is a violent, dangerous individual. 

Sean Bean (Jason from Essex Boys)

The character I play in our thriller film is one that is set out to cause a sense of illusion and deception for the audience.  In order to establish this personality i chose to wear a hoody, which gives me the opportunity to hide a part of my identity as I was able to elevate my hood to cover a good deal of my head and some of my face. The fact that i have my hood up throughout the thriller film also establishes a stereotypical view of danger and a thug like personality. I also decided that in order to blend in with the surroundings I would dress myself in normal everyday, casual clothing, this way i don't stand out in a crowd and can blend in as a normal civilised citizen that the audience wouldn't expect capable of performing a deed that occurs later on in our thriller film. 

As shown above this is the sweatshirt worn by myself in our thriller film. The aspect of this sweatshirt helps to both establish generic thriller convention but also create deception within the audience. We chose for me to wear this specific colour of jumper as red is a significant colour in thriller films, it symbolises both love and passion and in our case danger, murder and criminality. The  fact that I have chosen to wear a bold black colour of hoodie makes the red stand out even more as I am wearing it underneath the hoody. The use of red in our thriller is to give the audience a strong colour, another contrast of colours in the fact that some of our locations having dark and dismal lighting such as the car park and underpass. Red portrays a sense of danger and this creates a sense of deception for the audience as they initially think that i am the character that could be a threat and seek murder apon Toby who I appear to be following in a sly manor. As our film progresses the audience become aware that I am in fact not the threat and leaves a sense of mystery as to who committed the murder and left me lying helplessly dead on the floor of the lift. 

Below are some screenshots from our rough cut of costumes used

This screenshot shows Jack, suited in black hoodie and vibrant red sweatshirt, along with dark denim jeans. 

Shown here is a screenshot of Toby who in our thriller film is wearing an olive green jacket with black jeans and grey faded plimsole type shoes. The fact that Toby has no part of his identity hidden by a hood like myself suggests he is a more vulnerable character in our film.