Characters and Characterizations

One of the most important, if not the most important, aspect of a film is the characters. A trend often found in our genre of film is having a dorky, yet lovable, main character. I began to research the characters of some of my favorite indie films. My first thought was Napoleon Dynamite. This character perfectly encompasses the socially awkward, quirky personality often present in these films. Everything from his style to his speech contributes to his demeanor and makes him a figure that audiences enjoy watching.

While Napoleon Dynamite is wonderfully weird, I want our character to also be very lovable and someone who the audience will just want to reach out to and give them a big hug. I remember that I felt this way while watching 500 Days of Summer. As I looked up the Tom character, I came across this article where Joseph Gordon-Levitt himself talks about his character from the film. It was shocking for me to read about him describing Tom as "obsessive" rather than a "heartthrob".

This twist on the main character again had me begging the question of what can our character do to make him different from other stereotypical characters? Once again, our quirky group member Emily came through with her creativity and suggested that maybe we do an In the Heights inspired approach and have all the characters played by one actor. We all paused for two seconds, contemplated, and then immediately got excited and how inventive and interesting this idea could be. We will just have to be very careful with costume and makeup!

Napoleon Dynamite (Character). (n.d.). Retrieved March 12, 2015, from http://napoleondynamite.wikia.com/wiki/Napoleon_Dynamite_(Character)

Makarechi, K. (n.d.). Joseph Gordon-Levitt Says His '(500) Days Of Summer' Character Is 'Selfish,' Not A Role Model. Retrieved March 12, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/17/joseph-gordon-levitt-500-days-of-summer-selfish_n_1795676.html