Our back story for our main character, Ashley, is that he has never been very good at connecting to others socially or emotionally. This stems from the fact that he has never got on very well with his family. When he was born his mother had suffered from severe post-natal depression, and Ashley's father abandoned them when it all became too much. As a result, Ashley had always blamed himself for his dad leaving, and his mother blamed him too. And on several occasions throughout his life she'd make sure he knew it.
After a particularly bad fight with his mum, he had been kicked out of the family home by his mum, so is now staying in his aunt's living room (yet, quite significantly isn't seen coming into contact with this aunt or any other family member throughout the opening, showing that while he may have contact with them, he still doesn't necessarily connect to them).
The way Ashley sees it, he only has to put up with everything - his family, his school, his life - until he reaches 16. After that he can get as far away from everyone and everything he knows as he can. That is, until a new girl comes to his school. From the moment he meets Janet he is enamoured with her, and by some miracle she feels the same. But when she breaks his heart it is too much for him to bear. He realises she is just the latest in his life of people who had abandoned him, and so sets out to make her feel as much pain as he had.
In terms of position in society Ashley would be described as: a 14/15 year old working class male, who is a loner/ outcast when it comes to the majority of his peers. We show this through our camera shots and angles (especially the long and over the shoulder shots in the hallway, showing how disconnected he is from those around him) and through costume (school uniform and casual clothes). In terms of inner presence, we tried to portray him as someone who is quite introverted and emotionally unavailable with most people other than Janet, who he would be willing to express his feelings to. By doing this, we hope to show the audience that he's not just saying she means everything to him, but that they can see it too.
- One of the characters we took inspiration from was Newt from Hollyoaks, and so we had our character copy some of his blank facial expressions and slouched body language. Although it is not a film Hollyoaks is a drama, and the storyline his character was involved in was quite psychological-thriller themed. What really inspired us about this character is that he did have psychological problems, but no one around him had been paying enough attention to him to realise. That level of isolation and feeling of neglect is what causes him to start his decent into madness, much in the same way that our character Ashley does.
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