In this video, we’re going to cover our concept of character worldview, why it’s important, and how you can use it to craft dynamic characters.

We all have a worldview and this is the manner in which we relate to our surround world. In other words, it’s a life view that, at any time, can appear good, and rich and promising, or rather not good and decidedly not promising. It is, fundamentally, as we like to say, a way of interpreting the culture, or cultural symbols.

For example, let’s say I’m a character in a movie, and because I’m a character in a movie I want something – something specific for that matter, like, say, I want someone to like this video. My worldview filters my surrounding culture with regard to my attainability of the goods – in this case a “like” – my worldview is tied to my ability or perception-of-ability to obtain that like. Now, for example, if I have an “aspirational” worldview and aspire to be close to an idea or cultural symbol – in this case to have “likes” – my method of obtaining it – being “aspirational” – may be to work hard and create fantastic content and make the video so undeniably good that one would have to hit that thumbs up. But if my worldview were, let’s say one of the lowest states in the worldview hierarchy: “victimized” – then I might go about getting likes through force, after all, if I felt victimized I may, perhaps, feel like as though likes are unattainable through traditional means, even if I worked hard for it because my surrounding environment is always working against me.

So now that we can understand how worldview influences the manner in which we relate to our surroundings – and in particular when it comes to cinema – to our ability to accomplish objectives. I want to leave you with the reason a worldview is fundamental to having dynamic characters. This principle is built into our conception of what a dramatic actor is; it creates a starting point for a character’s journey, influences their course of action, and communicates some essential purpose and one’s own understanding of who they are.

Your plot – when properly conceived – is a vehicle that moves characters between states, and the process by which existing within a worldview creates the ability to transform into another, and another, and another, and so on. Buying into the narrative is mostly contingent on logic, but logic of a higher order and the task of a great writer of fiction is to create a story rooted in viable and compelling explanations of how this process is able to occur. It all starts with the worldview – of which we have discovered 32 in total – and, if you do it well, your story may also end with one.