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Kana Stothert (37)
Project: Family movie (“The Journey”)
Known as: No nickname
Real name: Kana Stothert
Group affiliation: None
Physical description: Kana is 13 years old with shoulder-length black hair. She is short and thin, and usually wears black clothes (often baggy).
Personality: Kana is reserved and quiet. She has a tendency to sigh, which gives her a melancholy vibe. She doesn’t tend to make eye contact, which some people read as aloofness. Her nose is often buried in an electronic device (usually a tablet she totes around with a stylus).
There is a whole other side of her, only seen by her online friends.
History: Kana is Grant and Mai’s second daughter, two years younger than her sister Eri. Things were good with the family when she was born, although Grant was starting to focus a bit more on work. Still Kana was very attached to her father and looked forward to him coming home. She would frequently want to play games of pretend with him. Grant, being less imaginative than her, would often act as a prop (not fully understanding their games). It didn’t help that he would often multitask or think of work.
Kana was also very close to her mother and they were similar. Kana seemed to inherit her mother’s creativity and their games were rich and wonderful (though time was balanced with running Eri around to her many activities). Perhaps because her time with him was more limited, she’d sometimes take her mother for granted and seek time with her father.
Grant growing distant and working more weighed more on Kana than it did on Eri (at least overtly). She took the separation very hard and further withdrew (when not being outgoing outside the family to begin with). Mai worries about this a great deal. She knows Kana is gifted and worries that the world will never see it. She aims to be supportive and patient with her younger daughter.
Grant meanwhile struggles with connecting with Kana. She understands Eri, her activities, and her goals. Meanwhile Kana just seems sullen and unmotivated (he blames it on teenage years), and when he does get her talking about something it is invariably something he doesn’t understand or is uninterested in (e.g., manga). Mai encourages him to try to talk with her more, but Kana’s apparent disinterest causes Grant to stop trying (not to mention that Mai and Grant aren’t communicating as well as they might).
Role in the narrative: Kana is secretly our protagonist. When the film starts, it will be easy to see Grant as a nice guy at least trying to connect with a sullen, distant teenager (the viewer won’t know the history here). Between him being self-centered and Eri drawing attention, Kana will seem (and somewhat be) a supporting character. When they start the Journey together, Grant will first think that the Journey is about him (his next guess will be it is about Eri). The reality is that the Journey is not just about Kana – it IS Kana.
Abilities: Kana is very bright (though her grades don’t reflect it) but she is fabulously creative. When it seems, she is “wasting time” on her tablet she is writing stories or poetry, or sketching. She has entire, rich worlds stored in her imagination, but she doesn’t share them with the world.
She never thought anyone would come visiting.
Inspirations: Kana is the whole idea for the film. I wish I had the skill to make it clear how easy it is for someone shy and quiet to be ignored when they have secret talents. Also, I want to try to capture how parents often see their children through their own narrative. In the case of Grant, he misses her being so excited every time she sees him and views the distance between them as a change to her. Don’t worry – it all ends well. In terms of inspirations, I see a little bit of the Neverending Story in all of this.
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