Final Major Project - Character Inclusion

Whilst writing the treatments, there were a few characters I had to introduce in order to improve the story.

The first, was a Detective, originally named John Hastings. The idea of Hastings was to be the Detective set on the murder investigations from the killings that Edward and Evelyn performed. There was a problem with John however and that was the way I introduced him. Initially, he just first appeared in a Police Station, nothing exciting or original at all. It was also pointed out to me, that my script is very Male dominated. So I made a few changes.

The first change I made was turning John into a woman, so I was able to have another central female character in my script. Enter, Detective Charli Hastings. Charli is not your ordinary police detective. She is first introduced whilst having aggressive sex and taking cocaine with a small time mafia leader, Fred. This immediately gives a sense of surprise to the reader and to the audience when they find out she is actually a Detective. She is passionate and driven, but at the same time wrestles with what she wants. On the one hand, she thinks she is in love with Fred, so will do anything for him, but on the other hand, she does love her work and is passionate about doing it correctly, and solving the Michael Yates case (the murder the twins did which she is assigned to investigate).

This leads me to talking about Fred. Initially, I wasn't too sure about where to go with him, whether to just have him as a background character or not. I decided I liked the idea of having a small time mafia/gang involved, as it made for fun and interesting plot devices I could use as both sub-plots and part of the main story.

Fred himself seems quite jolly and charming, but is actually quite sinister. At one point, he even gets Charli to show her loyalty to the gang and to him by murdering someone in cold blood - which she does, despite being a Police Detective. I also included that Fred knows the twins Grandfather, Roland, as they used to work together - Roland used to run Fred's gang with him.

This all lead up to Charli eventually choosing her job over Fred, so a massive Dog-Cat-Mouse chase ensues in the final couple of episodes, between Fred, Charli and the twins. Essentially, I believe bringing Fred into it was a good decision, as it gave the story slightly more depth rather than it just being about the police and twin killers - I could do more with extra supporting characters, making it easier to span over 6 episodes.

The one problem I found with introducing Fred into it, is even though he is used as a plot device mechanic, he was a decision I made to introduce relatively late into the process. This gave the draw back of his character not being developed as much as the other characters. That isn't to say he doesn't help the story, but I do believe if I had more time, or had time to work on him as a character more, then I would have been able to have created a more solid character who perhaps, would have fit in even better with the story.