Hey, once again blog, I'm getting used to the whole blogging thing so let's get right into it. After story boarding and getting a basic concept for my opening, I've decided that I want two main characters (at least two who will prominently feature in the opening). While making the story I had a bit of a mental Idea and picture of what these characters would be like, but I pulled out my handy idea notebook and started sketching and writing down traits to create a more concrete idea of what I want these characters to be like. My skills are definitely more in writing than drawing so... bear with me and my sleep paralysis inducing drawings.
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| Nightmarish drawings of what I envision my characters looking like, and some quick traits. |
My Main Character/Protagonist (on the left) is an immigrant child being moved by the Child Development Program (haven't fully set a name for this thing yet, I'll create another blog soon where I do more exposition/world building, and plot) from their home country in Latin America to the U.S. to one of their facilities. Due to their Latin American origin, I wanted them to have an authentically Latin American name. I was originally gonna use a random name generator, but I was working on the planning with fellow classmates, who were themselves Latin American, and instead they gave me a few name ideas.
On this character I haven't yet decided the gender, as I don't think its necessarily a central part of the character, at least for the opening. If I decide to make them a girl, the name I was recommended and liked was Yolanda, and if a boy it was Pedro. Both of these names, have distinct Latin American origins, and immediately show that the character is from a foreign country. As you can see with the suit they are drawn with, I plan to use mise-en-scene elements to show how this child from a poor background is forced to dress in a style of a higher socio-economic background. As far as casting for this character, the most important criteria is my actor being believably Latin American, since its a pretty important part of the character, and looking like a kid just entering High School. Casting is the other reason I don't wanna pick gender too quickly, as the list of friends I have who are both competent actors, and have the time to dedicate to being in my project is far from infinite, so the gender will also depend on who I am able to get for the role.
The Second Character, is my villain/antagonist. They are kind of like one of those ambitious entrepeneur "innovative CEO" types. I'm thinking of casting my dad in this role lol, he kinda fits the vibe. He is a middle aged businessman so emotionally and acting wise I think it would be easy for him to embrace the kind of role I envision, and physically he is a match for what I think he would look like (i swear he wouldn't take offense to this and I'm not slandering my father's name he is a steve jobs stan).
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| Apple Founder Steve Jobs | |
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| Antagonist CEO from Okja |
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| Billionaire turned Felon, Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes |
some inspiration images for what I envision this character to look like.
To come up the names for this character, I did want something that
communicated a sense of old power and authority. An old White American
male name, that just exudes "I own a private plane, 5 vacation homes,
and have 50 mistreated servants" vibes. So, I looked on the social security website, and went as far as it went, the 1880s, and picked a
few from there. I don't want to pick something from one of the very top ones like "John" or "Williams" cause it just feels a little too cliche, so I decided to pick from between 4 and 15. The ones that I liked were, Charles, Henry (both giving very british royal lol), and Arthur (continuing the royal theme)
Although as I write this I can think of another cool way that I can take this character more nuanced and complex. Instead of making it an American White Man, I could make it an immigrant (maybe even one who is a graduate from this program) to show the example of someone who has gone through the full process of assimilation. This would make the villain less of a cartoonish rich evil man, and have more complexity, allowing us to empathize as the viewer more with him. but I am gonna put a pin in that and get back to it in a future blog. For now, thats pretty much the main characters I'm gonna highlight in my opening and who I could cast.
Sources:
Social Security Administration. (n.d.). Social Security. Top names of the 1880s. https://www.ssa.gov/oact/babynames/decades/names1880s.html
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