From the Archives- Today's Creating a Character Class with Jenna Gabriel

July 22, 2012

Hello Again!

I was pretty excited going into today’s class, and very anxious to share my love of creative characters with the group. I was so lucky to have such a receptive and enthusiastic group!

As our warmup, I asked everyone to share their favorite character of all time and act out a favorite line of theirs. We saw everything from Homer Simpson to The Joker to the Witch Doctor from “Princess and the Frog.” After getting all of the different characters in our bodies, we sat for a few minutes to talk about the different kinds of characters that there could be. It’s tough to extrapolate the big picture from favorite characters, to recognize that Superman is a specific character while Hero is the archetype, but our group was able to name a lot of types of characters!

I had been prepared with pictures of a few:

Types of Characters: a King

Types of Characters: a Villain

Types of Characters: a Parent and a Child

Types of Characters: a Hero

Types of Characters: a Lover

Types of Characters: a Clown

but they surprised me by adding a few characters into the mix that I hadn’t thought of, like a detective!

Then, the conversation got even more complicated as we talked about how within different types is where the fun is: What makes two heroes different from each other? Two kings? Two villains? The group was dead on with their answers: how they feel, how they act, and what they wear. Amazing, right?!

Which brought us to the crux of class: creating our own characters! It started with the “what they wear” part of character, as each student picked a costume piece and began exploring the many different ways they could wear it. Once they’d settled on one, I photographed them each in costume with their face expressing everything the costume made them feel. And together, the group answered questions based on those photographs to help each other flesh out their characters: What do you see? What is the costume piece? What emotions does it look like this character is feeling? What type of character is this? What do they do? Where are they from? What is their name?

Teddy trying on his costume piece

The class answers to character questions about Nicky’s character, Rocky

Teddy’s photograph as the class discusses his character

And finally, these characters all got to meet each other and go on an adventure! We traveled from the hills of Britain to the woods of Australia, we saw zoos and magic carpet rides and bullfights… It was amazing!

 Here are their final characters:

Nicky as Rocky the Australian Cowboy

Kendall as Kevin the Wolf

Teddy as John the Magician

At the end of class, Teddy shared that he loved being able to play at Daytime Moon, and that he’d learned that “there were many unlimited ways of creating a character.”

Successful class? I sure think so! But check out the highlight reel to see for yourself:

See you next time!
Jenna