Name, Character, voice
In today’s blog post we want to talk to you about some of the very first steps to becoming a clown.
By trying to help you figure out your Name, your Character, and your Voice. (We have created a
Character
We believe that it will help you if you try think of your clown as being a character with their own
personality, interests, speech, and so much more. You want to make sure that your clown is not you,
(although some similarities are almost guaranteed) and so today we are going to try and help you
figure out who you clown is, how their character will act, how they will speak, what their voice will
sound like, and what their name will be. In a few months we will attempt to use that information to
help you figure out what your costume should look like.
The first thing that we have for you to use is a simple worksheet which we have created for you to
use as a guide to try and help you along in this process. We chose things out of order and in
rebuilding our character we have found these things to be helpful, but this is just a guide so feel free
to do as much or as little as you may need.
The first thing we are going to talk about is your character. Unlike normal acting where you are given
the name of your character, how old they are, where they're from, what they’re like, and so on, and
then you have to make the character your own from there on. With clowning you have to start
everything from scratch, typically mainly on your own, this character will be you whenever you are
performing, so it’s very important that you are comfortable with them, and understand who they are
and are able to answer questions about them, trust us it WILL happen!
We recommend that you start with your character but you have to do what feels right for you, I
Cupcake started with my costume first, and from there I actually got my name, but that is a story for
a different time.
When you’re coming up with your character we would like to suggest that you start with one main
characteristic, we have personally found this helpful in continuing to build our characters. This would
be one main thing that your character does, or are into that greatly influences who they are.
Some examples of this could be a thing that they like to do, like how Dizzy likes to spin, something
that makes them act the way they do, like always being sleepy, or even something random that your
character loves that can form them, like Cupcake loving cupcakes.
Then the next character building step is finding small things that make your character who you are.
This can be anything from having pets, to liking colorful things or even being able to read.
The next part is a part of your character that you may not know right away, and that is knowing
where you live and who you are related to. For the first 2-3 years we had no idea of any of that, but
now that we know where we're from and some of our relatives, we can, (and do) use them all the
time in our skits. We also have a very curious audience who often asks things like this so we have to
be ready to answer.
One of the most important things to remember when it comes to starting your character is that you
are a clown, this may sound silly but if you have ever acted (or even watched someone over-act very
much) before you will likely need to fight the urge to make your character too realistic, a clown
should be something of a caricature: recognizable as a “person” but hardly like a typical person that
you might see in the street any day. One of the things that you will want to know while keeping this in
mind is what mood your clown will usually be in and how high their excitement level and energy is.
You do not need to be high energy and perpetually happy however, you may well do better as a sad,
or even tired clown, it really is about what feels right to you.
The last thing in the character category, again ties into your mood, and it is your excitement level.
Often different moods have different amounts of excitement that go naturally with them, so do what
feels right, but also keep in mind that having a lazy and high energy clown might not make sense.
Name
Your name may have already come to you before you even started putting together your character,
or it may come later, but if you have characteristics that fit with a name naturally that might be a
good place to start. Otherwise there may be other names that come to you. Go ahead and keep
coming up with names until you find the one that fits.
Voice
The last part of these first steps to becoming a clown is your voice. Like your makeup and your
costume, your voice helps to make you into a clown, and brings the situation to life for your
audience.
There are 3 main parts of developing a voice, Volume, Pitch, and Articulation. Your volume is simply
how loud you are. If you have mics you may not have to be as loud as someone who does not, but
there are other things that affect how loud you are. Some of these could be if you’re shy or if you’re
larger than life.
Pitch we think, is fairly self explanatory, but is your voice going to be high or low? Same with your
articulation, are you super clear, or have a lisp or slur. Also Is there something weird about how you
speak? Do you speak out of the side of your mouth? Do you have a baby voice?
Continue playing around with different combination of the above, until you get something that sticks
but also works with your name and character.
One last thing, take your time with your name, character, and voice. This is the foundation work and
will help you later on, you don’t want to have to redo it later. But also remember it is you who is
becoming the clown so just make sure you are prepared to get up on that stage.
Something Silly Clowns
(Cupcake and Dizzy)
Two clowns trying to spread God's love to everyone
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