Characters And Personalities

As we have now begun planning for our opening film sequence I decided that I needed to know my characters before I could start detailing my synopsis.

 I decided on a selection of teenage characters because that would appeal more to the age range that I have chosen for the film's rating (see this post). I then decided to have an all female cast because girls are easier to sympathise with in difficult situations instead of boys.

I then began gathering ideas about my characters. I knew that I couldn't have a lot of characters because it would confuse the audience and be too overwhelming at the beginning of a film to meet so many characters. That was when I came to the conclusion of 3 characters. It would be easier to direct with a small cast and also I would be able to work on the detail of the characters in more depth.

I started to focus on teenage characteristics and decided that I wanted to use a variety of different personality traits, making sure that none of the characters were the same. Of course, they needed to have similarities but I thought I would use this variety of characteristics so that it would be easier for a wide range of the audience to empathise with.

I therefore came up with the following characters:

ROWENA HEMLOCK

SKADI STORMBORN

ALYS WEST

I then explored their personalities and traits so that I could focus on how they would behave in the story in order to show how they would act in the situation that they are in. This was the outcome:

ROWENA HEMLOCK

(pronounced row-e-na)

Rowena is a troubled teenager who likes her solitude. She, along with Skadi and Alys, is one of the few survivors from her clan. When she was ten, her mother was infected and Rowena blamed herself for her mother's condition. She eventually shot her mother and this haunts her everyday making her very conscious of her actions. She is an intelligent individual and taught herself to read and write from books she found in the old libraries. 

SKADI STORMBORN

(pronounced scar-d-ee)

Skadi is a force not to be reckoned with. She's a stubborn, badass teenager whose tomboy attitude constantly gets her into sticky situations. She and her family joined the clan when she and Rowena were young but once they became infected her aim was to protect her younger cousin, Alys.

ALYS WEST

(pronounced like Alice)

As one of Skadi's only remaining relatives, Alys has always lived a life in the shadows, protected from the creatures of the day. Due to this she is generally a shy individual who is normally too scared to voice her own opinion. She never knew her parents as they were killed when she was young and was raised by her Aunt. She is very dependant on the other girls, especially after her brother, Nimrod left camp and never returned. 

These are just the basics of my characters and I may develop them further. However I believe that this will help design my storyboard for the opening sequence due to my understanding and knowledge about my characters instead of making their stories up as I go along. 

Back to the drawing board!