Designing a character for my film

Making my character mysterious

I enjoy designing characters, I think it’s really interesting when you can show lots about a person without having to say anything. Whilst I think it’s really fun to do, it can also prove challenging, so to get my ideas on-screen the way I want them, I started with creating a goal of this character that I was going to create. So I set my goal, I wanted this character to be someone with a much darker hidden personality beneath the surface, so that the outside shell was a complete façade and the small tendencies that this character would display would eventually give the audience enough to figure out what the inside of this character is like.

In case it isn’t apparent yet, I like to reference and observe other art forms in order to give my own work more depth. So I will look at all sorts of art, fashion magazines, manga/comics and even musicians in order to gain ideas for characters in order to flesh them out more. It was when I was researching that I recalled one of my favorite manga’s, in particular, I had recalled the part of the story where the main characters were in pursuit of a strange man in a bowler hat, but despite their best efforts they could not reach him. I thought this would be something interesting to look into as the design was beyond bizarre, after researching and watching video essays, it happened to be that the author, Hirohiko Araki, was inspired by a certain surrealist painter of the early 20th century, in which he implemented into the design of his character.

Wonder Of U from JoJolion (2011-2021), by Hirohiko Araki 

And through this I discovered the surreal artwork of Rene Magritte, in particular his many works of the ominous man in the bowler hat. Like Araki, I was fascinated by the artwork as it expressed a sense of unease, which would be an appropriate emotion for an audience to feel whilst watching a thriller film. I focused mainly on one painting which especially caught my attention, and is possibly one of Magritte’s most infamous paintings…

The Son Of Man, 1946

This painting represents the hidden nature behind the fake smiles and personalities of everyday normal people, which is exactly what I was aiming to achieve with this character of mine as there is going to be a darker personality beneath the surface. I thought of how I could implement this into my film, it would be simple to just make the character wear similar clothes and a bowler hat to what is seen in the painting. I’m sure it would be quite effective and it would act as an interesting reference for anyone aware of the art. However, I felt like copying the imagery of the man in bowler hat would be uninteresting for me to work with, and to me its important that I enjoy what I am doing and feeling passionate to output the best material possible. 

So with this I brainstormed different ways of achieving a similar effect and looked towards covering up the characters face, just like the apple does. I looked at ways to block the face with objects around the set, which would be a house. Using symbolic everyday items to cover his face such as knives and fragile things, which would be interesting, but to me I felt like there might have been a more subtle way to accomplish this. I wanted to hide the emotion of this character, but not take away his whole face. 

I concluded that the best way of hiding emotion and the true inner personality of my character would be to hide the eyes. Eyes carry a persons emotions, they could be smiling but not meaning it, and their eyes will tell us that, so by hiding the eyes of my character, it hides the one thing that shows a true personality. Whilst implementing this differently, it still uses the same concept The Son Of Man does, and it does it in a way that feels new and unique. Deciding how to cover the eyes was a simple enough task, I could go back to using everyday objects around the house to hide them, or I could play around with the framing of my shots which is what I finally decided on after testing it out with some early storyboard designs which are shown below.

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By covering the eyes and hiding emotion of my character, I believe that I have successfully been able to plan the way in which my character has a darker hidden personality beneath the surface of what we see. In doing so I think the character has become mysterious and interesting, making his morning routine an appropriate way to hook the audience and maintaining their attention.

Mannequin

I had the basic design and mystery of my character in place, and whilst its all well saying that there is a hidden personality beneath the surface, covering his eyes and hiding his emotions wont be enough to make it believable, especially it the short time I have. In order to make it believable and yet remain interesting, I felt like I would have to do more instructing with my actor. I had already cast a close friend of mine to star as this character and both of us are in the same A-Level Drama class, and he is very talented, so getting him to pull off a believable performance wont be the obstacle. In fact, the obstacle will likely be me, and how well I can instruct him to act the way I want him to. 

I was not entirely sure how I would want the character to act, in terms of his walk, gestures, the kind of things an actor has to think about in order to make what the audience see believable. In order to find the way that I want this character to move, act and interact I looked at a previous  performance of a great character in another Thriller series.

Mads Mikkelsen's Hannibal Lecter (Hannibal, 2013)

I really enjoy Mads Mikkelsen's performance of the notorious cannibal, and whilst I prefer the recreation of Hannibal Lecter in the original Silence Of The Lambs (1991) film, I think the television rendition of the thriller icon is closer to what I want for my character. Hannibal is proper and quiet, which are two attributes I intend on adding to my own character, making seem like more of a background character, rather than someone taking the spotlight.

What Hannibal has is a slow and almost gentle walk that has great sense of authority, reflecting the monsters he truly is. I thought it was interesting, but I wanted something more unique that would slightly set aside my killer apart from all of the other infamous killers in film and television. In order to do this, I wanted to scare my audience, not to the point that they are watching it and wanting to leave, but in a subtle way that sends a small shiver down their spine. 

In order to achieve this, I researched phobia’s people have of things that aren’t real, which is when I discovered Automatonophobia, the fear of wax figures, dolls and other inanimate human-like objects. This is when I stumbled across mannequins, the same ones that are used to display clothes in stores. They are still faced, lifeless bodies, similar to what is shown in The Son Of Man I mentioned above. These figures are eerie because they have no expression, and with no expression they carry no emotion. Just like the character in my film, there is a surface which will always hides his hidden personality. 

Knowing this, I now knew that I want to instruct my actor to perform with a near-blank expression similar to a mannequin, which makes him somewhat lifeless and still. Therefore, I think this would be an appropriate way to both set him apart from the average killer in films and make him unique and eerie for the audience.

Costume

Like I mentioned earlier, when designing a character I like to think about the kind of things that show what kind of character someone is, without telling an audience. In my opinion, most of the time it is better to show and not tell because it makes the audience think about what they are seeing before them, forcing them to engage with the characters on screen, and making it more immersive for them. But one thing was on my mind, I now had a mysterious character, but how can I make him normal?

Just like with the title of my film, I looked in the direction of referencing music and musicians for costume ideas. I didn’t want anything boring, but then I wouldn’t be able to do anything oddly bizarre and call my character an “everyday person”, and I know that musicians have a knack for picking great outfits. I knew the character I wanted to create for my film, I knew that he was a seemingly normal person hiding a dark secret and a dark personality. However, I was stuck and confused on how I would translate something that in
to an average everyday office worker with nothing to hide. I began doing my thing, I scrolled through the internet, went through fashion magazines, art books and even album covers. I eventually found myself down a rabbit hole of bizarre and outrageous costume idea’s. 

I decided to come back and brain storm, and whilst I work I tend to listen to music, and it just so happened that I was listening to David Bowie when it clicked with me, I remembered the many stages of fashion Bowie went through, and with each style he looked drastically different. Sometimes he would look like the average guy I might expect to see on the train one Monday morning, and sometimes he would look like he was ready to go trick or treating. 

David Bowie - Inspiring the plain suit look

David Bowie - Representing the hidden personality 

But I think what caught my eye with these different fashion styles he went through, was the kind of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde dynamic that I was seeing. And it reminded me that I shouldn’t be looking for anything exciting, and that this character needs a boring costume that wont draw attention. The reason I bothered mentioning David Bowie and the way I found this idea was because I wanted to make it clear that there is some sort of hidden character beneath what we see, and I’m sure I have mentioned that too many times now. 

Naming my character

Up until now I have only referred to this character I’m creating as “character”, and so even if its not said or even shown throughout the film, I think giving this character a name would be the least I could do to help flesh him out even further, making him the most real person he can be. And just in case it’s not already clear, I like referencing icons, music, art and really anything else, and this is especially the case when picking titles and names. However, I wont just throw a random name into whatever it is that I’m creating, I make sure that there is a meaning behind it that makes it interesting, otherwise its just another meaningless name.

I’ve already established the fact that this name probably wont be very important, but of course I am still going to give it something special. And for the name, unlike the costume, I am going not going to choose anything boring. After all, names in films can make character so much better, Hannibal Lecter the cannibal, it just works. Darth Vader, it sounds menacing and makes the character so much more intimidating. 

So to me, naming this character something like John or Steve would be boring (I’m not saying that those are boring names) as it would just be a blank name. And so I went to listen to music again, looking out for a song title or a key lyric that sounded interesting. Eventually I chose to settle on a song by the name of Dear Mr. Fantasy from 1967, performed by the band Traffic, and the name of my character would be Mr. Fantasy. This is the same song used in Avengers Endgame during the opening scene in space. I chose this name because the song is moody and atmospheric, and at times its even bordering on eerie. I simply thought the name sounded cool, and the song fits.