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"Casting" vs. Representation vs. No Thanks!


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On 7/30/2018 at 7:07 PM, D241 said:

Not sure if this is really an unpopular opinion, but I just simply cannot understand the appeal of using Celebrity/IRL faceclaims. I mean, why would you want to write in a fantastical setting only to use the face of someone you see in real life?! There's plenty of art out their for basically any genre you can think of. 

 

 

So I saw this post in the unpopular opinions thread. It's an opinion I've seen from time to time, and it got me thinking.

 

When I choose a playby for my character, I'm "casting" them as I would in a TV show or movie. I've never thought this to be at all strange, since I do that subconsciously when I read books as well - Sirius Black will always be Mandy Patinkin as Inigo Montoya to me, sorry Gary Oldman!

 

SO, what about you? Do you "cast" faces for your characters, find people who roughly represent them but may not be ~it, or do you prefer to eschew PBs altogether? Why? Does it vary depending on the board you're on? DISCUSS, MY PRETTIES.

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I draw my own characters and include a written description. 8D

 

My characters look  totally unique in my head, and don't match up with any actors that I know of. Besides that, I have zero (0) interest in celebrities beyond watching them in a movie/show, and I know very few of their actual names because...again...I just don't care. I've never been interested in meeting celebs, getting a signing, reading about them in magazines, etc. I don't follow any actors, I don't watch a movie or show because a certain person's in it. All that stuff bores me. xD I've never participated in that culture.

 

If you asked me to cast actors as my characters in a film, I wouldn't even know where to begin. I would much rather prefer that film to be animated rather than live action so that the characters can be somewhat true to their looks, since you can design a character to look however you want. Plus, I don't know enough celebs/models/whatever to be able to name any except like the latest hot names. |: Much less name any that actually fit the role.

 

I don't mind when other people use PBs, though! That doesn't bug me at all. It's just not for me. I have a set image in my head, and I'd prefer to draw it. xD

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I get it because when I first started RPing on this side of the internet, I found out quickly that no one would RP with me if I didn't have a RL celebrity face claim.  And that disturbed me greatly.  The idea of using somebody's picture for a character was very odd when they had no choice about it.  Further, I was wary of choosing someone "wrong" who people would associate with something not appropriate (like accidentally choosing a celebrity who drops babies off of cliffs for fun and now everyone thinks my characters is a horrible person).

 

Eventually, I got used to it.  So I do it now just like most other people.

 

But I'm not one of the people obsessed over them, or of "shipping" characters together because of their faces.  That gets into the realm of creepy from which I like to steer clear.  To me, there's a distinction between the celebrity and the character.  And if my character doesn't look 100% like the celebrity, that's fine; I try to make it clear, though, so that people aren't tripped up.

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I cast faces for my characters too! It is, in my opinion, like a movie... because anything I am writing IS a movie in my mind first, in order to be able to write the story. And yes, literary critics told me that I do write cinematographically, ie with vivid details.  They meant the environment, but it applies, in my mind, to characters too. Of course, like in the movies, the actors are people who roughly represent the characters. It is sometimes impossible to convey exactly how the character looks, but you find the closest representation, so that everybody sees the same thing. 

 

Like it was with my first RPG character, Marina Costa (who gave the penname I am publishing under too), and who had been, before RPGs, written into various stories since I was 10 or so. When I was explained what a playby is and that I should choose one, I chose automatically Hillary Swank in "Boys don't cry", because she was the only girl disguised as a boy I knew. And it stuck. Now she is exactly this 🙂

 

 

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I can't draw. And tend to get a specific image in my head regarding my characters. Sometimes it's celebrities (My Beauregard was Anson Mount before I saw Anson Mount. It was a weird coincidence that the guy just happened to look exactly like I pictured my character.) Other times it's just an image I have that I'll never find something for because it gets so specific. (Find me a 7'2" 350 lb white haired woman with 1 fucked up eye. I'll wait.) 

 

I feel weird about taking someone's art or drawings and going "Yup, this thing that was originally done as this character is mine now." I realize that isn't whats going on, but I can't get over that weird mental hump. With celebrities I'm casting them, as others have said, for the nonexistent movie that will be made. 

 

I'd rather have celebrity faces or no faces than drawn faces.

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I definitely "cast" my characters! Just like @Elena, all of my writing starts as a movie in my head that I have to then turn into words, and an important part of a movie is having actors to fill out the roles. I also get a lot of character inspiration from pictures and names, as opposed to choosing those after fully formulating a character in my head -- Frank Turner is ALWAYS going to be my Hermes/Mercury, and Anthony Green is always my Manannan mac Lir.

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just like Viscount I'm an artist through and through. I'll even 'cast' my characters in specific art styles and they just don't look like the same character if styled differently than the way I originally draw them in most cases. the drawn face becomes a 'brand' just like a movie actor's face becomes a 'brand' for some people. If my character has a chibi anime face, then that's the only face for it. if another has a more realistically drawn face, then the same deal. Once I've got the image in my head for a character, no other face will do.

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17 minutes ago, Kazetatsu said:

just like Viscount I'm an artist through and through. I'll even 'cast' my characters in specific art styles and they just don't look like the same character if styled differently than the way I originally draw them in most cases. the drawn face becomes a 'brand' just like a movie actor's face becomes a 'brand' for some people. If my character has a chibi anime face, then that's the only face for it. if another has a more realistically drawn face, then the same deal. Once I've got the image in my head for a character, no other face will do.

 

For me, if you draw the character, or the chibi, or something, it's just character extra, not how the character looks, not a real face (because the character is not a chibi/ anime/ etc, but a real person). Something to decorate a journal or a letter, not to put as an avatar. (but signature yes, maybe). You know, like you have on your wall that charcoal drawing somebody did of you at a fair... and which ressembles to you only 40%.

Edited by Elena
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Definitely partial to cast-typing when developing a concept, but I'm equally comfortable simply hashing out the looks of the character in writing versus struggling to find that "perfect celebrity" (as most forums I play in require real-person celebrities as FC's). I'll narrow down my expectations with "blonde, blue eyes, hippy, small-chested, 20-25" and then search from there, usually applying "region of origin" to help shrink the list more until I find the perfect representation. As sometimes my concepts are non-traditional, or racial minorities, the real struggle comes in finding the ones with the right images to represent the personality rather than the physicality (like using John Krasinski for a single dad protector figure via his more recent films versus the young joking hipster of his Office days).

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I admit, it weirded me out when I first saw people doing this.  I just wasn’t used to it.

 

Now I prefer it.  When I used drawings, I was taking an already established character, and making my own from it.  I would never use a drawing of a character I knew because I would have a hard time taking that drawing as my character seriously. 

 

I don’t have this issue with playbys.  If possible, I use different pictures of the actor in different roles.  This way, I feel my character is not simply represented by another character.  I still don’t use actors that I strongly associate in a single role (even if they have done many things). 

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56 minutes ago, Meushell said:

If possible, I use different pictures of the actor in different roles.  This way, I feel my character is not simply represented by another character.  I still don’t use actors that I strongly associate in a single role (even if they have done many things). 

 

By contrary, I see my character as being only the actor in X role, not in a different one (or maybe also in another one, not in several). The looks change from a movie to another, and they don't suit the character's personality and specifics anymore.

 

E.g. my character, Andrea Costa, the angelic pirate sailing master, has as playby Alain Delon, but it's him in "Rocco e sue fratelli" and in "Plein soleil". If we choose any upcoming movie, e.g. "Il Gattopardo", it isn't my character anymore. 

 

My character Maribel Vargas, the innkeeper, has as playby Sarita Montiel in "Carmen, la de Ronda" and maybe also in "Veracruz". Other movies aren't suitable, because her hair colour is different, and her clothing is different, as they happen in a different time period. 

 

My pirate captain, Sol Picador, has as playby Eduardo Palomo in "Corazon Salvaje". In other movies, even "Ramona", he looks different and he wouldn't embody my character.

 

My former mercenary, now smuggler, Chago Moreno, has as playby Fernando Colunga in "Pasion". In other movies, he looks too different to be him.

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Oh man. Yeah, some actors are forever a certain role for me. Or just That Guy. Nicolas Cage, Angelina Jolie, David Schwimmer... They're all themselves. I have a hard time seeing them as anyone else, even in movies. Zach Braff is always JD. I can't cast them as anyone and seeing them in other movies causes my suspension of belief to get thrown all out of whack.

 

It's a weird problem.

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7 minutes ago, Elena said:

 

By contrary, I see my character as being only the actor in X role, not in a different one (or maybe also in another one, not in several). The looks change from a movie to another, and they don't suit the character's personality and specifics anymore.

 

Am definitely on board here, to an extent: I see certain roles as different from the general photo catalogue of the actor in question. I've used Lena Heady as Cersei Lannister, none of that natural hair nonsense! On a related vein, I use Tatiana Maslany in ~general, but would be happy to offer her up as Helena or Rachel from Orphan Black if someone wanted to share the PB because they have VERY different looks/feels.

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@clipsed I love you but:

 

 

 

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