Tammila Wright
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Hi Cheryl, I posted my assignment around 9 p.m. MST last night. I attempted to retrieve it so I could reference it for today’s assignment and I do not see it. I contacted technical support. Any ideas on where it went?
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Tammila Wright- Character Profile Part 2
What I learned from doing this exercise is how to flesh out my leading characters by looking at their traits and ironic personalities can lead to plot points that I feel will be entertaining to an audience.
My leading characters:
Jack Higgins
WHAT DRAWS US TO THIS
CHARACTER?Jack loves to play pranks on people. Sometimes he takes things too far and people get hurt. He views people as ignorant and sees nothing wrong with bullying someone. In fact, he feels compelled to harass people because he thinks he is helping in some sadistic way. The audience should feel angry at how callus Jack can be without remorse. Hopefully, they will be engaged to finally see how Jack gets his “come-up-ins”. Actions like this can’t be allowed to continue.
TRAITS: Jack’s occupation is blacksmithing and he carries a “cloud” of soot from his shop with him wherever he goes. His clothes are covered in soot and he could care less that he shares the soot on everything and everyone he touches. He considers it his autograph.
SUBTEXT: Belching, blowing his nose into the dirt at his feet, slapping his hand on the backs of people around them to say “hi”, leaving a giant black print, and laughing about it. If someone has a beer belly, he’ll smack them enacting playing the drums. He lacks any respect for personal space.
FLAW: He lacks any respect for people’s personal space and his own personal hygiene which makes people shun him, and even run from him. How will he ever overcome his loneliness when socially, he’s obnoxious?
VALUES: He values privacy on his land. No trespassing. He believes if someone ever got the idea to visit him, they would steal from him.
IRONY: Jack adores the woodland creatures that visit his property. He shares the very best apples from his prized apple tree and the best vegetables from his garden. But for the people of the village, he doesn’t care if they starve.
WHAT MAKES THIS THE RIGHT
CHARACTER FOR THIS ROLE?The Celts at the time were celebrating Samhain which meant the time of harvest had ended. They shared their bounty with each other to make sure everyone had enough to eat for the coming winter. For a person to be as stingy as Jack, was unheard of. This will be a cautionary tale of what happens when you don’t help people.
Cian Byrne
WHAT DRAWS US TO THIS
CHARACTER?The audience will want someone, anyone to stop Jack and teach him a lesson. Cian shows up as a hopeful hero to remedy the villager’s problem.
TRAITS: Cian is a big guy. Because of his size, he never has been in a fight. He doesn’t know how. He is so big that people are scared of him. When he sits down, people move away. He’s a teddy bear. He feels that talking is a better way to resolve conflict than fighting.
SUBTEXT: He has a habit of adding, “….maybe I could do that but naw” implying he doesn’t want to do that, if fact, he might be scared to try. Ex: Villager: Cian, I need help loading wood.” Cian, “Today?” Villager: “Tomorrow.” Cian: “Load wood? Maybe I could do that……but naw. Too hard.”
FLAW: Because of Cian’s size, he could easily help people but he’s lazy. No motivation.
VALUES: Cian values peace and quiet. No conflict.
IRONY: He loves peace and doesn’t believe in fighting with achieving a path to peace.
WHAT MAKES THIS THE RIGHT
CHARACTER FOR THIS ROLE?Cian is physically strong enough to take on Jack but he doesn’t know how to fight, creating an obstacle he must overcome if he wants to help the village.
3. Merging the two profiles, I can see how my two leading characters are going to be in natural opposition. Jack is a fighter, Cian is not. Jack doesn’t care for people, Cian loves people even though they are usually scared of him. Jack loves to rebel rouse, and Cian adores peace and quiet.
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Tammila Wright
Transform Journey:
4. What I learned from this assignment is how far I should take my character’s arc. Basically, a polar opposite from where they started.
2. Meet Jack, a 1st-century blacksmith that is “married” to the local pub in Ireland. His foul mouth and joy of playing pranks on his fellow villagers ends him in many brawls. Why do they put up with Jack? Because he is the only blacksmith in town and the owner of a legendary apple orchard. His nickname was “Stingy Jack”. (Stay with me, this leads to the legend surrounding the reason we use pumpkins for Halloween. Or at least, MY take on it.)
Internal: From unempathetic, and selfish to gracious and sympathetic.
External: Drunkard, trickster, and hoarding food changing to providing a vast harvest and protecting the villagers on the most evil night of the year, Samhain.
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Howdy from Colorado! My name is Tammila and I have completed a Family Feature, a pilot for a sci-fi series (including the Series Bible), and a spec script for the Apple+ tv series “Dickinson”. I am a history geek as my subjects reflect it. BUT, I am molasses slow so here I am. Hoping to speed things up!