Welcome back! Veronica here, ready to share new details from Curtains Up! This week we worked on character development. All of our amazing actors came up with the characters themselves. They were able to express themselves through acting as characters they designed.
Here are some exciting photos and videos from our last session!
Nicky and Sam collaborate on his character development
In this photo Kendall is presenting his character Billy to the group. Let's see Billy in action in the clip below!
Above, meet our playwrighting team Michelle and Jacob.
This group is working to develop a scene.
We'll leave you this week with a clip of Teddy introducing us to his character Maxwell in the DMC character song.
Next week the actors move on to the first stages of pilot developement. Can't wait to show you all about it. - Veronica
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:
“An idea has no worth at all without believable characters
to implement it; a plot without characters is like a tennis court
without players. Daffy Duck is to a Buck Rogers story what John McEnroe
was to tennis. Personality. That is the key, the drum, the fife. Forget
the plot.”
—Chuck Jones
***
I love this quote. Because it’s so true, right? “Boy meets girl” would
always be the same story if it weren’t for the specific boys and the
specific girls. “Whodunnit” would always be the same mystery if it
weren’t for the unique quirks that every villian leaves in their wake as
clues. At their core, every character is an archetype: a mother, a
lover, a villian, a hero. At their core, every character is a human. And
so, creating a character both takes us far outside the realm of who we
are and brings us much closer to understanding our core as a human.
Embodying another person asks of each of us to understand the drives and
feelings of another person, to be (even when the character is cruel or
greedy or angry) empathetic to a fault.
It’s work that I’ve always loved doing as an actor, and work that I’m
thrilled to share with the students in Daytime Moon’s “Creating A
Character” workshop tomorrow afternoon. In all of the full programs I’ve
taught, we’ve put so much emphasis on the story that character work has
always been secondary. We explore our students’ characters through the
lens of their experience within the plot. But, as Chuck Jones so
eloquently commands: forget the plot! In my class, we’ll have two hours
to simply focus on character. We’ll be creating individuals that maybe
one day we could make a story out of, who surely could meet each other
in the street or at a party and find some adventures to embark on. But
the crux of what we’ll be doing Saturday is simply to find the
people–Who are the craziest, funniest, most exciting people we can
imagine? And how can we imbue them with a backstory so they become
living, breathing, feeling beings?
Check out some of these examples of epic archetypal characters. So much fun to play with!
For the past few weeks, I’ve been watching all of the other workshop
teachers have a blast with our participants. I’ve observed their
classes, have taken photographs and videos, and helped participants
tweet their experiences during breaks. It’s been inspirational and
enjoyable, but more than anything I’ve felt the itch to play! Watching
the other amazing teachers bring so much joy to our students is like
sitting on the bench as the rest of the lineup bats through the order.
Finally, I feel like I’m in the on deck circle, and I’m so excited to
see the students tomorrow I can hardly wait!
If you can’t make it to class, I hope that you’ll follow the
students’ experiences on twitter @Daytime_Moon, on our Facebook page at
www.facebook.com/DaytimeMoonCreations, and on YouTube at
www.youtube.com/user/DaytimeMoonCreations. I can’t wait to share all our
updates with you!
One
of my favorite Chuck Jones creations. Even if he’s the “bad guy” in the
roadrunner cartoons, you can’t help but like him. Such a classic
character!
So join me tomorrow as we play with “the key, the drum and the fife.” We’re having fun with personality! Plot-free.
