Gopher Golf: Character Design and Inspiration

There are only three characters in my film "Gopher Golf". Again, this is to keep everything simple within my film, which only has a short duration at three minutes.

The main character and the anti-hero of my film is the Golfer. He is a vain, conceited character who has plenty of professional experience in golf and loves to win. At his home, we see he has won multiple trophies from previous golf tournaments, but he still wants more. The story of the film concentrates on the Golfer's motivations and obsessions, from his dreams being built up to his ultimate comeuppance.

For the main character's design, I gave him typical clothing to make it obvious the character is a golfer. I researched images of what golfers typically wear - including tank tops, caps and shorts. The Golfer wears all of these, although I may decide to replace the shorts with trousers to make the puppet's construction easier. One of the above drawings also shows the Golfer with shades, showing off his attitude and boastful personality.

The second character in the film is the Gopher. He appears once briefly in the film's first half, foreshadowing his main appearance later on in the film's second half. Earlier versions of the film did include the Gopher in a more prominent role, however, I was very much against this as I wanted his appearance to be a surprise. The story is about the Golfer, his obsession with fame and his comeuppance in the end, using the Gopher as a device. I feel the Gopher's appearance in the second half makes the film more memorable on its own, due to the element of surprise - I did not want audiences working out with ease how the film would end, since this takes away the film's entertainment value. However, I have still left visual clues in the first half, which will become more noticeable the more a viewer watches the film. This way, the Gopher's appearance is still a surprise to first-time viewers but isn't completely random.

The Gopher himself is a hand-controlled puppet, similar to those used in The Sooty Show and The Basil Brush Show. The puppet was bought from a seller in New York - I was aware I would be limited for time to create the film's other puppets, so I decided to prioritise the puppets which I would actually need to make myself, which is essentially the Golfer and a few smaller props, such as the golf balls.

The third and final character is the Other Golfer, who only appears in the background during one shot. He is another competitor who takes his "perfect shot" before the main Golfer, although he loses. He is essentially a swapped palette of our Golfer, since his purpose in the film is to make the Golfer even more conceited and excited about fame and fortune. In the final film, he will only appear as a shadow in the background, using the same puppet as the main Golfer.