Courtney Young

When I first brainstormed my sustained investigation, I was thinking of things that actors do so that they can get into character. This is because I am interested in theater and participate in my school’s productions. It was very interesting to create a connection between these two forms of art. The first question I asked myself was “How do actors get into character?”, and I explored this concept by thinking of a character as something that's built by the actor themselves. When the actor first gets a role, they receive perhaps vague descriptions from the director and the written lines. I focused on representing that idea by thinking of the character as something that's malleable and built from many different parts. Later, I shifted to focusing on more literal parts that go into making a character unique. Although, I later decided that it would be nice to focus once again on more abstract concepts by relating experiences I had to certain plays I’ve been in. In terms of materials, I first focused on cutting paper and painting. First I painted on canvas, but then later tried transparent film. This later shifted to include different mediums such as makeup or digital art.