Character Roles-Research

What are character Roles in a film?

Before going into what character roles are towards my film I wanted to get an idea of well what are the types that can be found in a Mystery movie.

I used the website Jeanneriedbooks to get my information.

https://www.jeanneriedelbooks.com/characters-in-a-mystery-story/#How_character_roles_shape_the_plot

Character Roles

Detective

This one is obviously needed as what is a mystery film without the hero (the detective) who is able to connect all the puzzle pieces together to solve what happened.

Traditional Roles:

• Professional Detective: the person paid to solve cases
• Reluctant Investigator: A person puled into the mystery against their will (often due to framing or family being involved)

Core Traits:

• Intelligence: Must be smart enough to see what ordinary people could not
• Curiosity: They must be willing to utilize every clue possible to solve the case
• Flaw or Weakness: Every good detective has a flaw that makes them seem human and relatable (to audiences)

Assistant

The sidekick must be someone who the detective can rely on to help them.

Purpose:

• Support: Helping the detective with anything
• Contrast: They are often much different than the detective (maybe in personality or moods) to make the detective's brilliance shine through
• Helping audiences understand: Many times the detective uses terms that ordinary audiences can not compute so the assistant is there to "put it in regular peoples terms" to help the audience understand what is going on
• Traits: They are known to be loyal to the detective and often have a bright and warm personality

The Victim

The victim is why the detective is even there. They are the catalyst in making the detective have a first piece of the puzzle to solve what happened.

• Background is essential: The background gives the motive for the crime. Like who did they anger? Who did they fall in love with? or What did they possess? These all give clues as to why the victim became a victim in the first place.
• The type of victim: Who the victim is drives the motive. Like if they were a mean and stingy boss the list of potential suspects gets very long. But if it was a sweet person who was nice to everyone the list of suspects is very random. It's all about the drive

Types of victims:

• The innocent: Tragic as the crime is often a mistake or the victim just got unlucky
• The Secretive: This type of person hid something (maybe parts of their life or job) and now that secret has come back to bite them
• The morally gray: They were a bad person. This leads to many people having a good reason to want them gone

The Suspects

These are all of the people who could have committed the crime. The more well developed/interesting a suspect is the better the mystery.

Why are multiple suspects needed?: Well they are needed because 2 suspects is to easy makes for a short crappy film. But with 4-6 suspects that's where we can get that flow because as the individual suspects secrets come out it helps with the speed and interest in the plot.

Typical Suspect Stereotypes:

• The Loved One: This could be the wife, husband, child, or the best friend. These suspect often has the most emotional motive toward the victim
• The Rival: This can include a business competitor, the co-worker who wanted that position, or their old enemy
• The Witness who is hiding something: This is a person who saw something that could reveal the truth but won't say it because they will also be exposed
• The outsider: Someone who was new to the area, family, workplace
• The Red Herring: This is the person who the audience believe to be 100% guilty because they just look like they did it but they are not and instead are innocent. After used to distract the detective and audience from the real killer

The Culprit

• How to make a good culprit: They can't just be evil for no reason. This person must have a motive to explain why they did the things that they did. This must be strong and understandable no matter how wrong it seems to the audience. They must be made to seem like they were always apart of the cast (not obvious that it was them the whole time) but it must be obvious enough once the culprit was revealed giving the audience that OHH feeling.
• Motive, Method, and Opportunity: The culprit is the only person who has all three:
• Motive: The reason (maybe to inherit money or get that new promotion)
• Method: The way they did it (poison, gun, knife, suffication)
• Opportunity: The chance to do it (maybe they were the only one in the room at the time)

How to hide them in plain sight

The best way to hide the culprit in plain sight is to make them someone no one would guess. Make them be quiet, helpful, or sometimes they are shown to be the person who "finds" the body. They must be a "trustworthy" person so no one could guess them right away.

Knives Out 2019

Just from this photo (if you never watched the film) it is hard to identify the killer. Everyone is following the same type of pallet and the culprit is wearing non of the tell tale signs that they are evil. But you can still identify them by the body language displayed here. Looking at the killers face and how they are the only one wearing this bright white t-shirt we can see that it is them. They are clashing with the muted colors in this picture.

How does this make it a satisfying reveal

The audience should feel surprised that this person was truly the culprit but also have a feeling that they should have known all alone. Makes them look back on clues differently like OH this meant that and that's how this person was the real culprit. The clues must be present all throughout pointing towards this person subtilty revealing their motive, method, and when they had the opportunity to strike.

How does this relate to my film?

With this knowledge alongside my color knowledge I will be able to effectively obey all of the conventions of the genre that we are doing. While also making each character unique. I now know about how many people must be seen leaving the small house party as they will all be suspects along with the host. I also need to lay out clues and different ways to be able to piece together who the killer is. The ones I will be using in my film is the suspects, victim, and culprit as this is just the opening and the detective is yet to be revealed. Now alongside with the color knowledge I can piece together what each person must wear and how they will act during our production to obey both color and their character roles.