Character Profile - Sally Meyers

From school, we were always told it's good habit to write out the backstory to all the characters featured in your film. That way, you know the full reason for their actions and you can justify them much better as well. This is what I came up with for Sally, my film's protagonist:

Character Development:

Sally Meyers
Age: 19
Height: 165cm
Weight: 65kg
Hair Color: Blonde
Eye Color: Blue
Skin Color: Fair to light tan
Hair length: mid – long
Usual hair style: side swept ponytail or half-up, half down
Usual dress style: Skirt and a singlet, baby doll dresses. Favorite item is her silk nightgown
Teeth: used to have braces from yr 8 till yr 10. Now have perfectly straight white teeth
Habits: goes for a run every morning, does yoga twice a week, plays netball on the weekends. Eats a healthy diet of 2 fruit, 5 veg. Favorite food is sushi and mango juice.
Greatest flaw: the inability to connect to the people in her life on a deep level
Best quality: her ability to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.

Address: 62 Surrey Rd, Toorak.

A typical week:
Monday: Get up, run, shower, dress, eat. Ride to school on the train. 5 hours of classes. Meet up with friends for coffee. Go home. Have a snack and watch the news. Do an hour of homework. Yoga. Dinner. Read a book and fall asleep.
Tuesday: Get up, run, shower, dress, eat. Go to local café with mum. Come home. Do homework and hang out with Simon. Go to uni at 2pm. Classes till 4pm. Come home. Matt comes over for dinner whilst her mum goes to her single-parents workshop. Matt leaves around 10pm. Reads her book and then bed.
Wednesday: Get up, shower, dress, eat quick breakfast. Have uni at 9am so no time for run. Uni till 1pm. Meet up with best friend Melissa for shopping. Go over to Simon’s house for “sexy time”. Come home. Do some homework. Go for a run. Have dinner with mum. Watch Lost. Go to bed and read a book.
Thursday: Get up, run, shower, dress. Meet Matt for breakfast on Notre Dame campus. Go to work till 4pm. Come home. Do homework and watch TV. Do yoga. Have dinner with mum. Chat to older sister on the phone. Bed.
Friday: Get up, run, shower, dress, eat. Go to uni till 12pm. Meet up with her friends for lunch. Go over to Simon’s house till 4pm. Come home. Get ready to go out. Head to Chapel St with her girlfriends.
Saturday: get up at 9am for work. Work till 2pm. Play netball from 3 till 6pm. Head over to Matt’s house for the night.
Sunday: Rest and relaxation day. Usually, whoever’s house she has stayed at on Saturday night will be the person she hangs out with all day. Get home around 6pm. Do homework. Have dinner. Sleep.

Family:
Dad: Sally’s dad walked out on her mum in 2004 after she discovered he had been having an affair with his secretary for over 9 years. The conflict was very straining on all members of the family but none more than Sally who not only lost her father but also her older sister who blames Sally’s mum for her dad’s infidelity. Sally no longer speaks with her father as she blames him for her mother’s depression and her sister’s absence.
Mum: Sally’s mum is a slightly neurotic, kind individual who cares for her daughters deeply. After the divorce, she went into a deep depression as a result of the fall out and because her oldest daughter refused to speak with her anymore. She now works full-time as a Clerk at the Melbourne Court House and has recently started dating Max from her single-parents workshop.
Emma: Emma is Sally’s older sister who moved out after her parents divorce. She was extremely close to her father and never really got on with her mother and as a result, moved out of home at the tender age of 17. She dropped out of school and migrated to Perth where she is now living with her boyfriend of 4 years and their 2 year old son, Piper. She is also studying nursing at Murdoch.

Work: On Thursdays and Saturdays, Sally works part-time at a café on Collins St. She gets paid about $18 an hour which is just enough to cover the expenses of her outings.
Education: Went to a co-ed primary school from Kindergarton to year 6. Transferred to Genazzano in year 8 and remained there till she graduated. She studied Literature, Further Mathematics, Chemistry, French, and Drama. Currently, she is studying the Genreal Arts course at Melbourne University. After graduation, she spent a month of her summer traveling around Australia with her 2 best friends Cassie and Jess. During that time, she experienced many of Australia’s wonders from seeing Uluru to having shots with sailors at a Perth nightclub.
Short term goals: To save enough money to travel back to Perth for mid-term
Long term goals: To gain high enough grades to go on exchange to London next year.
Career goal: To become a successful business analyst for a major corporation, preferably BHP or Ernst & Young.

Strengths: Determined, smart, manipulative
Weakness: headstrong, perfectionist, control freak

Bio: Ever since her dad walked out on her mum in 2005, Sally has desperately been trying to avenge the emotional trauma he imprinted on her by deliberately torturing boys her own age. When she was 16, the hottest guy from St Kevin’s chased her for 3 months and when she finally decided to give in, she pulled out last minute and claimed rape. The boy was so severely affected by the ordeal that he had to move to Canada to escape the outfall. After, she has managed to time and time again manipulate and control her boyfriends and the men in her life so that she gets exactly what she wants. She gets away with it by appearing completely saint-like in all other aspects of her life: in front of her friends, her mum and her teachers. Anyone who you ask will say the same thing. Principal Patricia Cowling said “Despite the numerous occasions where Sally has been severely mistreated, she has never let it affect her grades or her relationship with her fellow peers at school. She is a bright, bubbly energetic pupil who seeks out adventure and assists students wherever possible. It is these qualities that led us to nominate her for class president of 2009.” Her mother commented, “Sally has been a rock for me ever since my husband moved out 4 years ago. I know the strain of our divorce must have weighted heavily on her emotionally but she seems perfectly fine. Her grades are good, she has a lot of friends and she has competeley settled into the university lifestyle. It is a shame that she has had a couple of bad encounters with her male counterparts but we can’t control these things.” We also managed to get hold of Michael Darling, the boy she accused of rape in 2007. “Sally Meyers is a f***ing slut. The whole time I was stupidly chasing her, she was seeing about 3 of my friends on the side. The only reason she got away with it all was because she also blackmailed them too about testifying in my defense. I hope she rots in hell”. Currently, she is seeing Simon Westfield, a fresher Commerce student at Melbourne Uni. They have been together for 3 months now and it is clear who wears the pants in the relationship with Simon bending to Sally’s every beck and call. What Simon doesn’t know is that Sally has also been seeing Matt, a fresher law student at Monash. As far as Sally knows, the two boys have never met and if she can play her cards right then they never will.