Characters
SYNTH Killer:
As the tragic villain of the piece, the un-named Synth Killer is probably the most consistent character, taking up prominence as a cipher despite his deliberately masked identity. Outside of an interspersed clip of the credits and a profile shot of the killer in his car with his head phones in, we never see his face, even the short clip we do get is a black silhouette. However, the character is defined by his youth and mental instability; it's heavily implied that this killer is not responsible for what he does despite having willingly signed up for the program and under the brain washing influences of Kingston. the Synth killer is responsible for the massacre we see in the OTS, committing the onslaught with nothing but the hypnotic beats of his ear phones and the brute force of a claw hammer. Metaphorically, the Synth Killer represents the audiences interpretation of fictional violence, indulging in the visually sumptuous slaughter that the majority of movie goers take a sadistic pleasure in watching, losing themselves in the same way that the killer does in the spectacle of the violence despite not actually finding genuine atrocities anything short of appalling. It is through him that the theme of fictional violence as an acceptable thing is introduced and, in an overt way, his juxtaposition with our one named victim, Alex.
Outfit:
Exo Goggled Bomber Jacket (Black)
Pocketed cargo trousers (Grey)
Military boots (Black)
Leather Gloves (Black)
Ear Phones (Black)
Rusted Claw Hammer with a Wooden Handle
Gas Mask (Tinted)
Alex:
Alex is the only one of the five teenagers (in a hommage to genre cliches) that is named and who, rather unsurprisingly, contrasts against the Synth Killer's role in the feature from both a literary and a allegorical sense. Alex is the main perspective around which the realistic kills can be see with almost all of her shots being shaky, dirty and fast. By presenting this dual perspective to the audience, I am asking that they consider the sub-text through such a deliberate dissonance, where the killer is painted as morally flawed as best, the short amount of time spent of Alex colors her as a more realistically grounded person in a more or less positive standing. As a student struggling with mounting bills and lazy house mates, Alex seems competent enough to manage her various pressures in accordance with what is required of her, displaying to the audience a strong but not uncommon female character. Although she ultimately meets her demise ( in a POV shot no less), her role as the realistic figure lends itself to the meta-commentary of the piece with almost all aspects of the work, from her outfit to her dialog to her death, focusing on emphasizing how detached from the actuality fictional killing is and how it is nothing more than indulgent fun.
Outfit:
Loose cotton T-Shirt (White)
Undershirt (Blue)
Glasses
Slim Jeans (Navy Blue)
Converse Trainers (Black and White)
Kingston:
Kingston is the only other character within the piece to have a name, although I ascribe the term loosely as the rather proper tag is left for the audience to ponder, with the name once again standing more for a point than a person. Where Alex represents a realistic depiction of violence and the Synth Killer the dramatized equivalent, Kingston stands as an empty vessel for the film industry itself, constantly tempting the killer into the hunt before guiding him to its conclusion with promises of how "alive" it will make him feel and how it "is all good fun". In the same way that huge production companies and marketing campaigns overshadow the connotations of the killing and of the movie itself by boiling important and complex character arcs down to digestible archetypes and the gore to nothing more than flashy dressings, Kingston encourages his puppet to ignore the consequences and to instead just 'loose' himself. As only a muffled radio voice, Kingston's voice sports a school-yard bully like intonation, menacing enough to control his subjects yet with enough charisma to inspire loyalty. In fact, Kingston's instructions are the first pieces of spoken dialog we hear as an audience member, saying "Now listen to me, this is gonna be fun, relax, don't think about it, just loose yourself" which in the context of the OTS is indicative of his brainwashing commands. However, it is also a patronizing attack on the audience designed with reverse psychology in mind, using the mocking tones to insinuate that the audience actually should pay attention.
Outfit:
N/A
Unamed Victims:
Unlike all of the figures above, these characters really don't serve any purpose greater than cannon fodder; in the grand tradition of horror films having a meat factory of teens ripe for the slaughter, these characters (two girls and two boys) are here to be killed off. Where the Synth Killers featureless attire serves to emphasize the ambiguity of his identity (and the extent to which his actions can be blamed) and Alex's casual, brightly colored get-up acts as a parallel to our antagonist, these characters are dressed more or less averagely. The tempting point would have been to oversexualize them as a homage to the past and to perhaps exaggerate to the audience again the seductive qualities of cinema, after all, the violence has been cranked up to 11 for this sake, why not the voyeurism too? There are a whole number of reasons, not least of which is because the majority, if not all of the cast I'm close friends with and asking them to sport something leering is a sight I neither want to see nor encourage. Second of all, and importantly to me personally, although horror films have always walked hand in hand with their connotations of sex and drugs, I wanted to move away from this angle in Synth, focusing on one point that was cheapened by a lustful grotesqueness.
Outfits:
Non-Descriptive
As the tragic villain of the piece, the un-named Synth Killer is probably the most consistent character, taking up prominence as a cipher despite his deliberately masked identity. Outside of an interspersed clip of the credits and a profile shot of the killer in his car with his head phones in, we never see his face, even the short clip we do get is a black silhouette. However, the character is defined by his youth and mental instability; it's heavily implied that this killer is not responsible for what he does despite having willingly signed up for the program and under the brain washing influences of Kingston. the Synth killer is responsible for the massacre we see in the OTS, committing the onslaught with nothing but the hypnotic beats of his ear phones and the brute force of a claw hammer. Metaphorically, the Synth Killer represents the audiences interpretation of fictional violence, indulging in the visually sumptuous slaughter that the majority of movie goers take a sadistic pleasure in watching, losing themselves in the same way that the killer does in the spectacle of the violence despite not actually finding genuine atrocities anything short of appalling. It is through him that the theme of fictional violence as an acceptable thing is introduced and, in an overt way, his juxtaposition with our one named victim, Alex.
Outfit:
Exo Goggled Bomber Jacket (Black)
Pocketed cargo trousers (Grey)
Military boots (Black)
Leather Gloves (Black)
Ear Phones (Black)
Rusted Claw Hammer with a Wooden Handle
Gas Mask (Tinted)
Alex:
Alex is the only one of the five teenagers (in a hommage to genre cliches) that is named and who, rather unsurprisingly, contrasts against the Synth Killer's role in the feature from both a literary and a allegorical sense. Alex is the main perspective around which the realistic kills can be see with almost all of her shots being shaky, dirty and fast. By presenting this dual perspective to the audience, I am asking that they consider the sub-text through such a deliberate dissonance, where the killer is painted as morally flawed as best, the short amount of time spent of Alex colors her as a more realistically grounded person in a more or less positive standing. As a student struggling with mounting bills and lazy house mates, Alex seems competent enough to manage her various pressures in accordance with what is required of her, displaying to the audience a strong but not uncommon female character. Although she ultimately meets her demise ( in a POV shot no less), her role as the realistic figure lends itself to the meta-commentary of the piece with almost all aspects of the work, from her outfit to her dialog to her death, focusing on emphasizing how detached from the actuality fictional killing is and how it is nothing more than indulgent fun.
Outfit:
Loose cotton T-Shirt (White)
Undershirt (Blue)
Glasses
Slim Jeans (Navy Blue)
Converse Trainers (Black and White)
Kingston:
Kingston is the only other character within the piece to have a name, although I ascribe the term loosely as the rather proper tag is left for the audience to ponder, with the name once again standing more for a point than a person. Where Alex represents a realistic depiction of violence and the Synth Killer the dramatized equivalent, Kingston stands as an empty vessel for the film industry itself, constantly tempting the killer into the hunt before guiding him to its conclusion with promises of how "alive" it will make him feel and how it "is all good fun". In the same way that huge production companies and marketing campaigns overshadow the connotations of the killing and of the movie itself by boiling important and complex character arcs down to digestible archetypes and the gore to nothing more than flashy dressings, Kingston encourages his puppet to ignore the consequences and to instead just 'loose' himself. As only a muffled radio voice, Kingston's voice sports a school-yard bully like intonation, menacing enough to control his subjects yet with enough charisma to inspire loyalty. In fact, Kingston's instructions are the first pieces of spoken dialog we hear as an audience member, saying "Now listen to me, this is gonna be fun, relax, don't think about it, just loose yourself" which in the context of the OTS is indicative of his brainwashing commands. However, it is also a patronizing attack on the audience designed with reverse psychology in mind, using the mocking tones to insinuate that the audience actually should pay attention.
Outfit:
N/A
Unamed Victims:
Unlike all of the figures above, these characters really don't serve any purpose greater than cannon fodder; in the grand tradition of horror films having a meat factory of teens ripe for the slaughter, these characters (two girls and two boys) are here to be killed off. Where the Synth Killers featureless attire serves to emphasize the ambiguity of his identity (and the extent to which his actions can be blamed) and Alex's casual, brightly colored get-up acts as a parallel to our antagonist, these characters are dressed more or less averagely. The tempting point would have been to oversexualize them as a homage to the past and to perhaps exaggerate to the audience again the seductive qualities of cinema, after all, the violence has been cranked up to 11 for this sake, why not the voyeurism too? There are a whole number of reasons, not least of which is because the majority, if not all of the cast I'm close friends with and asking them to sport something leering is a sight I neither want to see nor encourage. Second of all, and importantly to me personally, although horror films have always walked hand in hand with their connotations of sex and drugs, I wanted to move away from this angle in Synth, focusing on one point that was cheapened by a lustful grotesqueness.
Outfits:
Non-Descriptive