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Is what your character believes how your character acts?
It's good to ponder. Especially when you want to be creative.
It helps to guide your pondering so you can get to something substantial quicker.
As a guide for my pondering I'm going to lean on Dr. Stan Williams'
Value Action Values Cycle
He talks about how a character's psychological value leads to what they physically do.
And if the character is not right in the head, what they do will end up not being good for their self.
But when they are thinking straight, they'll do things that are good for their well being and for others.
Using Dr. Stan's Value Action Values Cycle, I started to ponder people who take part in a black mass.
I'm no expert on the black mass, but I understand its a satanic ritual that is a mockery of the actual catholic Mass instituted by Jesus Christ. It makes sense those who follow Satan would have a anti-mass, so to speak. The two of them are at war. And the war is manifesting physically here on Earth.
Makes sense.
So part of the irony for me is why would someone who takes part in the black mass ritual want Jesus Christ there?
They hate him.
They despise His gospel message.
However not only do they want Jesus at their black-mass, they Need him there.
The source and summit of the Catholic faith is the Eucharist.
The Summit of the Mass is the Eucharist.
What's amazing to me is that these participants of the black mass know that the Eucharist is God. That's why they want him at the blackmass so they can desecrate Him.
Most Catholics, because of poor formation, don't believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. But a Satanist does? How ironic.
When I ponder irony of the character who knows the truth, but hates the truth, and attacks anything that is true seems like a boring character.
When I first started pondering I didn't see them as boring, but the more I applied Stan's value action values cycle to pondering the character seems predictable.
Yeah you could make them seem mysterious and multi-layered. Like maybe the Satanist dresses up like a pious person and does some good to win friends and influence some people, but that just seems like some weird villain that I don't really care about.
If I keep pondering I realize that Jesus Christ cares about that character. Jesus cares so much He's willing to take a beating at the Satanist hand out of love.
Let's face it Jesus is in control of all things.
Nothing can happen without His permission.
Now that seems intriguing and a character I'm interested in understanding, but lets stick with the original pondering and the value action values cycle.
The black mass attending character.
What is it about them ? That is worth rooting for?
If they know the Eucharist is God and they don't change from trying to desecrate him to at least recognizing the error, it seems like a tragic movie character that I will forget about except to remember how foolish their actions are.
Yes the character is ironic that it believes the Eucharist is God, but this character hates God. In one way they are more honest than someone who says they love God but don't do anything about that.
But that's a big jump in figuring out the Irony of a character. It seems very important not to take too big of a step when pondering the Irony of a character or you may end up with an unrelatable, boring character because their actions and motives don't match.
So really the black mass goer is only interesting if we figure out why do they hate God? The thing they hate is the only thing that gives them purpose. And that purpose loves them. What a weird spot to be in.
It seems knowing our characters real reason WHY they do what they do is the way to make sure the audience emotionally connects with our character.
As a final thought, getting to the real reason WHY they do what they do is worth its weight in gold. For example if someone gives you an unpleasant hand gesture in traffic if you accidently cut them off, they are not interesting unless we can find out why that person is having a bad day, that led them to the gesturing in an unpleasant way.
But if we know WHY they had a bad day, the audience will probably have more of an emotional connection to them. But that only happens if you dig deep. And when you dig deep, you can't dig too wide.
I can't do this topic justice in a blog. To go deeper we need to connect and come together for the glory of God.
Pray that people will have generous hearts and fund this renaissance.
Unite with other Catholic Filmmakers like you.
