Making the characters and narrative ideas

When it comes to writing character, particularly female, I came across a few articles talking about the phrase 'Strong female character'

Article here: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/08/i-hate-strong-female-characters


I remember watching Shrek with my mother.

“The Princess knew kung-fu! That was nice,” I said. And yet I had a vague sense of unease, a sense that I was saying it because it was what I was supposed to say.

She rolled her eyes. “All the princesses know kung-fu now.”

No one ever asks if a male character is “strong”. Nor if he’s “feisty,” or “kick-ass” come to that.

''What happens when one tries to fit other iconic male heroes into an imaginary “Strong Male Character” box? A few fit reasonably well, but many look cramped and bewildered in there.''

''Nowadays the princesses all know kung fu, and yet they’re still the same princesses. They're still love interests, still the one girl in a team of five boys, and they’re all kind of the same.''

''Badass gunslingers and martial artists sure, but also interesting women who are shy and quiet and do, sometimes, put up with others’ shit because in real life there’s often no practical alternative. And besides heroines, I want to see women in as many and varied secondary and character roles as men: female sidekicks, mentors, comic relief, rivals, villains.''
So the characters have to have more than just there few traits.


A great site that almost makes a check list on how to make a good character helps think about how to create one.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SoYouWantTo/DevelopCharacterPersonality


''In order to understand how a character’s personality will be affected by gender roles, you need to take into account the 3 things we spoke of before.

(Environment) The rules and expectations the society where your character resides has for each gender.
(Free-will) How much does your character follow the rules of that society? Does your character defy or follow what society expects of him/her? And how much to they follow/defy them?''

I have used multiple questions they asked ion this web page for 2 of my characters.



So I can have my female character Tetra with my male character Coats, On the screen at the same time. working off each other in this narrative.

Now I have to think of what sort of character I want to show through body language and interaction with one another. And not just rely on one or two roles such as 'woman is strong, boy is weak' or vice versa.

I like using this list to start off making the characters.

Tetra
The more energetic of the 2 main characters, physically stronger than Coats and talkative, confident, but not a lot of charm, often comes off just loud and obnoxious. Very adventurous, however she will drag poor coats a long with her and become quite thoughtless when it comes to things she can do, but coats clearly can't, so she may end up climbing over an obstacle and forgetting coats can't do it. Walking for a few minutes before realizing what she's done.

How is your character when alone?
She is not alone to often, she is out of the house a lot, she likes to keep active. Climbing tree's a lot. But when at home she spend a lot of the time on the internet socializing with others.

Does your character treat everyone the same?
She acts similar to everyone, it just depends if people will stick around her loud pushy personality. Coats is her closest friend, she is as nice as she can be to him, however doesn't think about his feelings unless he's clearly upset.

Skill flaws.
She may be physically skilled, quite limber due to her ape features. But she doesn't think very logically.

Moral flaws.
She will often put her own needs in front of others, if she wants to go somewhere, she will drag others no matter what they think. She will often try to be the center of attention either through sheer volume or showing off.

Extraversion/Introversion.
Extrovert, Tetra gets uneasy on her own for to long, she gets bored quite easily. Possibly because she doesn't feel like what she does matters if no one can see her doing it.




Coats
A rather timid skittish camp guy. Who would soon rather run away rather than face what he's afraid of of intimidates him. He often relies on Tetra for emotional support.
He feels at ease when talking to women because he has had a history of being ridiculed mostly by men, being told to 'man up' being asked if he was gay.

How is your character when alone?
He is quite happy to be alone, he doesn't feel judged for his love of clothes. He spends a lot of time in suit shops almost drooling over the clothes, trying to come up with the perfect outfit for whenever he has the money.

Does your character treat everyone the same?
He is usually quiet around people. With Tetra he feels more comfortable so openly talks about cool clothes he saw that say or has seen on the internet.
Where as with his father and other males he deems wouldn't understand him he stays silent unless spoken to, ashamed of his desires.

Skill flaws.
He is very physically weak with very little stamina, It is almost impossible for him to be sneaky to, on hard floors anyway because of his hooves.

Moral flaws.
He often over reacts and freaks out if embarrassed, especially in public. He will also lie to others if it makes life easier for him.

Extraversion/Introversion.
More of an introvert, he will judge people based on appearance and if he feels like someone is not going to understand his life style he won't talk to them, being alone or with Tetra is just easier on his nerves.



So when it comes to story, possibly something revolving around Tetra doing things, dragging coats along Tetra getting across obstacles fairly well, able to balance and walk over a log above a stream, where as coats is having trouble and has to crawl across. Coats needing to yell for tetra to slow down, maybe seem exhausted leaning against a wall.
But when it comes to some sort of puzzle, Tetra will try to solve it with physical skills without thinking about it. But because Coats is so tired he just looks at the puzzle and realizes it needs thought.


Not sure on the environment yet, possibly use the game idea i originally had, inside another characters subconscious, as there could be all kinda of objects and shapes in the way.

I'd also like dialog in the scene, but I don't want there to be voice acting and lip sync. Probably have text boxes and the characters faces can just show the feelings of the character.

At the Mo-cap studio!

The studio itself is quite large, a lot of space to work with.

There's a small station where I put my FBX files on a laptop which had a cable connecting to the computer beside it, Which is where they set up the actual mo-cap rig.

Having the computers connected allowed the actor to move the model as he moved, live streamed the mo-cap data straight to the model. 

They had a lot of camera's surrounding the room to pick up on the mo-cap sensors.

 

And to calibrate those camera's they would use this stick with 5 of the sensors. They would wave it around the whole room ever inch for all camera's to pick it up, starting from the center to know where the center of the scene is.

With in the mo-cap studio They can in fact act out multiple characters at the same time.

They do this by having a specific 'cluster' on there suit, This lets the camera distinguish which suit is controlling which character.

This cluster must be places in an unusual place so the computer does not mistake it for a part of the skeleton.

To calibrate the Character the person in the suit has to start in a T-pose, and move every joints, arms, bend the elbow, crouch, bring each leg up etc.

And this is what the outcome was during the first mo-cap session.

Tetra's arms seem to move oddly, I am unsure why because mo-cap data i have downloaded from websites seem to work fine when i attach them to the skeleton.

The next session will involve drama students, so they want me to come up with something they can work with such as a story or some form of narrative and be directed. And i think a better narative will happen if i were to use more than one character and make use of that 'cluster' feature in the mo-cap suits.