2. What's a memorable character?

Case Study:

1. Frasier - Pilot, S1, Ep1

2. Mind Your Language - Pilot, S1, Ep1

Logline - Barry Evans plays a put-upon language teacher who tries to make a living by teaching English to immigrants. With pupils from India, France, China, and many other countries, his lessons do not always go as planned.

Character list    

- Mr Jeremy Brown portrayed by Barry Evans

- Miss Dolores Courtney portrayed by Zara Nutley  

- Giovanni Capello portrayed by George Camiller

- Anna Schmidt portrayed by Jacki Harding

- Juan Cervantes portrayed by Ricardo Montez

- Ranjeet Singh portrayed by Albert Moses

- Chung Su-Lee portrayed by PIk-Sen Lim

- Tarō Nagazumi portrayed by Robert Lee

- Maximillian Andrea Archimedes Papandrious, portrayed by Kevork Malikyan

- Danielle Favre portrayed by Françoise Pascal

- Ali Nadim portrayed by Dino Shafeek

- Jameela Ranjha portrayed by Jamila Massey 

Character Biography 

 Jeremy Brown 

Jeremy Brown is the English teacher and focal point of most of the series. He holds a degree from Oxford University. He is hired in the series pilot, in which he is warned that the previous teacher was driven insane by the students. Mr Brown is up to the challenge, however he often has to put up with the students' often literal, creative interpretations of the English language.

Giovanni Capello

Giovanni Capello is an Italian chef, the class's loudest student and de facto class monitor. He is best friends with Max, who becomes his flatmate. Giovanni's main problem with English is understanding metaphors and large words, though he often answers wrongly on purpose to amuse the class. He often calls Mr. Brown "Professori". When shocked or surprised, he often remarks "Santa Maria" or "Holy Ravioli", and also often says "okey-kokey" instead of "okey-dokey". When he doesn't understand something he says "scusi".

3 act structure

Act 1 - Mr Jeremy Brown enter's Miss Courtney's office to tell her that he's the new English teacher for the class.

Act 2 - He is then introduced to the class, and having problems teaching, as all of them are very different in conversing in english, and the class has racial intolerance, and often very naughty or retarded.

Act 3 - He finally ended the class, and gave them a homework, and make an escape from this chaotic nightmare as the first day of being a teacher.

Observe

Characters relating to each other:

1) Ms. Courtney holds a very eminent dislike for the male sex and thinks of women as being superior over men and prefers having female teachers instead of male. She at first hesitates to hire Mr. Jeremy Brown, but puts him on a month's trial.

2) Ali Nadim and Ranjeet Singh are unable to get along and are constantly arguing with each other. 

3) Danielle Favre, who instantly grabs the attention of all the men, including Mr Brown. Her good looks often distract Giovanni and Max from their answers, while Mr Brown is often found in seemingly incriminating positions with her, and she seems to have a crush on him.

X-factors

Mr Brown - Determined teacher who wants to prove the principle wrong and perfect his student's English

Miss Courtney - Feminist character

Giovanni Capello - The class's loudest student and de facto class monitor.

Anna Schmidt - Hard-working student, occasionally asking legitimate questions.

Juan Cervantes - always laughing at himself, confident of his answers even when they are completely wrong. 

Ranjeet Singh - He has a good vocabulary but tends to mix up his general knowledge, and upon being corrected he always puts his hands together and says "a thousand apologies". When angered by people, he usually threatens them with his kirpan.

Chung Su-Lee - She is never seen without her Little Red Book of Mao, from which she often quotes.

Tarō Nagazumi - He has a reasonable command of English, but has a habit of adding "-o" to every word he says, due to his Japanese accent.

Maximilian Andrea Archimedes Papandrious - Max tends to misunderstand metaphors and large words. He also has a heavy accent, which causes him to add "H" to almost every word he says.

Danielle Favre - The beauty of the class which attracts majority of the men in class.

Ali Nadim - He is the most vocal of the students and often literally misinterprets everything said by others.

Jameela Rajhna - She can barely speak English, and needs Ali to translate her Hindi.

How do they do huge setup: 

Each character has a strong cultural background which can totally relates to the audience from the different culture itself.

Comic relief

What is a comic relief?

Comic relief is the inclusion of a humorous character, scene, or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious work, often to relieve tension.

What is the role of a comic relief?

Releasing of emotional or other tension resulting from a comic episode interposed in the midst of serious or tragic elements in a drama. Comic relief often takes the form of a bumbling, wisecracking sidekick of the hero or villain in a work of fiction. A sidekick used for comic relief will usually comment on the absurdity of the hero's situation and make comments that would be inappropriate for a character who is to be taken seriously. Other characters may use comic relief as a means to irritate others or keep themselves confident.

Examples

In Star Wars films, is also considered to be used as comic relief. He is often found criticising the desperate situation the other characters find themselves in, or being rescued from predicaments by his counterpart R2-D2.

In the Mortal Kombat series, Johnny Cage is an actor who believed the Mortal Kombat tournament was a movie set, and often tried to impress Sonya Blade. Rain is also a joke character, since his attire is purple, and his name came from the Prince song "Purple Rain".

The Power Rangers television series franchise features Bulk and Skull. They are classmates to Angel Grove High School's secret identities of the Power Rangers and sometimes bullies while also sometimes serving as assisting secondary characters.

IDENTIFY

- character's unique traits: please refer to the character's xfactor list
- character's unique voice: they all have different accent from their respective country
- character's cultural, social, racial, political background: Ali and Ranjeet are always fighting over their race/ Chung is seen to be a huge fan of communism/ Anna has a very tomboy background
- character's conflict: Ali & Ranjeet over their middle east issue, max and giovanni over danielle.
- relationships: Miss Courtney has something aganist Mr Brown, Danielle has a crush on Mr Brown, Giovanni & Max likes Danielle, Ali & Ranjeet can't get along with each other. 
- location: adult education college in London
- situation: teaching english to a bunch of people all from different walks of life.
- protagonist, antagonist, comic relief: Mr Brown/Miss Courtney/Ranjeet
- key message: There are many different type of people from all over the world.
- stereotypes / cliches: Accent difference, how the french are attractive, and how china is a communist country
- genre / theme / issue: Comedy/School/Cultural