Michael Francis Taylor: Costume Representation

To start I jotted down several ideas on how exactly the protagonist and antagonist would look. I sketched a few rough, tough, beefy blokes and underneath a few lanky, untidy youths following the nerdy, computer hacker stereotype. It soon became clear however, that I would have to make several adjustments. In reality the computer hacker would be the real villain, and the one chasing the hacker would be the hero. I wanted to make it clear that the viewer is clearly on the side of the hacker, and to do this I needed to stress the hackers cool vulnerability, and the shear aggression in the one chasing him. Clearly this will be emphasised in their acting, but for now I needed to make this obvious in their style of dress.

This was harder than it seemed. Searching 'nerd' and 'geek' in Google provided me with some inaccurate results.

For a start my hacker is intended to be young. Whilst being vulnerable, he also needs the to be equipped with a sufficient amount of strength to be able to outsmart and escape his enemy.

I felt images like these were just too stereotypical for my computer hacker. On the other hand, I like the glasses.

The closest I got was Alan Cummings character in Goldeneye, left. His hair is unkempt and his glasses are retro but this doesn't ruin his cool eccentric image.

Secondly I needed my antagonist to have an element of aggression. To do this I followed the stereotypes to the extreme. Clothes websites such as River Island drew me towards leather jackets and worn jeans. Being ginger-haired myself didn't put me off using the ginger-aggression stereotype, and similarly I felt it was widely agreed that the Scottish accent is often used to exaggerate anger - again these are mere stereotypes, I do not wish to exploit them as the truth. I also wanted to avoid the 'charver' look, tracksuit bottoms and berghaus jackets for example, as I felt my villain, being nonetheless a villain, ought to be set at a more educated, prosperous position.