Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
“your eye is drawn to a character and you appreciate what you are seeing.” [1] You immedi-
ately identify with the character. The character can be beautiful or ugly, intricate or plain, good
or bad. The character's appeal makes you want to watch him and fi nd out more about him.
You learn more about a character as you progress through a story. An appealing design is
complemented by a captivating personality. A good character is embedded with personality
traits that an audience can identify with; ones that are strong and recognizable. These traits are
constructed to either aid or impede the character in the pursuit of her goal. As you watch and
get to know more about the character, she engages you. You begin to hope for the character's
success or failure. At each event in the story, your emotional investment becomes greater.
A good character is one that is right for the story.
Character Profi les
A good character is also a character that you understand. Knowing your character well
allows you to construct believable reactions to confl icts faced in the story. These reactions
are what will move your audience through the story. To engage the audience, you need a
fully developed character.
What does that mean? In fi lms, there are many types of characters. There are main charac-
ters, supporting characters, opposing characters, minor characters, and extras. The term
fl at
is often used to describe minor characters or extras. As an audience, we don't get to know
them very well. They are singular in both function and emotion. Sometimes they are more
like props used to move the story forward. Main characters are fully developed. We engage
in them because they have a history complete with a full range of emotion, strengths, weak-
nesses, idiosyncrasies, and faults.
In feature fi lms character development is called a
back story
. A back story is an extensive
biography of the character. It includes everything from physical features, education, profes-
sional history, family, relationships, lifestyle, hobbies, sports, successes, failures, past dis-
eases, disorders, strengths, weaknesses, fears, and phobias to a myriad of other traits.
For the short we just don't need to know that much. There is not much time, in the few
minutes your fi lm will last, for deep character development. Instead, your audience needs
to know immediately who your character is and what he or she wants. As the animator,
you need to know a bit more to progress the story. But what you need to know can be
limited to a few major traits determined by the following defi nitive questions:
1. What is your character's ethical perspective? Ethics are the means by which we
make decisions. Knowing—or assigning—an ethical baseline to your character will
help you keep him consistent in the way that he approaches confl ict. Paul Lester,
author of Visual Communication, outlines six ethical baselines:
a. Categorical Imperative. This character would have a strong sense of justice. Right
is right and wrong is wrong.