For my essay question, I knew that I wanted to focus in some way on the topic of character design because this in one of the main areas of pre-production that I'm interested in. I focused a lot last year on the area of gender representation, so I wanted to look more into the link between character designs and how they effect the delivery of an animated narrative instead because I liked the idea of focusing on something slightly broader.
The question that I settled on after much consideration was "How does the delivery of a character effect the delivery of an animated narrative?"
I managed to gather 4 book sources for research as well as 4 online scholarly papers, all of which I think will provide me with a lot of information that I can use as research and reference.
After getting a pier to look through the ideas I had already gathered and my potential question, I asked for some feedback on what could possibly make it better.
The points that have been given to me to help improve my research are:
- Looking at character design theory
- the message behind different shapes
- Looking at the use of character sexualtisation.
These are all really helpful, interesting points that I will be sure to refer to in my essay!
In the next seminar we were given the time to throw together a map for our essay, so that when I come to begin writing, I don't just stare at a blank page for an hour!
Examples to Discuss
In my essay I will also use non text examples, these being examples of specific animation where the use of Character Design really helped to drive the story, and some possible examples of times where the story itself is just as good regardless of the Design of the characters.
