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Process

Character Profiling:

Personally, I found it pretty hard to find characters that I identified with (instead of merely liking them or them having traits that I admire) hence many of these lists will not be filled up; a detailed analysis for the characters instead!

From literature/fiction (fictional characters)

Lemony Snicket

(The Series of Unfortunate Events)

• Private/ Secretive
• Introverted
• Melancholic but optimistic
• Slightly self- deprecating
• Whimsical
• Well- read
• Sensitive

Lemony Snicket is a character and author of the Series of Unfortunate Events series – he presents himself as a private and secretive person, often going to great lengths to hide his tracks. He tends to go on off tangent rambles throughout his narration of the stories, showing his slightly whimsical side, and occasionally ponders and reflects on his relationship with his lover, Beatrice, which gives us an insight into his sensitive, melancholic personality.

Tiffany Aching

(Discworld series)

• Independent
• Spunky, knows when to have fun
• Level- headed
• Eager to learn

Tiffany Aching is a training witch from the Discworld series, and was thrust into the Wee Fee (a type of fairie) world when she was nine to rescue her brother, armed only with a frying pan. She is a spunky, strong and independent character that is not easily swayed by others.

Leslie Burke

(Bridge to Terabithia)

• Imaginative
• Not bothered by social conventions
• Independent
• Playful
• Outgoing
• Free-spirited

Leslie Burke from Bridge to Terabithia is a bright, imaginative girl with a sense of adventure. Although I’m not as outgoing as her, I love her sense of imagination, creativity and free- spiritedness and I identify with that part of her.

Kieren Walker

(In the Flesh)

• Private/ introverted
• Unassuming
• Passive
• Troubled but tries to stay optimistic
• Sensitive

Kieren Walker is a troubled teenager from the series In the Flesh where he took his own life, only to rise again as an Undead. Throughout the whole series, he struggles to deal with issues about his sexual orientation, the opinions of those around him, and his desire to protect his loved ones. I identify with the brooding, private nature of his character and how he tries very hard to avoid conflict, sometimes even sacrificing himself and therefore seen as being very passive.

From public figures

Nicki Minaj

• Contrast between her onstage/offstage persona
• Outlandish appearances/performances vs serious attitudes towards important issues

Personally what I found really interesting in Nicki Minaj is the large contrast between her very loud and flamboyant (almost crazy) stage persona to her serious personality especially with respect to important issues like black and female rights. Being a really prolific celebrity, she does not hesitate to point out important social issues and thus I find her to be a very strong role model. This contrast between her outer/inner personas is something I identify with as well and I find it really interesting.

Tablo (Epik High)

• Goofy but also serious
• Introspective
• Onstage vs offstage personality

Tablo is a korean rapper that also holds a degree in English and English lit at Stanford University, has been known to showcase not only a goofy side to him (shown in his conversations with his daughter and his drunk freestyle rap), but also a very introspective, reflective and dark personality, as seen in the lyrics of his songs where he often talks about very dark internal struggles and social issues. This contrast is something that I find to be similar to myself.

From people I know

My mum

Being raised my her, I would say that many of my personality traits come from her – she has a very cynical/ practical world view, which I tend to have too sometimes.

My sister (starring in the video!)

Being my twin sister, we grew up together and so we have many similar and contrasting personality traits; while she is practical and organised, I like to daydream a lot and is very messy. However, we both tend to be more introverted in our mannerisms and straightforward in the way we talk.

Mr Teh (Highschool history teacher)

Mr Teh is a teacher that inspired me and influenced me alot throughout my years in high school. He has a very jaded world view and often cracks us up with his dry, cynical sense of humor. At the same time, I feel that he is very earnest in his teachings and puts in a lot of effort to help his students, something that I feel I share (or at least I hope so) with him.

Common threads:

• Contrast between public/ private personas
• Introspective/ private personality
• Whimsical, imaginative

The alter ego that I chose to portray is a mishmash of all these traits, and is mainly derived from Lemony Snicket and Leslie Burke. But I tried to portray the other character traits that I identified with as well.

To portray the contrast between the public/ private personas, I cut between 2 scenarios: one with the girl playing alone in the playground (tinted with a purple tinge) and one with the girl with the candle (tinted with the warm orange tone). Despite being alone, the girl in the playground is still seen having a lot of fun (showing her imaginative and fun side); while the girl with the candle appears to be bright and cheery inititally, she turns serious when she decides to blow out the candle. In this way, I tried to portray the public/ private personas and how they merge into one another.

I decided not to put in any dialogue, instead only using one word “Goodnight” as I I felt like it would not fit with the scenes I wanted to create and I did not want the dialogue to sound too forced. I decided not to add any backing soundtrack as well, opting for just filtered ambient noise to give the video a more natural feel.

Reflections

Personally, this was a project that I found really hard to conceptualise – I found it really hard to turn and present abstract personality traits into very visual terms in video. It was also my first time directing – i had to express my concepts in very literal terms so that my sister could understand and act it out accordingly (not to mention the fact that she got impatient really quickly). All in all, this was a very different and refreshing experience for me.