Research and Planning 6: Props and Costume

Costume

A lot of thought has gone in to what sort of costumes our characters will be wearing in our opening. One of our characters, JD, will be wearing a mask to hide his face. Not only will this keep his identity hidden, generating a sense of mystery, but will also inflict fear upon the audience as he carries quite an eerie yet frightening presence. This too will create enigma for the audience.

(Erol will be purchasing this mask)

Our main protagonist, Spark, is part of a gang. Our film is set in the 1980's so we will be dressing the actor who plays spark in mobster clothing from that time period (e.g. black suit, black tie, perhaps a trench coat etc.). To make it seem more natural, we will be carefully adding mud, rips and tears to his costume to make it seem as though he has been running through the woods for a while.

Our other character, Bruce will only be featured briefly at the beginning but he will still be in costume and will wear similar clothes to Spark due to the fact that they are part of the same gang.

Representation of Social Groups

In terms of representing social groups through our characters, the costumes of our protagonists and antagonist are all similar. They wear black suits, ties etc. The fact that they all wear the same costume shows that they follow the ideology that gangsters must look intimidating and powerful in order to get their way. As well as this, their costumes help to represent class and order within their social group. Suits and ties are usually associated with businessmen, and it is commonly thought that if you deal in business, you're a wealthy individual who can afford luxuries. It also establishes order within the social group. Instead of the characteristics of their costumes making them look as though they're uncivilized swines, they are formal, which represents a civilized and organised ideology. It should be noted that their clothing shows signs of masculinity as men are well known for wearing suits.

    Props

In our sequence we will not require that many props, as it is mostly about the actual chase. We will need to get a gun for the section of the scene where JD shoots at Spark and also for the match on action shot. We may decide to use knives for the melee fight between JD and Spark but it is unlikely due to the fact that their fight is fast paced and there won't be much time to pull out knives to fight.

(Erol will be purchasing the gun highlighted above)

As I do drama I should be able to borrow props and costumes from the department with their permission. If I am unable to gather any of the props for whatever reason, Erol has agreed to purchase the props that we need.