AA236

Character Design has its roots in industry animation where a fixed set of shapes allowed studios to employ any number of animators to work simultaneously. Character & Identity assumes audiences can relate to and engage with a character without the maker having to dilute or amplify to arrive at a superficial representation of a type. The course seeks to contrast the usual reductive approaches in thinking about character by investigating the pitfalls of classifying and stereotyping. With a starting focus on media literacy as a disruption to the usual introduction of character, students will engage in a variety of research methods aimed at gathering specifics rather than generalizations to inform visual development. How can one use the typical character types as a departure point rather than a destination? How are the traditional ways of categorizing and developing character effective and in what ways do they fail to reflect the fluidity and complexity of humanity? With the goal of designing original characters, students will collect and assemble a personal visual reference library to support their findings and challenge their own preconceptions. Students will do field work where they would go out and actively study and document real people as a way of researching when developing their designs that seek out and celebrate specifics rather than generalizations. Students will conduct interviews with people and look for all the subtleties in selfpresentation, dress, cadences of speech and physical vocabulary as well as consider how people move in different spaces, bodies, and states of mind. Acting or improv segments and drawing from life will hone observational skills. Students will assemble a personal visual reference library to support their findings and challenge their own preconceptions.