Pre-production// Character developments

Introduction

'A Fox Wants To Play Guitar' features several anthropomorphic animals living in a multicultural Northern city in Britain, the main character being a musical fox named 'Benjamin'. The film also features an albino hedgehog named 'Clover' and an events runner badger named 'Harry'. I began writing this story with the idea of representing minorities within the art industry with Benjamin, who was fighting against the stereotype against foxes that all they do is scream and make a mess in order to promote his own musical career as a 'softly singing fox'. Although I wanted to represent the struggles against stenotypes from minorities, depicting minorities as anthropomorphic animals is a hugely negative stereotype within itself as it portrays these minorities as non-human which is hugely offensive. I there for included diverse background characters and secondary characters in order to promote a multicultural city, portraying characters such as Benjamin as fighters against their false stenotypes and not the only representatives of minorities groups.

Main Characters

Benjamin began as a doodle of a musical friend, that then sparked an idea in my head. After a month of development I've even become deeply attached to Benjamin, more so than any other character I've designed previously. Benjamin is a 20-something southern Fox that lives up in the North of Britain where he's chasing his dream of becoming a musician. Benjamin struggles with the stereotyping of foxes just being interested in screaming and as a result, this stereotype is blocking his path to achieving his goals. I wanted Benjamin to look small within the world around him, however I also wanted everything to look very personal and up in his face. So I designed him to look very neat, almost condensed; his body is basically a sausage with noodle arms and legs,. His clothes don't hang from his body they hug him, making him look smaller by himself and not just in an environment that already towers above him. I also wanted Benjamin to look self conscious, so I kept his design very sleek and smooth rather than saggy - like having saggy non-neat looking clothes, like a hoodie or over sized jumper.

Clover is an albino hedgehog who enjoys loud music and plays an electric guitar. Clover acts as a reminder of Benjamin's own assumptions and prejudices of others based because of their identity. Clover is tiny compared to other characters and is the smallest character in the film. I wanted her to look 'swamped' by her clothes, but not in a way that would 'swamp' the character and visually look like it was holding her back. I decided to give Clover a scarf, which is very non-threatening looking over a yellow raincoat that fitted her well. The scarf is the only thing that doesn't fit her, however doesn't look out of place in a Northern city. Clover is also shaped like an egg and unlike other characters, her mouth is on her nose. I found it quite difficult at first to storyboard this, purely because her nose had to be at a good angle to see her mouth moving - but that adds to the character seeming small and quite, as her mouth is so small.

Harry owns the 'softer things' venus that Benjamin attends. Harry is the first character to ask Benjamin for his name. Although early concepts of Harry include him smoking and drinking it only clicked in my head that those things should not be promoted to children - and the animation being aimed a younger audience, meant Harry had to give up the smokes and drink. I designed Harry to begin with to be bigger and broader than Benjamin, but approachable. I kept Harrys design curvy, more friendly looking as well as keeping his colours blue, pink and purple - as pink is seen as a comforting colour in this film and is the basic colour of the venus Benjamin finds a home within. Harrys character had his screen time dramatically reduced, because of the film having to be shortened.

Rebecca Rose is the first interviewer shown in the film. I her introduction as 'Despite originally being free spirited and ‘cool’, years working behind a desk doing what managers do have turned her once-free nature into a patronising smile, complete with lifted brows.' I honestly love her character. 

Background Characters

I designed a large number of diverse human characters for this film in order to properly represent a multicultural city. I also designed a number of background animal characters, so there were more than 3 in the film.