Character Profiles

Eric Harris

Eric is an 18 year old, who during his time at Columbine High School suffered from constant bullying. Despite being active in school play productions and becoming a computer assistant at the school, he was still being bullied, so seeks to do a mass crime in order to solve his problems, and get revenge on the bullies.

His mis-en-scene of all black and the cigarette is used to create an impression that the mistreatment from his fellow students has forced him into a ‘rebellious’ act that people use to calm themselves down, and not something of a choice. It is important that he wears black as this connotes death and is quite a dull colour showing that the bullying has drained out his charisma and self-esteem.

Actor – Stephen Cook: Stephen is playing the role of Eric in the film as he is a similar age to what the real life character was, in 1999. It is important that he maintains this role of a victim of bullying as it is quite a key convention in the film. As our primary shooting location was the school that Stephen attends, it was convenient as he was then available whenever we needed to film.

Dylan Klebold

Dylan too is of similar age (17), and attends the same school as Eric. He too is bullied at school and desperately wants the bullying to stop and so is easily convinced when Eric tells him about his mass crime plan to solve their problems.

His mis-en-scene is similar to Eric’s as we thought it was important feature, as the dull colours too show that the bullying has affected him in a way that he doesn’t want to stand out, which he would if he was wearing bright coloured clothes. Similarly to Eric, they are both wearing what could be school uniform to show that the main cause of this bullying has come from a place of education.

Actor – Niall Palmer: Niall is playing the role of Dylan in this film who is best friends with Eric. Although Niall doesn’t feature much in the film opening, it is good that he and Stephen are good friends off screen, which meant they can work well together and efficiently. Moreover, the characters they are both playing are supposedly quite close, so having this friendship off screen would mean there aren’t any problems onscreen and could achieve something without any difficulty between them.