Annabel and Alice Young
Always wearing matching outfits, school uniforms.
We chose to have these two characters wearing matching outfits as it seems to show that Annabel has never had any other childhood friends, the only way that she can imagine a friend is by creating a similar version of herself to play with. Its also slightly unnerving for the viewer to see two girls dressed exactly the same, and there is an element of slight confusion created that relates to the conventions of the thriller genre; confusion and the mind constantly at effort to figure out what is happening. In terms of contextual references; after watching The Shining we noticed that the use of twins dressed similarly was unnerving and created discomfort for the audience, we felt this was due to the unnatural similarity of the characters and wanted to mirror this technique in our work. To contribute to this further, the use of school uniform signifys youth and innocence and this, contrasted with the way that her dad handles her, creates an element of fear. We are scared that the innocence is irretreivable after the Fathers mistreatment of her. The collars of the uniform are up high on the necks of the children, and the skirts are below the knee; we wanted to cover up the girls well as we wanted to illiminate any sense of them being seductive or abused; this comes later. We felt that it contrasted well with the way that Annabel (her older self) washes herself in the bath. Her innocence is lost and she is more seductive than in her youth. We felt that this made a statement about the impact of parenting; bad parenting leading to loss of innocence, and the need to objectify yourself to gain the attention that you crave.
Annabel and Alice Older
Annabel, in the bath, wears nothing; we felt that this made the scene very personal which leads to discomfort when the personal scene is invaded by the character of Alice. To add to this, the way that Annabel is naked also is evokative to the males, connoting the loss of innocence as she bathes her self in a seductive way. The use of the bath and the nakedness was also inspired by our watching of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho; we noted in the shower scene how the nakedness of the character made the scence very personal and also very uncomfortable- as a viewer we already feel like we're invading the scence and this feeling of discomfort is excentuated when another character invades the scene. Contextually we felt that almost mirroring this scene would create a similar feeling of discomfort for the viewer.We also recognised that female objectification was a key convention of the thriller genre that we wanted to exploit through this scene. In terms of Alice, we wanted to play on colour representation and chose the colour black as a representative of death which we felt was a key convention of the thriller genre to make the most of.
Always wearing matching outfits, school uniforms.
We chose to have these two characters wearing matching outfits as it seems to show that Annabel has never had any other childhood friends, the only way that she can imagine a friend is by creating a similar version of herself to play with. Its also slightly unnerving for the viewer to see two girls dressed exactly the same, and there is an element of slight confusion created that relates to the conventions of the thriller genre; confusion and the mind constantly at effort to figure out what is happening. In terms of contextual references; after watching The Shining we noticed that the use of twins dressed similarly was unnerving and created discomfort for the audience, we felt this was due to the unnatural similarity of the characters and wanted to mirror this technique in our work. To contribute to this further, the use of school uniform signifys youth and innocence and this, contrasted with the way that her dad handles her, creates an element of fear. We are scared that the innocence is irretreivable after the Fathers mistreatment of her. The collars of the uniform are up high on the necks of the children, and the skirts are below the knee; we wanted to cover up the girls well as we wanted to illiminate any sense of them being seductive or abused; this comes later. We felt that it contrasted well with the way that Annabel (her older self) washes herself in the bath. Her innocence is lost and she is more seductive than in her youth. We felt that this made a statement about the impact of parenting; bad parenting leading to loss of innocence, and the need to objectify yourself to gain the attention that you crave.
Annabel and Alice Older
Annabel, in the bath, wears nothing; we felt that this made the scene very personal which leads to discomfort when the personal scene is invaded by the character of Alice. To add to this, the way that Annabel is naked also is evokative to the males, connoting the loss of innocence as she bathes her self in a seductive way. The use of the bath and the nakedness was also inspired by our watching of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho; we noted in the shower scene how the nakedness of the character made the scence very personal and also very uncomfortable- as a viewer we already feel like we're invading the scence and this feeling of discomfort is excentuated when another character invades the scene. Contextually we felt that almost mirroring this scene would create a similar feeling of discomfort for the viewer.We also recognised that female objectification was a key convention of the thriller genre that we wanted to exploit through this scene. In terms of Alice, we wanted to play on colour representation and chose the colour black as a representative of death which we felt was a key convention of the thriller genre to make the most of.