How to create a mask character

[Augusto]

There are many ways of finding the mask character but for me it’s all about 5 things:

1- The Basic Emotional Feature

2- The body posture

3- The rhythm

4- The mantra

5- The voice

All 5 are related to each other.

1- The basic emotional feature is the ground for all the work. There is a basic emotion in every human being that colours all that persons actions. As an example, there are people who have sadness as their basic emotion and that sadness is shown in everything they do or say, even when they are happy, their sadness glows trough their happiness.

To find the masks basic emotion look at it and move it a bit and try to see what kind of feeling it has: is it a happy expression or is it sad, is it shy, angry, curious, etc.

2- When you have found the basic emotion try to find the direction of this feeling. Is it outgoing or ingoing? Up or down? Open or close? For example: sadness is ingoing and down. Happiness is outgoing and open, anger is outgoing and close, etc.

When you got the direction of the feeling, place it in the middle of your breast and build your body by those directions.

3- Try moving around with the body posture that you get as a result and find the rhythm of the feeling. Is it slow and heavy or light and fast? A sad character moves slower than an angry character.

4- Think of a word, phrase or sound that expresses the feeling. As an example, if you have curiosity you may chose: “what? Who? Where? When?” Then use that as a mental “mantra” to get you into the feeling. By repeating it in your head it will give you the right emotion.

5- Then you have the voice if it is a half mask. This you can find by thinking of the direction and the rhythm of the emotion. I mean if you have sadness that is ingoing, down, slow and heavy your voice may be also slow, deep, and heavy, or you could chose to work with the opposite: a light voice in a heavy feeling. Play with it without loosing the feeling, until you find it.

Then remember that a mask character is not a realistic character, the movements, the voice; the body posture must be exaggerated to make it alive. The mask in itself is a stylisation of a face, it’s not a realistic face. Think of the mask character as a cartoon character, they are not realistic but very much alive.

Augusto Cabrera