Planning: Characters

Hello and welcome back! In the last few blog posts I talked about my shot list and storyboard helping me to visualize the film opening and plan out everything in order. Today I will be taking a deeper dive into my characters, looking at how they act and their backgrounds. Let's get started!

Jessi

I want to start off with Jessi because I'll be playing her character. Jessi comes from a less fortunate background then Jackson does. Both of her parents passed away in a car accident when she was sick so she lives with her grandma. Her grandmother though, is sick. So, with the cost of medical bills and everything else, she has to work while also being in school and doesn't really have time to make or have friends. She is very quite and to herself and is only focused on helping her grandmother. She also tries her best in school because she wants to get into UCLA which is her dream school. She has wanted to go there since she was little since both her parents went there. Jessi has a very noticeable look to her. She wears dramatic makeup and very dramatic clothing because that's how she expresses herself. A lot of people at school judge her for her look which is another reason she is so quite and doesn't have many friends.

Jackson

Jackson is kind of the opposite of Jessi on the outside but when you dive deeper into who he is as a person, he is also kind of quite as well. He hangs out with the 'popular group" at his school. He comes from a family of esteemed lawyers, so he is very well off. His parents aren't very involved in his life because they're always working, but his dad has his whole life planned out for him regarding which school he'll go to (Columbia) and that he'll be a lawyer when he's older. Jackson doesn't want to be a lawyer or go to Columbia, so this causes a lot of tension between him and his father. He doesn't show it, but the fact that his parents are so absent bothers him a lot. He feels very lonely and even though he seems to have so many friends he doesn't really connect with anyone on a deep level. He is very soft and kind and wouldn't hurt a fly but his friends don't know this because he puts on an act. He dresses like every other rich kid, his appearance isn't really that important.

Even though these backgrounds may seem useless since we are only filming the opening of a film, I think it is very important to have these backstories so that the actors can know how they would act and who they really are. Creating a backstory for both characters even helped me better understand how I want each actor to act. Well that's all I have for today! Thank you so much for reading, see you in the next post!