People Binaries

Our opening title sequence includes two characters of

binary opposites; the old vs. young and the innocent and vulnerable vs. the corrupted and dangerous. These are represented clearly in the difference between the main Brownie Leader, presented in the costume of an official Leaders uniform, a middle-aged female who is the antagonist in our film and the young Brownies. In addition, we have the young, easily influenced girls and strangely the second Brownie Leader who falls into this category. This can be considered to challenge the traditional conventions of a thriller whereby all characters are meant to be either victims or culprits, but not indifferent.

People The Leader

Nicole and I decided to break the clich by having our

antagonist played by a female rather than a typical male. Our actress is pale and unassuming, with a small physique, this challenges the conventions of an antagonist further still, causing our psychological thriller to be even more disturbing for our audience. It is for this reason that we chose to have Maxine Elias play the Leaders role, as we could have found someone equally experienced to play it, but it was the fact that Maxine was so unassuming that made her part so scary.

People The Leader

However, Maxine wore harsh facial expressions and

used cold, sharp tones when speaking in the beginning of our film, thus foreshadowing her future actions later on in the opening title sequence.

Theme - Gender
The Leader represents the older of the female gender,

she is cunning and portrays the female sex as a whole to be manipulating. Her character is presented as someone who can appear to be a normal member of society but has a truly dark side and is ultimately a very conniving, malicious woman. This directly challenged the stereotype of women being weak and vulnerable, represented by the young girls.

People The Brownies

Our thriller puts a strong focus on the social group of

children, represented by the girls in Brownie uniform. When deciding which uniforms to put on our actresses, I had two key considerations. First that the uniforms be obvious so that it is clear to our audience which youth movement our narrative revolves around, and equally as important, that they connote innocence and vulnerability.

People The Brownies

Therefore, the girls were dressed in the traditional yellow

coloured uniform tops and jumpers as opposed to the brown one as the obvious associations audiences tend to make with the colour yellow are happiness, brightness, and livelihood all representations of and strongly linked to youth and childhood. These are accentuated by other aspects of the filming, such as the music a childs lullaby, and camerawork, e.g. an overhead, almost birds eye, high angle shot is used to further the impression of vulnerability when the Brownies are shown sleeping.

Theme - Age
Children in their youth are vulnerable to adults, especially

when sleeping and therefore if approached by an attacker, they are most unlikely to be able to defend themselves properly. This is widely considered even more true for girls than boys as they are known to be the weaker sex.

Theme - Age
Having all the uniform and knowledge about Guides too

(the GirlGuiding group of girls between the ages of 11 and 14), in addition to the willing actresses, our film could have revolved around Guides rather than Brownies. However, I suggested, and Nicole agreed, that it would be more appropriate to have younger children in our film as younger children tend to evoke stronger reactions among audiences because they are generally considered more innocent and vulnerable than older girls. Through the means of costuming and having the girls speak with a purposefully high-pitched tone, we succeeded in creating the image of sweet, young, trusting girls that denote innocence, vulnerability who heavily depend on those of an older generation for care.

Location
Our film is situated in the woods, a typical camping

location for traditional Brownie Units. This atmospheric setting allows for the use of pathetic fallacy (the climate situation reflecting the mood) and connotes the idea that even though something may appear to be fine and safe in daylight, it can have a strong and dangerous dark side, just like the main Brownie Leader. This therefore reflects the idea that you cannot trust those you think you know as you do not know what they are really capable of.

Location
The fact that this site is shown to be so secluded and

isolated reflects the trust of the children and the parents who send their children on these camps and therefore acts as a warning right from the start, just as the lighting in our film gets darker until it is pitch black outside, so too is the mood of the film and the contents of it due to become darker, scarier and ultimately creepier.

Males
Not once in our entire sequence is a male character

presented or even referred to. Like on a traditional Brownie camp, the rule in our film is No boys allowed! I believe that the Leader who in physique is relatively petite and even short takes on the role of the male as she shows the characteristics that the audience would associate with a male character, not a female.

By Rachel Gibson