Characters, costumes and actors

Our film opening consists of 5 characters, hence we require 5 actors, and a minimum of 6 cast members to film parts involving all characters. 

Costume design will be lead by Sophie, who is studied art A level, and specialises in practical art applications. To achieve character focus unique designs, all costumes will be hand made to suit the individual personality and persona's of the characters. 

Here I have discussed the characters in order of appearance.

1. Anidone 

Sophie Ferreira will play Anidone, the protagonist. Sophie (below) fits this role perfectly, and I have tremendous confidence in her as an actor, having performed with her previously. 



The protagonist is an elf like creature, whose costume will follow an Ivy inspired colour scheme. Anidone is influenced by the Elf Queen Galadriel, from Lord of the Rings. This costume will be designed and will be made by Sophie.

Here is a preliminary sketch of the characters costume;

Update 8/12/16 - We bought the fabric for this costume. 

Update 20/12/16 - Construction of this costume has begun. 

Here is Sophie stitching detail into the skirt, and hemming the top. 




Update 5/1/17 - The costume has differed from the original idea as the colours of the fabric have changed. The cape is now a darker forest green to give her a more regal look and tie in with the forest more. The skirt fabric is also darker, and the second layer of the skirt will be a lighter green with more silvery aspects to match the belt.

2. Phex

Phex is a mischievous character, whose costume will be based on a winter theme of ice and frost, but still contain deep greens of the forest. The colour scheme is therefore icy blue and light green. The characters showing upper torso will be covered by blended blotches of blue and purple paint, creating an inhuman character.

Update 1/2/17 - Agata Polasik (Left) had being casted to play this role.

3. Arbor 

Arbor, Latin for tree, representing the resilience of the character I will play this character. Partly because I will enjoy playing this character, and partly because it would find it difficult to find a suitable volunteer willing (extensive special effects/ costume parts)

This is a beast like character, covered in fur, with horns, and armour. The armour will be Viking/medieval inspired, similarly to other films in the fantasy genre. inspired and made from fake leather. 


See face below from Beauty And The Beast (will be released 2017).

Update 23/12/16 - Construction of this costume has begun,  having freely sourced the necessary materials. In accordance with this animal the costume will by made from real sheep wool, soured freely. I have purchase fake leather at a cheap price, and have began embedding the wool into a base layer. 

Here is a preliminary sketch of this character (below left) and the actor, Amy Spence (below right. 

4. Zosil (pronounced Zo-sul)

This will be  scatty character, inspired by Gollum, slightly 'creeps' around. It will be played preferably by a male child, as the character is small in size. 

Characters like this are often created with CGI, where computer graphics software is used to make computer-generated imagery for films. We may be able to do this at a basic level, but to limit its necessity we will make the costume as lifelike as possible. 

The costume will take inspiration from nature, moss, and mud themes throughout, this will expose large areas of flesh that we can manipulate with face paints to look animalesce. The character will just wear rugged trousers/shorts, bare feet, straggly hair.

William Spence has being cast to play this role. William (below) has some experience acting, and fits the demographic well. Here is a the email I sent William in relation to the role; 

"Good Morning, 

Hope your having a lovely day, just following up on our conversation about Anidone. I've spoken to Sophie and if you're still willing we'd love for you to play the role of Zosil. Here is a link to a blog post, on which you will find your character profile, this is an outline of how we imagined Zosil - but we encourage you to adapt and exaggerate the character as you feel fit. 

Filming involving your character will take place on 11th and 18th March (subject to weather conditions), I will get in touch again closer to the time to confirm and arrange a meeting point and time. We will bring your costume and make-up on the day, just bring some ward cloths, and a towel.

Looking forward to acting with you, Amy"


7/3/17

Having now filmed, I think Zosil's costume worked well. William wore a Tarzan like skirt (rags of fake leather scraggily adjoined). We used face paint to change his skin colour and dehumanise him. Unfortunately as a result of a very partial costume he felt extremely cold, and whilst not filming had to retreat to a tinfoil blanket. 

5.  Trehsarck

This is a warrior character, and the tallest of the characters. It will be played by an adult male, (or the closest we can find to this) and takes inspiration from the character "Thorin" from The Hobbit.







Below are two characters from "The Last Kingdom", a BBC TV show set in the middle ages. Because of the time scale these costumes are very similar to the costume of our warrior character.

Additionally to the medieval costume this character will wear lines of boldly coloured face paint. 

Update 15/1/17 - Bethany Brown (below) has being cast to play this role. Despite not fitting our exact demographic she fits the part well.  



Update 15/1/17 - Due to unfortunate circumstances this actor can no longer act, so our back up actor Victor (photo below) will take her place. 

Costume expenses so far - £20.00


To organise any last minute changes/ quires I created a 'group chat' involving the cast and crew. We used this to discuss multiple things from character traits and costumes.

Influences

This scene from The Hobbit was an inspiration for our film; as it involves movement and a diverse array of characters and costumes. Furthermore it was filmed outside, with characters disappearing behind natural features - this is similar to our opening. 

In the medium shot below, Thorin and a group of other characters run towards the camera. Thorin was the inspiration for our character Trehsarck, and although the roles in our film opening deffer the shot below resembles our arrangement of characters. 

Method wise, The Revenant has also influenced our film. As like ours, the film was shot  with only natural lighting. Only one scene in the movie uses  artificial lighting - a campfire shot in which wind caused the fire (light source of the shot) to behave in an unpredictable, distracting way. Personally I think the cinematography in this film is stunning, and the shots with low light extremely effective (see the wide shot below), hence why it has impacted the way I will shoot in varying amounts of light. 

The team

After the pitch we were given the opportunity to form groups dependant on similar film opening ideas. Sophie and I naturally work together well, and both interested in fantasy film. Sophie and myself have made short films together in the past, these were very amateurish comedy creations, but never the less has given me confidence in Sophie as someone I can rely on. Her skills are especially noticeable in filming (as she is a photography student), acting (in which she has previous experience) and costume design/ mise-en scene (she is also an art student). 

Sophie's blog can be viewed here

From experience filming the swede I am aware I lack necessary skills in filming. This may be a difficulty in filming. However Sophie is a photography student and an able cameraman, so this resolves the problem; I can learn from her expertise. 

In preparation to work with Sophie on this film, I sent her a rough script, here is the begining of the email; 

Anchor Productions <tobbolly@gmail.com>
to Sophie

A fantasy film opening. Set on Lord of the Rings inspired scenery, ideal to re-create on moorland...

Titles

Titles

Titles in fantasy film often follow a stereotypical medieval font, in keeping with medieval inspired costumes and mise-en-scene. This can be seen in The Hobbit and Narnia titles.

Other fantasy titles are decorated in a sinister fashion, for example; Harry Potter, and Alice In Wonderland.

Below is the title for our film opening, having taken inspiration from Tim Burtons style, it is more decorative than most fantasy titles. I have encoperated elements of nature to reflect the mise en scène of our film. This title was created on Adobe draw.