characters

The power of a photo that I'm interested in is in the way it evokes emotion due to capturing an actual moment in time. In mic's blog about narrative from images, he says, "Can a random collection of images, not held together by a text, become a story? What if the pictures in this camera were taken by several different people, or what if the same person took the pictures at completely different time periods?" The examples he gives are actually examples of some of the best stories photos can tell. Each photo has a story behind it: how it was taken, when was it taken, why was it taken, who took it, and most importantly how did everything that is in the photo come to be there. How did the people in that portrait on your wall get to be there? How did they get those clothes, that tan, those glasses? It's the foundation of comics, with the reader having to fill in the blanks of what happens between frames (Off topic: I'm not big comic reader so I don't know, but are there any good photo comics?).  read more »

An image I stumbled upon:

Nintendo: A History from Pixels to 3D

While it's interesting to see the evolution in technology, I find it even more interesting that the older pixel versions basically contain all of the same "information" as the more detailed ones. In a way, it's almost like the more detailed versions are how we would flesh out the characters in our own minds once given "the trigger" of the pixel version. So, in a way, maybe technology has just eliminated a step in our imaginative process...

Okay, so I found the character chapter in Story and Discourse particularly interesting because I read a lot, and this chapter presented a lot of alternate definitions for the word character. For novels there are terms like "flat characters" and "cardboard cut-outs" which are usually negative terms that mean the author's characters are stereotypical and/or lacking depth. I always considered a "real" character to be a complex thing with traits, personality quirks, goals, fears, relationships, and backstory.
But what about the theory that all a character has to do to be a character is do stuff? After watching Animator vs Animation, I considered the stick figure and the cursor to be characters, even though they didn't fit my definition. And what about video games? You're controlling the character. You could make them run into walls repeatedly if you wanted to. But what about the cut-scenes where characters display certain traits?
I guess there are many different "types" of characters. Someone should make a nice Chatman-esque chart with a hierarchical structure-- and plenty of arrows and lines.

I'm such an advertising major.
As I was reading Chapter 3 of Story and Discourse, about existents and Chatman's definitions of characters and what contributes to making them who we think they are in books and movies, I started thinking about advertisements in today's world.
If you think about it, what are ads but little 30 second to a minute- long stories that try to create relationship between consumers and the companies they buy their products for? The campaigns that work, at least, try to associate some characteristic to the brand they're trying to advocate- namely, to create a brand image that people are able to recognize and have an affinity for.

This seems to correlate with one of Chatman's definitions of character- that they are a set of traits that the reader learns to identify with, and ultimately, to associate the name of that character with. He says that by the end of the story, well-created characters are viewed by readers as "old friends or enemies"- you know who they are, but you can't define exactly what they're like in only one or two terms. In other words, you KNOW them.  read more »