Lecture 6- Developing Character and Narrative

Developing Character-
In order to relate and connect with an audience, a visual communicator must ensure they have a set structure of their background story and character behind the work they aim to create. This allows a strong base for the visual communicator, which they can then work their way upon. In order to develop a character successfully you will have to consider a variety of different factors. These factors will include looking at what type of character you want to create, whether they will be a hero or a villain. If creating a hero, you will have to make your character someone who your audience will be proud of and whom they can look up to. Whereas on the other hand a villain will be a regular person with a lot of fatal flows.

Here are some other important factors to consider before developing your character:
-Being informed is a vital part of all story-telling procedures as you must know all your stuff so your character and their world makes sense to your audience.
-A visual communicator should always see the world from others perspective, as this makes for a great writer.
-There should be a motivation and alignment, what drives your character.
-Flaws and details should be clearly shown in terms of what makes your character (quirky, fun, childish, evil, happy etc)
-Give your character emotion, as the audience will greatly empathize with this.

The characters become before the story, once you figure them out and set them loose, the story unfolds on its own..

Developing Narrative-

A common narrative which Hollywood films mainly follow is a dominant role of a hero and a villain. This is done because it has been loved by the public throughout the years and continues on doing so. As this is an easy base for the narrative it will set up a film in a three-stage act sequence; meaning that it will relate with the audience in terms of emotion and therefore they will be able to relate to the film more easily. 

Above is an example of a 3-act structure which allows you to see the journey of a narrative.

 Firstly there will be a background story in which the protagonist (hero) will play a role in, this will be followed up by a beginning/setup stage which will then release the character into the world and they will have a certain aim to achieve. 

The stage after this is the middle/conflict/confrontation stage; this is often the time when things take a turn for the worst and 'shit gets real', at this point the audience will be really into the film. During this stage the antagonists come in and throw obstacles at the main hero, causing conflict between the two, this automatically creates drama and makes it much more interesting for the audience to watch. The middle conflict contains several different points where the main hero is often forced into his survival mechanism; meaning that the hero will have to battle against the villain, in order to overcome the conflict and become a true hero. 

Finally there is an end/resolution to the narrative, in which all the acts and scenes from the previous stages come together to create a final scene. This scene is often packed with a lot of adrenaline for the audience as it's a build up to whatever has happened in the film. This is the stage which the hero will achieve his main goal in and the audience is often left with a happy ending.