The online lives of fictional characters: A method for ideation and creation of characters and their environments

This presentation will discuss a teaching module that aimed in character and narrative development for animation. In particular, as part of the project students had to create social media accounts for fictional characters and use these as a way to generate conversations and narrate the characters’ adventures. The aim was to ultimately enhance the students’ ideation processes, develop the design of the characters and the narrative environment around them. The project will analyse and trigger conversations around the characters’ online mediated development as well as the ways that their social media accounts had created subversive narratives that mutate reality and fiction. The project will outline the relationship between teaching and making within a social media environment that fosters fiction and creativity. Part of its methodology explores the interactions between tacit and explicit knowledge and the ways that these lead to cycles of making and researching. At the same time, the conversations will explore how these dynamic and spontaneous processes develop innovative teaching models that can be transfered in different contexts.