Character and performance

In most stories the design, the movement, the staging and performance of a character will drive the narrative: character and performance they work together and can’t be separated and in most cases they will create the narrative.

Animation, in this sense, adds a different characters dimensions than other formats since it reinterpret human form and experiences by anthropomorphism of it’s characters that could also be inanimate objects, offering a broader definition of a character

This is an example of how performance can be created with a minimum amount of elements and that it could be action based.

The characters come across as very little dialogue, since is the action to create the narrative and the key scenes are built up through the character’s performance.

This animated short film deals with the principle of appeal in a sense that the characters are engaging, they make you care for them. They show their appeal through the design and how they perform, act, speak. In this animated short film what drives the narrative are also facial expressions and reactions, the staging the composition of the scene and the relations and interaction between the characters.

This is a very involving story, there is no dialogue and a backstory too: this is an example of taking a traditional start on narrative and putting it in a short film rather than a longer piece.

Also this short film obeys the rules of narrative but in a short amount of time: the staging, the interactions between characters, the key events are all achieved by a character performance driven story. There is even a moral to the story: not to mock other people or be mean to them because it has consequences. Another key elements to analyse is the eyes of the characters which are the feature which performs the most and communicates too.

This short movie has some really interesting elements concerning the way the narrative is driven: the staging regarding the two different worlds (the human and the alien one), the performance of the characters which is action driven and concentrated on the face expressions. Here there is also an example of how animation applies anthropomorphism to it’s characters: the audience can easily identify with the situation, since we, as humans are assessed continually in our life, we can fail or succeed, whichever is the case we can learn from it and do better next time.

Character development

From the examples above we can notice that characters can become the story itself driving the narrative and leading to the key points: all well-drawn characters have a an inner motor, a dominant unconscious goal that they are striving for, that drives all his or her choices. We as the audience are interested in witnessing a change, a growth in the character by the end of the story. Every main character has a weakness at the beginning of a story identifying him or her and creating the narrative too, of which they are not completely aware, it becomes almost a need. We can identify two type of weaknesses that main characters (heroes) can have:

• Psychological: which is a weakness that only affects a hero and no one else.
• Moral: a weakness that it morally hurts the characters surrounding the hero.

Any psychological weakness can be developed to become a moral need as well.

The weaknesses in group two are more often represented in stories: they are turned outwards, they require other characters to exists they can harm other characters but can be reflected negatively to hurt the hero as well, they can help create a moral and psychological need fo the character. On the other hand the weaknesses from group 1 are turned inwards harming the hero himself. For instance, goofball comedies rarely get the character weaknesses development right, since they are not pressured to have profound character development and they risk getting too heavy and to bring the mood of the story down, therefore they tend to be psychological weaknesses: when developing a weakness for a character it should be taken in consideration if the weakness is going to be intentional or if it will inherently cause immoral actions to the surrounding characters: think about the actions the character will take driven by the weakness what decisions do they make because of this weakness, do these decisions or actions hurt other characters if not think of ways to flush out the weakness outwards the character to show the immoral consequences of having such a weakness; in this regards also the opponents of the main character and how they attack the weakness of the main character. This conflict with the opponent are the key for the hero to overcome his or her weakness and what actions does the character take to redeem his or hers previous choices. Usually the main character does not know what does he or she needs to change about him or her right from the beginning but it should be a self-discovery, moreover it should not feel like a lecture to the audience otherwise it could become childish: the weakness or the learned lesson should not be stated out.

Story development

The character development and the story development usually go hand in hand: the story evolves also thanks to a good narrative structure, a task to achieve and to the ability that the screenwriter has, for example, to create an emotional connection through the stories he or she has created, which becomes the clue to a great story since it can cross barriers of time. For example, storytelling without dialogue, such as the short films listed above, is the purest form of cinematic storytelling, since it has the most inclusive approach that a narrative can take: the key to a good story is hiding the facts to make the audience look for them: we are compelled to deduce and deduct because we do it in our daily life, is the absence of information that draws us into the story and putting things together as the audience proceeds into the narrative is very important. Another important element in stories is invoking wonder and capture real experiences, not artificial one, and express values through them.

Writing a story

Helping to develop the sense of wonder is writing about something unknown and trust imagination through the process: by feeling it and experience it in first person helps evoking and sharing it to the audience too. However, fiction has to make sense, since is less stranger than life: it has to follow a structure and the essential character should strive to accomplish something meaningful. Hence, plot stories should have a central character who wants something intensely and goes after it despite opposition and, as a result of a struggle, comes to a win, or to a lose, and this definition naturally drives you to the consideration of the theme and the story point of view.

The hidden story dynamic

From the previous weeks we have identified that being every well developed story there is a defined structure sustaining it: having a story formula can help create a story that engages the audience by taking them on a compelling journey from a starting point to an end point in a way that they end satisfied by it too, and having a goal, identifying the result first and then design everything to achieve that out come can help develop clearer ideas.

A conventional story structure is, as we have seen, the 3 acts structure which is described in the following way:

• Beginning (setup), also defined as Act 1 comprehends the first quarter of the story and is where the audience is introduced to the main characters in their normal life; something happens to them which is forcing them to respond and setting them on a new path. At the end of this section (plot point 1) something happens that spins the story in a whole new direction giving the character a goal which they will pursue throughout the second act.
• Middle (conflict), also defined as Act 2 comprehends the second and third quarter of the story, were the character purses that goal the obstacles in between get in their way and they get challenging and harder and harder to overcome demanding more from the main character; after at plot point 2 something happens at the end of this act that shows the character what he or she must do to resolve the story.
• End (resolution), also defined as Act 3 comprehends the last quarter of the story, is where the final story climax is built and where the battle ensues and they could end up winners or defeated. The consequences of the events of the story are shown too.

However, the human mind is designed to recognise patterns such as this formula, although this structure remains important in order to deconstruct already existing stories.

Alternatively, there is a mechanism underlying the structure, a hidden story dynamic applicable to everything and scalable: the setup and payoff mechanism, where the setup establishes the context or the situation and the payoff spins it. Every element in a story is either one of those of both of them. Actually even the elements of the 3 acts formula can be identified as setups or payoffs; It can help spotting cliches and predictable choices when the payoffs are too obvious, it helps strengthen the details of the story by creating setups choices that connect with the rest of the story; when either the setups or the payoffs are not played off well ones can actually discover the holes in the story. This mechanism more specifically helps realising that everything is interconnected into a narrative, that nothing happens without having consequences but significant ones.

The character and story development in Animation are two very closely associated aspects. For instance, a story artist and director takes care of the composition of the scene the staging of the elements and the camera position; the animator director, however develops the best performance for the characters making look spontaneous by collecting references. They both connect their abilities to converge into the ultimate goal that is how to create an engaging, satisfying narrative which compiles the audience.