Costume Ideas - Protagonist

For our trailer the MES is a very important aspect to get right. What an actor is wearing can demonstrate a lot to the audience about the character they play in the trailer/film. As mentioned, we want to incorporate a clown. We have all agreed that we are going to buy a clown outfit, rather than do the clown makeup ourselves. This is because none of us in the group feel like we are skilled enough to create realistic and yet scary makeup to make our audience be frightened of the clown. From looking on various websites, we found on Amazon a clown suit at the cost of £20. We all agreed to put £5 each into the funding for the outfit. 

 The clowns outfit consist of red hair ( a wig). Clowns commonly have crazy coloured hair, to make them stand out and appeal appetizing to young children. However this weird and abnormal hair colour can also appear slightly scary as its so bright and overbearing. The actual costume of the outfit is black and white checked. We feel that this conforms and subverts to the stereotype of clowns. Clowns are commonly seen in red, which is the generic convention, as years ago, red was seen to be a positive colour. 

As generations have progressed, red is now seen as a dangerous and alarming colour, which are emotions that we want our audience to witness in the trailer. The outfit almost subverts as well, as the outfit is checked and not in bright colours such as reds and yellows. We still feel that this outfit is scary, and will appeal to our target audience. We also feel that the classic red and yellow clown outfit is a bit cliche, and want to divert away from copying our inspirational trailers.  The black in the costume connotes aspects such as death,evil,power and mystery which are attributes that we want to have present in our trailer, and what we want our audience to feel.  We also want our clown to be holding one, individual balloon. Balloons are a significant prop that is commonly associated with clowns. They help to recognise where a clown is present in a shot.

 Clowns usually hold lots of balloons, and were then made to give out to small children. We have all decided that we want our clown to be holding one balloon, as this will help to single the clown out as an individual. We want the balloon to be red. Red connotes danger,blood and injury so it fits the conventions of our chosen genre. In addition, the red will help to balance the composition of the red wig and red buttons down the middle of the costume. Balloons usually have happy and joyful meanings, however, as its used in our horror trailer it gives a spooky and mysterious effect. As the balloon is so significant to the clown, this means that we are able to do shots with just the balloon in the picture. This will create suspense towards our audience, as it tells the audience that they are aware that the clown is there, but not being able to locate it, creating a climax in the trailer. 

Using a mask in our trailer is an effective way to generate suspense towards the audience. A mask hides an identity, which creates the emotion of mystery in a film. Having this emotion creates suspense, as the audience will question "who's behind the mask?". This creates a common question towards the audience, and will need to watch the film in order to find out who's behind the mask. We feel that using a mask is also a quick and easy way to create a thrilling and scary effect. The masks are also relatively  cheap, which means that we can get hold of on easily.