Costume Design - UPDATED

When planning the opening of our film, we found that costume helps to build the audiences image of a character by subtly showing them their attitude and purpose. 

For our main character, we have chosen simplistic every-day style clothes. These ordinary clothes show that this character is an ordinary man with a simple lifestyle. Doing this makes the audience assume he is a character who is out of place in a cruel and brutal world, as he is a typical and average man.

In our last scene of our opening, our protagonist is shown after being beaten up by his kidnappers. This has not been explicitly said, however the audience can insinuate this due to the make-up we will use on our actor to show a black eye and several cuts and bruises. The purpose of this is to show that he is vulnerable in this moment, further emphasising the idea that he is an amiable man who is caught up in this cruel world. 

However, the beginning scene shows a character who is later revealed to be the twin brother of our main character (same actor as protagonist), so will wear a different style of clothes. This character is dark and intriguing, so to reflect this we have decided to make this character wear dark clothing to portray his cynical and thick-skinned but ultimately cowardly demeanour. 

For our female character, we haven chosen a tight fitting dress. All we see of this character in our opening is their silhouette, so having her in a dress establishes to the audience that she is female. We have also taken inspiration from the classic femme fatale convention of film noir, this character meant to immediately appear seductive and feminine. Doing this makes the audience immediately question whether she is to be trusted, as her cryptic entrance could make her appear as an antagonist, further  assumed by her femininity and seductiveness. We decided to put a modern twist on the traditional use of red for femme fatales, the use of red connotes danger as well as love and passion. In film noir the femme fatale usually has red lipstick or nails, instead of doing this Caitlin had red hair. This is very modern and current whilst paying tribute to film noir.  The leather jacket that she is wearing gives her character an edge and suggests that she is not an overly feminine or emotional character. The black colour of it could also connote mystery and fear, suggesting that she is a dangerous character that shouldn't be challenged. 

For our two characters at the beginning of our Thriller, we have chosen a simple smart attire for actor Isabel Hurren, and a plain black jacket for actor Lucy Hiscox. The prop we used for the scene with these characters is a file, used to pass information about the protagonist. This file makes these characters appear superior and secretive.