IMPORTANCE OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT (RESEARCH)
Character development is when a character becomes realistic and believable to the audience, having depth in the character's personality, motives and history. 'The definition of character development refers to the process of creating a believable character in fiction by giving the character depth and personality.' (Your Dictionary, 2018) states that the characters are just as complicated as humans and can effect the audience's emotions. This allows the characters to fit into the story that they have been placed into and can provoke emotions as the audience becomes connected to the characters, this having the best effect when the characters are relatable to the audience or completely obscure compared to the others.
Character development is important because if characters don't feel believable or realistic they won't fit into the World or story you have created, making it hard for the audience to connect with the characters that you have presented to them. If the characters seem disconnected and their personality jumps over the place they wont be believable and will become obvious to the audience that there is little depth behind the character. This is commonly picked up on by audiences and has been shown through many reviews and discussions of other films such as the Marvel or D.C. films, most complained about recently being Suicide Squad for the exact reason of character development; story development was also an issue.
Depth to individual characters is important to understand and represent to the audience as the characters can feel disconnected or misplaced, linking back to why character development is important. For individual characters you need to think about their positives, flaws, habits, motives, speech and past. Having dimension in characters allows the audience to be more drawn to getting to know the characters and listening to them to try and understand them. Depth can be implemented by the list mentioned beforehand as the audience will all have their own, unique qualities, and seeing a character who is unique is interesting to the audience.
The character's positives are always good for the audience to know but if they are perfect they can become boring as everybody has flaws. Understanding a character's flaws and presenting it to the audience can teach the audience why they may act in a certain way or why they may be struggling in a certain situation. Another important element is why the characters act the way they do, having to understand their natural habits, their past and their motives in the story. Understanding this will make it easier to develop the character throughout the story and make them more realistic to the audience, allowing them to understand the character in better detail in comparison to the story line. Speech patterns can also be important as it makes the character unique and if they fall out of their speech pattern they can become strange and misplaced to the audience, making them lose their personality altogether. The way a character talks can influence the audience and help them differentiate the characters from each other. 'Dialogue is a topic unto itself but for the most part people speak differently.' (Diamond K, 2018)
Their interactions with others is one factor that is played over multiple characters, creating a dynamic between them that is interesting to the audience. Whether they are kind, comedic or mean to each other, relationships between characters are some of the most important parts of character development to the audience. A characters relationship will also help the audience determine which is the main character and where the other characters stand around them, whether this being a sidekick, best friend or an enemy is important for the audience to differentiate how they will act towards each other. Impulses will also help the audience understand why a character may become nicer or meaner to a certain character throughout the film and who they have become close to throughout their journey. This allows the audience to note how much the characters have grown from what they have learnt from the different scenarios they have found their selves in. It allows the audience a reason to the sudden change in characteristics towards a certain character or them as a character overall.
This research can be implemented into my own work as the characters in my short film will be one of the main aspects to the short film, their interactions being unique in how they treat each other and how they change throughout the film; an example of this being the two best friends, Scott always being mean or sarcastic to Marshall but becomes nicer and more protective over his friend throughout. This research will allow me to help the audience to understand the characters more clearly and their motives behind their actions, giving the audience reason and knowledge of their personalities.
References
CLINT TILL. (2018). Developing Characters for Your Short Film. [online] Available at: http://clinttill.net/blog/2017/3/20/developing-characters-for-your-short-film [Accessed 6 Mar. 2018].
Column, G. (2018). Improving Character Development. [online] WritersDigest.com. Available at: http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-make-ordinary-characters-compelling [Accessed 6 Mar. 2018].
Diamond, K., Reilly, S., Marshall, L. and Cassandra, C. (2018). The Importance of Character Development. [online] Thanet Writers. Available at: https://thanetwriters.com/essay/characters/the-importance-of-character-development/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2018].
Sambuchino, C. and Us, A. (2018). What is Character Development?. [online] WritersDigest.com. Available at: http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/guide-to-literary-agents/the-9-ingredients-of-character-development [Accessed 6 Mar. 2018].
Script Magazine. (2018). Character Development: Create Compelling Archetypal Characters. [online] Available at: http://www.scriptmag.com/character-development/ [Accessed 6 Mar. 2018].
Yourdictionary.com. (2018). Character development dictionary definition | character development defined. [online] Available at: http://www.yourdictionary.com/character-development [Accessed 6 Mar. 2018].
