Film Premise

A brief description of our films main story, meant to appeal to an audience and draw them in without spoilers.

Ariadne Russo is different. It’s not the fact that the spoken word seems to elude her. It’s not the fact that she never knew the identity of her parents. Her memories are lost, stolen by ghostly figures she no longer remembers. She is as blank as the map that holds the key to her identity, blank save for a few rough outlines of London dotted with red marks. After the map makes its way into her possession through a series of unusual circumstances in her foster home, the young, lost woman is inclined to follow it to where ever it may lead her, in vain hopes that it might just help her rediscover her voice and her memories. What she doesn't know is that others are following the same path; one- intent upon saving her, the other- destroying her. Ariadne is the unwitting holder of a remarkable gift that allows her to sense where objects have been by mere touch, unlocking their secrets and inanimate stories. Yet her psychometric ability, it seems, has been cut from her just as everything else has, another lost key to whom, or what she may be. With people searching for a girl so lost within her, will she be found by the right person? Or is it too late for her to even regain what is lost and save herself?

Representing Character Through Costume: Isaac...

Isaac is meant to be more of a mystery in our opening, symbolising both Ariadne's lost memories and the danger that could follow her. Before we started coming up with how we would represent him, we spent some time developing his character a little more, so that we could portray him accurately.

Isaac was a lonely child just like Ariadne, and when they met, he took it upon himself to look after her. They were as close as brother and sister before Ari was taken, and for this reason, he searches for her when she disappears. As mentioned in a previous post discussing character development and personality, Isaac is rather more calm than Ari, intellectual rather than adventerous. We wanted his costume to reflect this responibility and intelligence whilst also keeping him myseterious and imposing. For this reason, we included the leather jacket as it adds that element of danger to the way he dresses. Aside from this one aspect, he dresses mostly casual to reflect his laid back personality.

We chose to dress him in similar colours to our main character to establish an immeadiate connection between the two, but we made many of the blue hues that he wears a little darker and in some cases bolder to represent thathe has a better sense of who he is - he is not lost. This is also reflected in the dark jeans and jacket which evoke a shady persona that is meant to create enigma with the audience.

Representing Character Through Costume: Ariadne...

After finalising who we thought our main character was in her personality, we began to develop a way to translate this into her appearance, and in turn, the way in which she is is represented to the audience. Our group designed a mood board (above) to act as a refernce point and visual way of of showing our ideas.

The first part of her appearance we focused on was the colour palette that we best reflect her and her inner feelings. We settled on a theme of blue mixed with natural, earthy colours such as browns and greys. her character is filled with a deep rooted sadness and despair at not being able to recall her memories, and I think that the blue colour (typical connoting sadness) really shows this well. Along with this, to me the colour grey relates to the distance of of her memories, like a cloud or haze over what she can't rememeber. We thought that having bright colours, or even just an array of them would not fit Ari's personality in the slightest.

Most of her clothes are pratical and well used, from her time in the foster home. One thing that is quite special to her is a ring that she bought when she was small, as it reminds her of happy times when she looks at it, even if she can't remember what exactly those times were. She also carries a simple rucksack, carrying extra clothes to use whilst traveling and above all, the sheets of paper that are her whole mind.

As for hair and make-up, she would wear none, believing it to be of no importance. Her hair will be slightly waved, looking tousled as she doesn't have time to style, simply running a brush through it every now and then. For the actress playing her, she will wear minimal make up, mearly to prevent glare from lighting and other technical issues.

Character Development

Recently, we discussed detailed plans of our two main characters natures and how the would appear, and similarly, be represented on screen.

Ariadne...

• She is running from something and her appearance tries to reflect that. She looks slightly dishevelled.
• When she was younger read read a lot, mostly for the escape. Her favourite type were adventure novels because they fitted her personality.
• She is entirely mute and closed off from the world, introverted and protective of herself.
• She's not the kind of person who is that fused with music - words speak to her more.
• An interest in travel fulled her over active imagination as a child, and because of this, as a young adult, she loves to learn about other cultures and dreams of visiting them, an escape from her own dull life.
• Her clothing is functional and classic, nothing too glamorous and fancy and hardly anything that is intentionally in on trend. It's often in her nature to buy from charity shops.
• In many ways, she is a blank canvas in her appearance and particularly in the amount she can articulate. For this reason, it is very easy to make assumptions about her, yet often impossible to know if they are true.
• She adores words and sees them as more than just communication methods. To Ariadne, they are an art form, physical and tangible emotion.

Isaac...

• As the male protagonist, we want Isaac to stand out as an important character in our opening, yet also keep a sense of ambiguity surrounding him.
• He is quite an organised person, which is one of the reasons why he re-draws the map.
• He is pretty in check of his emotions, thinking about things logically without reacting on impulse unless he is really riled. In this sense, he is the complete antithesis of Ari.
• His appearance reflects his casual, collected composure that masks more of the enthusiasm within. He has slightly scruffy hair and wears jeans and converse, with a t-shirt and leather jacket.
• He has a rather laid back attitude when dealing with things, a trait that would often annoy Ariadne.
• A precise and practical person, more academic than creative, once again contrasting to our female protagonist.
• Since Isaac has known his female companion from a young age, he is very protective over her, one of the reasons why he searches for her and tries to offer her help.
• He can be very particular- a little bit of a neat freak.
• He gets easily anxious but he's very good at covering it up, as will be demonstrated in our two minute opening.
• Music also means a lot to him. It is to Isaac what words are to Ari.