Only in Whispers - Evaluation

When casting for Emily, we knew exactly what we wanted to see in her character. A character that influenced our creation would probably be Ellison Oswalt, the central actor in the film ‘Sinister’, 2012.

CASTING

When casting for Emily, we knew exactly what we wanted to see in her character. A character that influenced our creation would probably be Ellison Oswalt, the central actor in the film ‘Sinister’, 2012.

CASTING

Below is a still of the character we eventually cast as Emily. As you can see, we were inspired by the curiosity of Ellison as he enters the attic of his on home, and so we attempted to convey the same excitement through this scene.

Whilst we had the aid of inspiration, we also

initially had a thorough idea in our heads of

what we wanted her to look like and how we

wanted her to come across to our audience.

We wanted a high-spirited, zealous 16 year

old girl with a great mind-set for adventure.

We couldn’t have found anyone more perfect

to play this role than Emily Whitford.

EMILY

When casting for Megan, we knew exactly what we wanted to see in her character. A character that influenced our creation would probably be Katie Featherston, the central actor in the film ‘Paranormal Activity’, 2007.

CASTING

CASTING

Below are stills of the character we casted as Megan. Evidently, we were inspired by the concern on (above) Katie’s face. This is why we attempted to deliver the same emotion on Megan’s face.

When casting for Megan, we knew exactly what we wanted to see in her character. A character that influenced our creation would probably be Katie Featherston, the central actor in the film ‘Paranormal Activity’, 2007.

Whilst we had the aid of inspiration, we also initially had a thorough idea in our heads of what we wanted Megan to look like and how we wanted the audience to react to her.

We wanted a spineless, tentative brunette with an intellectual mind; effectively the complete opposite of Emily. We couldn’t have found anyone more perfect to play this role than Megan Davies.

MEGAN

One of the main social groups represented in our film is siblings; the two main characters are teenage sisters. Again when we cast the two actresses for our film we wanted to reveal them to be nothing other than typically ordinary sisters who bicker and disagree, so that in many cases the audience will be able to relate to the two characters. The majority of our audience will be working class, and we wanted to represent the two girls as distinctively English.

SOCIAL GROUPS

As a group we studied characters who have siblings in films. We also had shared knowledge due to the fact the three of us each have siblings of our own. We noticed that it is not uncommon for one sibling to follow in another’s shadow. We tried to deliver this idea as much as possible in our production. For instance, we placed Emily and Megan with a distant composition within our medium two shots of the two speaking. This reflected their contrasting personalities and relationship, too.

SOCIAL GROUPS

Despite there being a fairly small age gap between the two, we wanted to show how Emily convinces Megan to do pretty much anything.

Megan follows Emily into the attic even though she is extremely reluctant, she cannot stand up for herself and feels pressured by her sister.

We produced low angle shots for Emily climbing and walking into the attic to invite the audience to appreciate her superiority and leadership.

SOCIAL GROUPS

This medium shot still of Emily particularly accentuates her adventurousness simply by the fact she is excited by her surroundings and what she has found by jumping to opportunities.

This close up shot still of Megan highlighted in low-key lightning particularly accentuates her confined personality and anxiety. We chose to never shoot Emily in this light as we wanted to assert her authority in decision making.

Emily’s dialogue throughout our opening consists of lines such as "don't be such a baby" and "you do this every time" to indicate that Megan is often scared of things Emily wants to do which can be common with siblings, however, we exaggerated this fact by ensuring that the concluding situation allows us sympathise with Megan, who didn’t want to meddle in the first place. Emily also frequently patronises Megan and disrespects her belongings, such as a book that she disregards by chucking it on the floor. This behaviour is regardless of the fact Megan isn’t a lot younger than her.

SOCIAL GROUPS

Our costumes for the two characters were nothing exciting or particularly unusual. For instance, we dressed Megan in black leggings with a plain black long-sleeved shirt, and Emily in a pale pink sweater and dark jeans. This is because we decided that to portray the two characters as everyday girls would be a lot more believable and connote that this is just an ordinary night in a typical family home to begin with. Traditionally, Ouija boards are dangerous and not something to be messed with. Therefore when Emily discovers it and is not at all threatened by the idea it automatically says to the audience that Emily does not care about consequences, unlike Megan.

SOCIAL GROUPS

We used several other props such as the book Megan is reading initially which may suggest to the audience that Megan is a lot less social than her sister Emily, who enters the room after frantically snooping around to find something more ‘exciting’ to do. It may also imply that Megan is more intellectual. Megan is quite happy to be reading rather than going up into the attic, “I don’t want to. It’s scary.” board whilst saying "I don't want to. It's scary." which makes her sound childlike and perhaps boring in comparison to Emily.

SOCIAL GROUPS

SUCCESS

I feel we were successful to an extent in creating these two characters. This is due to the fact that before we cast them, we had a clear idea of how we wanted the two to look like, sound like, and be delivered to our audience. Despite there being many things we could have developed if given the chance to go back and change, there are also many things that worked. For instance, the dialogue between the two is totally different. Emily and Megan are undeniably diverse characters simply by their words and actions, so I feel that our contrast was quite clear.However, I believe that we could have further developed their slight dispute at the beginning, so as to emulate their ‘sibling rivalry’. This would have given us a chance to immediately deliver their levels of power.