Character Realization Through Mood Boards

 This post is going to go even further into the development of my characters. Their relationship is going to be extremely important for my opening. While there are technical aspects that I definitely have to take into account in developing that relationship (such as the two shots and the costuming) I want to show the definitive characters who are going to be the entire focus of my film. Since my drawing skills are not necessarily adequate for this, I decided to go with mood boards:

This is for my main character Maya. This story is going to be told through her. That's they the camera is going to track her movements more (when it's not a two-shot). That's also why I'm going to get those calm and almost ethereal blue hues for the beach background. The audience is going to see the beach through her eyes, as it is where she feels comfortable and happy. And that brings me to the top left photo of the storyboard. As I have stated before, I want to have orange be her color to make her stand out and be a more eccentric character. And since blue is opposite on the color wheel, it is the most compatible with orange and is the color that represents Maya's brother Dallin. The photo at the bottom left shows how close they are and how much their kinship means to her. The blue boat at the top left represents the brother's promise of escaping their current situation. While they love their family and not ashamed of their working class roots, they do want to create better lives for themselves (through playing basketball professionally). The photos at the top and bottom right show how much she loves basketball (again, using ethereal pink and orange). The medal with the "2" shows how she sees herself forever in second place behind her brother, which will be revealed as one of the conflicts the two characters will have later.

Dallin Packer, the brother, is going to be a more complex character. He does love his sister and she is his best friend, but he still has the "go it alone" mentality, especially when it comes to his problems. And that brings me to the pictures on the bottom. He does have a constant need to prove himself and he is itching to always be number one. He can sometimes be selfish unknowingly because of that urge. And later on in the film he will have his problems because of his inability to cope with some of his struggles and losses. He will take some easy ways out of situations which does hurt him later. This ultimately will be the main conflict between the two siblings (as well as the central conflict of the film), as Maya tries to cope with the realization that her hero who she idolizes (Dally) has faults and has his issues. 

My next blog post (or the next will after that) will probably be about the dialogue that I am including (and that will be vital) for my opening, so I thought that this would really help me understand and even hear my characters. And it did. Knowing their personalities and even exploring the relationship between them through mood boards really helps me understand how I want to have them realized on camera. I will do my own little bit of research on how they are going to speak (I'm speaking with some of my Midwestern working class family soon and I'll try to jot down some of their speaking patterns), but I already think I know how I want my characters to sound.

Mood boards done through:

https://www.canva.com/photo-collages/templates/mood-boards/