Character design/Digital storytelling
Characters are one of the most important part of any story. Having a character that the audience love, hate or can relate to makes the whole difference in any film, graphic novel, illustration, or ad. Of course every type of media needs and has its own particular requests. The audience as well plays a great part in it. An ad that needs to reel in young people will obviously need different characters than one targeting families or pensioners. This year’s British Gas adverts target families using simple, computer generated characters.
I have always loved films and graphic novels, and have always been interested in people. So I always love getting to know well-designed characters. I might even go as far to say that I prefer characters to real people, because you get to know them so much better (even if they are just fictional). And sometimes a character is so particular that it stays in people’s hearts and minds. In Italy I would say that some that have done so are Crepax’s “Valentina” and the Giussani sisters’ “Diabolik”, but of course the same goes for, say, Tank Girl or any of the Marvel and DC superheroes.
Characters need to be well thought out, starting from their role (protagonist, antagonist, sidekicks etc), appearance, actions, interactions, right down to the dialogue they use.
Nowadays there are so many existing platforms that many stories exist in many places – books, videos, games, films. Setting apart stories that have started out as books or graphic novels to then become films and gadgets, many stories exist and are born on a multi-platform level. This seems to happen especially with tv series, Doctor Who, Level 26, Misfits just to name a few.
The American series Heroes, for example, comprises of the actual series, the spin-off Heroes: Origins, blogs for each character, games, various merchandise, viral videos and comic books going more in-depth about different character’s stories. This is obviously done when targeting a “young adult” audience who is used to using the internet every day, and not a more mature audience who would probably not be waiting for the new series with enough anticipation to go and look for games and mini-videos.
The American series Heroes, for example, comprises of the actual series, the spin-off Heroes: Origins, blogs for each character, games, various merchandise, viral videos and comic books going more in-depth about different character’s stories. This is obviously done when targeting a “young adult” audience who is used to using the internet every day, and not a more mature audience who would probably not be waiting for the new series with enough anticipation to go and look for games and mini-videos.
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