Character Portrait

As we are preparing to start a character based project in this class, we've started with attempting to nail down who we want out character to be exactly. Starting with the presentation of ourselves and our ideas, we are getting slight more exact by writing a one-page character portrait.

Prompt:

Write a one-page character portrait. Things to think about: Choose one single theme. Explore a concern you care about. Have one main character. Make the character interesting. Describe three characteristic actions by this person. Guess at this person's long-term agenda (that is, what her or she seems to be trying to get, do or accomplish in life. Suggest experiences that might have implanted these drives. Predict where this person's agenda might take them in ten years' time. What is this person's point of view in the immediate, moment-to-moment circumstances. What are others point of view of this character?

My Response:

Loneliness, and abandonment, are the themes that I'd like to work with. I feel that one or the other just doesn’t quite accurately describe the feeling that I'm looking for. Particularly the feeling of loneliness that accompanies being abandoned or being left alone by someone you care about. As far as what I want this theme to accomplish is to lead the character, and hopefully the viewer, into learning self-reliance, or learning how to be alone. This could be seen as my concern that I want to explore.

A character that I'd want to use to portray this theme and concern is a superhero's sidekick whose abandoned by his superhero. For the longest time, the superhero and his partner have always been a duo, living together, fighting crime together, and doing everything together. The superhero was the dominate one in their relationship, as he was the one in charge. Always telling the sidekick what to do and basically controlling his entire life, up until where my story starts to take place. For some reason or another, one that I'm not entirely sure what it is or that doesn’t even have to be explicitly told, the hero kicks his sidekick to the curb, literally. With no direction or instruction from his superior, the main character of my story doesn’t know what to do with himself. Aimlessly and desolately, he wanders the city streets looking for direction, and trying to learn how to live as a single person. I want the juxtaposition of a colorful usually upbeat sidekick to be cast in dark and lonely light to be used to convey my themes. This contrast of character to situation should be reminiscent to that of a sad clown.

This character should seem aimless, as hes lost without someone telling him where to be or what to do. Not knowing what to do himself, where to go, what to be doing, or what he should make of himself, this character should be lost in just about everything. My sidekick should pine for the days he spent with his superhero, and always seem distracted by memories of the past and the life he lost. Sad and distraught, my sidekick shouldn't know how to deal with himself or live now that hes alone, and thus spiraling into a depressed state. Thus, I want this former sidekick to go through the five stages of loss: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and then finally Acceptance.

Originally, my lead in this animation to not have a long-term agenda, as his previous view of the whole world and his original life plan to be disturbed. As a precursor to the story, I’d like to make it seem as if he was entirely dedicated to the crime fighting lifestyle and serving his superhero mentor. Now that hes out on his own, he doesn’t have an agenda. This should be part of the story is, him discovering what he should do for the rest of his life, now that everything in his life has been disrupted. Although he should have an overwhelming desire to be a do gooder. To be honest, the experiences that influence these should be pretty evident. The desire to find his own way in life is attributed to his abandonment by his superhero, and his aspiration to always do good is a remnant of his past as a crime fighter, as hes been doing it all his life. Lastly, as to where this agenda is going to take him, both the character and myself don't particularly know his future, as that is an integral part of the story.

This characters mindset is that of a lost child. Immediately, he will be sad and distraught without direction and completely lost in an overwhelming city. Without a direction his first course of action would be to try and find someone or something to point him in a direction, and originally all he would want is to make it back to his superhero. His gaze will be hopeless, and hopefully by the end of the story to change to a more upbeat attitude in tune with his old personality. Finally, others in this world, would probably view this character as a hasbeen or a shadow of his former self. He should seem hopelessly lost in the big city and without his caretaker.