Film Directing 105: Blocking the Scene
/LEVEL 100 blogs are for film students and first-time directors taking on the directing role for a short film. The series is designed to help and guide new filmmakers through the director’s prep duties, pre-production activities, and principle photography dynamics.
Blocking fundamentals for the beginning director
“Blocking’s up!” is the announcement you hear on set when the director, director of photography, and actors gather to walk through the dynamics of a scene and how it’s going to be shot. Blocking is essentially the choreography between the actor(s) and the camera.
There can be many moving parts to the blocking puzzle. Everyone who contributes to the shot needs to know what’s in the frame, what’s happening – and when it’s happening.
Before the cast, crew, and all the filmmaking equipment arrives on set, the director needs to have a written blocking plan. I strongly advise this, and I speak from experience. (ideas and notation suggestions are provided later on).
Realistically, your plan will change — hopefully for the better. That’s part of the plan.
The well-prepared director knows the shots they need to tell the story. They are ready to evaluate and improve their blocking plan when they’re watching it come to life on the set. They are confident and willing to collaborate with the actors. They know that part of the directing process is creative problem-solving. They work hand-in-hand with the other key creatives and accommodate the limitations of the equipment and the set.
*NOTE: This can be fun, and creative, and far more manageable after a robust script analysis.
Blocking flows from script analysis. The more thought you put into your understanding of the story, the characters, and their journey pays off when you start building a comprehensive plan for visually telling your story. It further pays off when you are executing your plan and adjusting on the fly.
The director's job in pre-production is:
to plan how the characters are going to enter and exit the scene,
to pre-figure what they are going to do in the scene,
to map out where they move and where they stop,
to think on how each character will move,
to plan the camera placement and movement.
The camera position, the movement, and the lens choice are powerful tools that can articulate a character’s state of mind. Your characters are on an emotional journey and, as their director, you must know the story, the psychology of the scene, and have a plan to convey that journey.
If there are no actors in the shot, there still needs to be a plan for the camera blocking. The crew needs to know where the camera is looking, when and where the camera is going to move, what is going to be in the frame, and where the camera is going to stop.
If there are no camera movements in the shot but there are actors, then the movement of the actors and the resulting frames and compositions need to be conveyed to the crew. Being clear and concise is a must.
The director commands great storytelling power when moving the camera or the actors. There will be more on this later.
The basics of blocking when you have two actors is quite simple: people come together, or people move apart.
Characters move for the same reason that people do. People come together when they become more personal. If your scene is a seduction, the characters will move closer and come together.
People can also move together when they want to command respect, threaten someone, whisper a mean comment, or protect their own territory.
Conversely, when people are seeking a private moment, finding space for a personal reflection, or taking a break from the conversation, they move apart.
Camera choices and composition decisions depend on the character placement and movement. Therefore, we need to make the character blocking decisions before we consider almost anything else.
The screenplay is the master plan for the film. It is the blueprint for production. There are movements, frames, and literal images that are an inherent part of the scripted story. Written description gives a director a place to start building their blocking plan.
If a script states that ‘Character A walks in the door and takes off their coat’, the director in pre-production has to figure out Character A, their mood, their state of mind, how they will open and close the door, how far they will move into the room, how they will take off their coat, and where they’ll put the coat.
The next step of the blocking plan is figuring out:
where the camera goes,
the best frame,
the best lens choice (more on this later),
the best camera height,
the most meaningful camera movement.
When the creative team begins to work their way through the director’s plan, there will almost always be adjustments to the character movement and camera positions to make the most appealing, or informative, or emotional composition for each important moment of the scene.
Directors work alone on analyzing and interpreting the script before they meet the actors. Likewise, the actors are reading and analyzing the script as they prepare to meet the director.
So is the Director of Photography – and all of the other key creatives. Every department head is analyzing the script with a keen eye as to how they will function and contribute creatively in their role.
Everyone has ideas about the scene. Leave room for collaboration, or co-creating.
Co-creating is perhaps the most difficult concept to grasp for the beginning director. You have to draw up a written plan, but you also have to be prepared to make changes to that plan under stressful conditions. And you have to be able to live with your decisions.
Your goal, and the collective goal of the entire creative team, is to come away with the best performance, the best shot, and the best storytelling that can be realized in the time that you are given. After all of the changes and adjustments have been made, you may end up with a scene that doesn’t quite resemble your written plan, but hopefully, given all the hard work, it is better than your original idea.
Bravo to that!
