Cast List for our Thriller

Joshua "J" Cody from Animal Kingdom

Jonathon Cody

Teenage Boy - Played by James Winterburn

Jonathon Cody is the main character of our thriller. The reason behind his first name is that Jonathon is usually associated with good people. Jonathon also means "gift of god". This compliments the sense of him being a character you want to support.

The second name is inspired by the main family of criminals from Animal Kingdom. This provides an intertextual reference and a thriller signifier. It also relates the character of Jonathon to crime and murder, as well as the character of Joshua (or "J") in Animal Kingdom - another person caught up in their family's dark secrets.

Eve Cody

The mother of Jonathon Cody - Played by Mrs. Winterburn (James' mother)

Janine "Smurf" Cody from Animal Kingdom

The name eve has been inspired from the Adam and Eve story - this makes the mother into a loving, good figure that is slightly tainted by greed and darkness - like the angelic Eve that steals an apple from the Tree of Knowledge.

The surname Cody has already been explained. Just like the character of Jonathon Cody relates to "J" from Animal Kingdom, Eve Cody relates to the mother in the criminal family from Animal Kingdom. This character is called Janine 'Smurf' Cody. Just like the mother in our thriller, she is a loving mother who cares for her family, but she also has a dark, secretive and mysterious history and background.

The Enigmatic Group

The enigmatic group will have a link with Eves death as well as her son, Jonathon.

We have had many discussions concerning the enigmatic gang following the Cody family. We had decided to use a linked 4-digit code (like binary) as the mark on each character's hand. This would tell the audience that the family is linked to the gang, as both the gang and the family would have the code - but each code would be slightly different e.g. 0001 and 0002 for two different members of the enigmatic group. This would also have linked with the surname Cody - we were thinking of having the surname of Codey to link the code aspect in more significantly. However, after debating this aspect of out thriller with our teacher, we decided to remove this code as it was becoming too confusing for the audience, and it would be hard to explain the code in two minutes without speech. We then went back to our original idea of a mark (hence the temporary name of "Marked" for our thriller), such as a crescent moon that would reflect the fact that the group is dark and hidden, or a deadly, stealthy animal e.g. a cobra symbol. However, we have decided to completely remove the mark now. We will edit our footage so that the characters are linked. We will do this by following shots of an enigmatic figure with Jonathon Cody, and so on.

Examples of mark designs:

Cobra symbol

Crescent moon symbol