Building a Killer:Christina's Character Developement

Who is Christina?

 Hey! In this blog post, I’m going to talk about the development of Christina. Character development is one of the most important parts of a film. If a character doesn’t feel right for the story, the whole thing feels off—like something just isn’t working. 

Naming Christina 

I think a character’s name is a big deal when it comes to their development. My partner, Addison, and I searched online for women’s names, scrolling forever until we found the perfect one, Christina. We literally searched up the most common female names and landed on sss.gov, where the name Christina was number 58. It just felt right. It sounds sweet, but it can also have a different vibe depending on the context. We also needed a name for Christina’s husband, but since he isn’t the main character (and, well, he dies), we didn’t put as much thought into it. We just searched for common male names and landed on Luke. I won’t lie, Gilmore Girls definitely had something to do with that choice. 

Creating Christina

Christina goes through a massive change in the story, she starts as a normal, loving person but transforms into something completely different. Since her whole personality shifts, we needed to show that in how she looks too. At the start of the film, before everything happens, she wears bright, happy colors to show her original personality. Here's a mood board I made to show that.

But after the tumor starts affecting her, she switches to wearing all black, symbolizing the dark turn her character takes. She was once bubbly and full of love, but that love turns into anger. She loses empathy, becomes obsessive, and stops caring about right and wrong. Her lucid dreams take over, and she turns into someone unrecognizable. Here's the other mood board.

Sources:

Social Security Administration. (n.d.). Popular names of the 20th century. U.S. Social Security Administration. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/century.html