Chapter 8

Blocking and Shot Listing, Part One

You tell an actor while rehearsing a scene, “Why don’t you walk over to the desk and sit down?” The actor replies in front of the crew and the rest of the cast, “Why would I do that?” Right at that moment in this hypothetical rehearsal (let’s say the script is a cop drama), his character wants to get a direct answer from another character. So he’d rather walk over and get in that person’s face. But you’re telling him to shy away, put something (like the desk) between him and the person he’s questioning. Your direction doesn’t make any sense to him, so he questions you. It’s embarrassing for you. It looks like you haven’t understood what his character is trying to do (intention), and now that actor doesn’t trust you. He thinks you haven’t done your homework—or worse, he thinks you have, but you don’t understand anything. In the actor’s mind, you—the director—are now suspected of being a sham: someone whom he cannot trust.

All of this may sound a bit dramatic in response to a simple directing suggestion, but it’s not. The quality of the actor/director relationship depends on the actor believing that the director will not let him look stupid.

Actors are made to look stupid if they do or say something that’s not believable, and the actor has to trust that the director will make sure everything has integrity and purpose. So if you ask that actor—in that moment when his character needs to get a straight answer—to do something evasive, he will look stupid. And then the trust is ruptured and is very difficult to recapture.

Because filmmaking is a creative venture of a highly collaborative nature, it’s imperative (at least if you want to run a happy set) that the director’s relationship with everyone is respectful and communicative. This rule is especially true between the director and his actors. If you don’t have that kind of relationship, then every request could be met with indifference—or worse, defiance. Some people prefer this mode of combative drama, thinking it makes for heightened performance from the actors and more power for the director. (Director John Ford was famous for chastising his actors and sometimes hitting them. He even did that to John Wayne.) But creative people are sensitive by nature, and criticism closes them down emotionally, which is not conducive to letting inspiration flow. We all work better when our work is praised, providing a base to allow even more inspiration to follow.

So, going back to our example, you thought you made a simple suggestion: “Why don’t you walk over to the desk and sit down?” But that could be the blow that knocks the foundation out from underneath your relationship with your actor.

How can you, the director, prevent such a catastrophe? First, never come to the set unprepared. Always read the script, understand it, and work with the writer to make it the best it can be; then—and this is the most crucial part of a director’s job—prepare your work. Come to set on your first shooting day having decided in advance two things about each scene:

•  How the actors will move

•  How you will use the camera.

The first task is called blocking. Imagine how each scene will play out, and picture in your mind the physicality of the scene. Then second, imagine where you need the cameras to be in order to photograph the action. Make either a shot list or a storyboard that indicates how you intend to break down the scene into individual shots. Though both processes require your imagination, they are two very separate skills. For a director to block a scene, he must intuit the scene, understanding each character’s intention and translating that into physical movement, intonation, and communication—that is, performance. For a director to shot list or storyboard a scene requires more of a logical mind because it’s like solving a Sudoku puzzle, determining where each missing piece fulfills a need in the overall design. Blocking is right-brain work; shot listing is left-brain work.

WHERE, WHEN, AND WHY THE CHARACTERS SHOULD MOVE

The more important skill is blocking because you can have a magnificent shot, but if the intention of the scene is unrealized because of poor performance, your film suffers. You want your audience to empathize with your characters, to be touched by them in some way—you want them to laugh, cry, gasp. This emotion is not achieved by camera work, no matter how sophisticated it is. Director Arthur Allan Seidelman recently reminded us that the sure way to get an audience to like a character is to let them see the character’s vulnerability.¹

Touching the emotions of the audience is achieved by their identification with the story and with the actors’ performances. We have already talked about approaching the story from the actors’ points of view in Chapter 2. What we’re talking about here is how the physical action of the actors illustrates their intentions. Does Character A want to be close to Character B or far away? Does a particular moment in the script require stillness or movement? If it’s movement, is the movement needed to cover the character’s emotions or to illustrate them? (More on this in Chapter 10.) Are props required, and if so, how are they used? Is there an entrance or an exit? What is the energy level of the scene, and how does that play into character movement?

An average TV drama script has anywhere from 30 to 60 scenes, and each one must be blocked and shot listed (or storyboarded) before you begin your first day of shooting. In a desperate pinch, you can break the script down by shooting schedule and use your weekends to prepare for the week ahead. But doing so is not recommended because you get too much information during the process of blocking during prep to share with other department heads. For example, you might get the idea to have two characters prepare dinner during a scene. It’s much better for the prop master to know that ahead of time. Also, if you block the whole script out sequentially, you can better plan your transitions (how the frame looks from the end of one scene to the beginning of the next). If you block by shooting schedule, you will probably do something like shoot scene 30 in week one and scene 29 in week two; therefore, you might miss planning a beautiful transition shot between them.

You have already analyzed each scene for story and character. But how do you get the scenes on their feet? Begin with the obvious: is there an entrance? If so, where is that within the set or location? Where do the other character(s) begin in relation to the character who is making an entrance? This gives you the starting point for each character. If there is not an entrance, there might be something else scripted that gives you the starting point for each character. If there is no indication in the script, you are free to imagine the actors anywhere you want within the space.

Now what? You look to the script for clues. Very often, the writer will tell you in stage directions what she had in mind. If so, you may choose to follow that suggestion, or you may not. It is your choice, but it’s good to remember that the writer has put a lot of thought into this and is “seeing” the scene in her mind. The writer might give you some good ideas! But regardless of whether you accept the script suggestion, or if there isn’t one, you now begin to imagine each character, how they feel, what they do. What is it they’re trying to achieve in the scene (there’s that intention again) and how does their movement in the scene facilitate that goal? Play each part in your mind, or out loud within the empty set if you need to. As you see it in your mind’s eye, be sure that it feels organic (natural) and that everything you ask your actors to do is motivated movement. (You’re asking them to make a cross, or move across the room, for a specific reason.) What you definitely should not do is ask an actor to make a cross because “it will make a better shot.” A justification like that tells the actor that you are not on his side, that you care mostly about the visuals rather than performance. Plus, the actor needs a specific reason from the character’s point of view to move, and camera has nothing to do with character.

You can use theatre terms, such as upstage (farther from the audience/camera) and downstage (closer to the audience/camera), as a shortcut term both for yourself and for your actors when you’re explaining your plan to them. The one directional term that is different between theatre and film is caused by the fact that, in order to shoot a scene, everyone must relate to the camera, which is opposite the actor. So when you ask actors to move to their right, that is actually camera left. And their left is camera right. It’s not confusing for you because you stand behind the camera, but for the actor facing it, some practice with this terminology is usually needed.

Double-check your script: Is there an exit? Is there something that needs to be accomplished by a character, such as picking up a shovel, closing a window, setting the table? If so, the character must be physically proximate to those items. If nothing is scripted but you have an idea for framing the scene in some physical action (like the task of preparing dinner, as previously mentioned), make sure those elements are ordered during prep via conversations with your 1st AD and the relevant department heads.

Because Mary Lou has directed so much comedy, she always examines the scene to see if an actor’s specific placement next to another actor will help the “funny.” Two actors who are good with comedy standing next to each other can be gold! Conversely, you can make a comedy-challenged actor look better by placing him farther away from the actor to whom he is speaking to force an edit so that you can be in charge of the comic timing in postproduction. You also want to be sure to frame the joke: don’t plan to have your actors walking or moving (and don’t move the camera either) as they say the all-important punch line. If it’s a drama scene that contains information or exposition that the audience needs to hear, frame that as well. Don’t bury important information in distracting physical movement by the actors.

After meeting the physical requirements of the scene, turn to the psychological ones. Do the characters hate each other? Do they love each other? What is the power balance between them? Does the power shift in the scene? Unless it’s a setup scene or a dénouement scene, there will be conflict between the characters. How is that conflict best illustrated in blocking? Is it hot conflict (a physical fight) or cold conflict (icy distance between them)? What is the outward picture of the characters’ inner emotions?

Once you’ve met the basic questions in translating the script to (imagined) actor movement—Is it justified? Does it make sense?—begin to think about how you will place the cameras to best record this blocking that you have worked out. But before we talk about types of shots, there are some structural requirements of which to be aware.

STORYTELLING AROUND THOSE ALL-IMPORTANT TV COMMERCIALS

In broadcast television programming, the story is interrupted by commercials. (And that’s a good thing, because that’s what pays for the show.) After a commercial, you will have an act-in, or beginning of the next segment, and when the story is about to go to commercial, the last shot is the act-out. Most hour-long dramas today (which actually span about 42 minutes without commercials) have six acts or segments between commercials. So it’s essentially like having six beginnings and six endings.

The director needs to plan special shots for these act-ins and act-outs, for they have additional meaning and importance. Act-in shots should be visually interesting and entice the viewer to return to the story. Act-out shots should provide resolution and gravity, letting the viewer know they’ve come to an ending. When you break down the acts into scenes, you also have the opening shot and the ending shot for each scene. They fulfill the same purpose as the act-ins and act-outs, just on a smaller scale. Plan an opening shot for each scene that is a visual way into the scene, and plan an ending shot that telegraphs to the audience the scene is completed. You also need to know what the first cut (edit) is out of your opening shot. This cut is really the key to shot listing because when you know what your first shot is, and you know the place or line of dialogue during which you will make the first cut, then the pattern and rhythm of the editing begins to be established. So you will have your opening visual shot, and you will know exactly where you plan to cut out of it and into the second shot. Once that happens, it should be clear to you where you need to go. For example, let’s go back to the exercise you just did. What would be the opening visual shot? Imagine it, watching the scene unfold in your mind’s eye. Where do you need to shift your attention and when? That is the first cut. Now you are in the second shot, which would tell you the next part of the story. When do you need to shift your attention again? Is it back to the first shot, or something else? Now the scene is starting to take you on a journey: giving you (and the audience, because the director is standing in for the audience) some information and making you feel something. As you build the scene by putting together sequential shots, you are telling the story.

VARIATIONS ON A HOMECOMING

Let’s say you’re working a scene about a soldier coming home to his wife from Afghanistan. Perhaps you decide that the story point (the crux of the matter; why you are telling this story) is the surprise that his wife (let’s call her Wife) will feel upon seeing him and how much he’s changed. So to build to that moment, you might shoot a mini-montage of inserts of the Soldier. (A montage is a storytelling device of putting non-dialogue shots together, usually accompanied by music scoring; inserts are tight shots on objects.) So you might begin with a shot of his worn boot stepping out of the cab. And as he walks up the path, there’s a shot of his backpack, his name badge, and his tense hand pulling at his straps in anticipation. Then there’s the back of his head, poised at the front door, and his finger on the doorbell. The doorknob turns, the door opens, and you tilt up to see the Wife, whose expression changes from curiosity (Who’s at the door?) to surprise, joy, and then consternation. Your first cut out of that montage is to the face of the Soldier, who is happy to see his Wife, but also tentative, because he has a terrible scar on one side of his face and is missing an ear. Now the scene falls into place. You know you will cut back to her, then back to him. Now they have some dialogue. They embrace. He steps over the threshold and the door closes. Because you have two shots there (one of him, one of her), the story is told. Of course, you could do many variations: you could add multiple shots; you could choose to push in (the shot becomes tighter as the camera goes toward the actor) or pull out as the door closes to lend a sense of completeness. Or maybe you want to keep it simple, either for time constraints or because you just think that’s the best way to tell that part of the story. It’s up to you—and only you. It’s not the producer’s responsibility, or the script supervisor’s, or the DP’s. It is the director’s sole responsibility to shoot the script so that the story is told.

Take the same scene, a Soldier coming home. But now you decide that the story point is his yearning for the safety and innocence of the life he left behind. Perhaps you begin the same way, with the boot coming out of the cab, but then you might continue that shot and tilt up to his face as he steps out. The expression on his face changes. But why? And your first cut is to what he’s seeing: his beautiful house, with flowers growing in front of the porch, it all looks so peaceful.

You cut back to him: how is he feeling? And then the door opens, and his Wife stands there. You’re still in his point of view (also called POV; the camera sees what the character sees) so it’s a wide shot toward the house and the front door. But then you’ll want to see how his Wife feels as she stands there, so you have a close-up (CU) shot of the Wife. You cut back to him. In Figure 8.1, you can see the camera placement for this scenario.

There’s a long sidewalk in front of him; the house seems very far away. What is he going to do? What is she going to do? He starts up the walk toward her, slowly at first, and the camera will dolly back to hold his face in the shot as he walks. You cut to his Wife, who also begins to approach him. You let both of them exit frame (leave the shot) so you can cut to a 50/50, a shot in which the two characters break (enter) frame to face each other.

The Soldier and his Wife meet in the middle of the sidewalk and exultantly embrace (Figure 8.2).

FIGURE 8.1 The characters’ and camera placement for the wide POV shot as well as the Soldier and Wife close-ups.

Okay, let’s take the same scene again. A Soldier is coming home from Afghanistan, his Wife greets him. But this time, the story point is that they have grown apart while he’s been gone.

Perhaps your opening shot is an establishing shot, one that shows the environment from a wide point of view. The cab pulls up in front of the house, the passenger door opens, and your camera is across the street on a wide lens, and sees all of that. Where do you think the first cut out of that shot will be? You have to ask yourself the following questions: What is the story? What do I (as the director, standing in for the audience perception) want to see? Well, if we see a cab pull up in front of a house, we want to know who is in that cab. So that would be the first cut. And because the camera is across the street, we know the cab is going from right to left in the frame so that the passenger can get out on the correct side. So to show “Who is getting out of the cab?” the camera angle would be opposite from where it was in the establishing shot: on the other side of the street in front of the hero house, pointing 180 degrees away from the angle of the first shot, toward the passenger door. This time, we won’t start on the boot but rather overlap the car door opening (do it again), and the Soldier steps out. We see his face, and we want to know what he’s thinking. We cut to his point of view. The front door opens, and the Wife stands there. We cut back to the Soldier. Back to the Wife. Neither of them move. The cab driver pulls away. The two people are stranded there, far apart and not moving. The story is told (Figure 8.3).

FIGURE 8.2 The blocking and camera placement for the second Soldier/Wife scene.

FIGURE 8.3 The blocking and camera placement for the third scenario.

So there we have three examples of the same plot point: the Soldier comes home to his Wife. But the story is different, even though it’s the same plot. The blocking is different in each one, and so are the shots. It helps to ask yourself, as you’re reading a scene and deciding how to block it, “Yes, but what is the real story?” In other words, “I see the plot point(s), but what is underneath that? What are the characters feeling? What is the real story?” As you know (from Chapter 1 on breaking the script down for story), this is subtext. That is always the job of the director: to know the subtext of each scene. Then you have to know how to illustrate that subtext by blocking and shots. That is the essence of the visual aspect of director’s job, and there are many directors who are known as a “shooter,” that is, someone who uses the camera in very specific and sometimes elaborate ways. But think back to a director like Frank Capra, and his iconic movies like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It’s a Wonderful Life. His camera use was simplistic but the performances in his movies continue to echo in our hearts and minds. Remember that the director’s job of telling the story is constructed through two elements: actors and camera. It’s our responsibility to use them both well.

YOUR PALETTE OF SHOTS

Let’s go over the names for each type of shot, going from wide to tight:

•  Establishing shot: A wide shot that shows the environment.

•  Master: A shot that holds all the actors in the frame; usually shot first, it creates a template for the scene because in every shot after the master, all the actors will match (repeat) their movement and actions.

•  Mini-master: A smaller grouping of actors within the same scene from the same camera position as the master; a reverse mini-master is shot from the opposite side of the set.

•  50/50: Two actors face each other in the scene; this can be wide to show full figures, or tighter to cut them (hold the frame) at the waist.

•  Two-shot: Two people are in the frame.

•  Over-the-shoulders (OS; Figure 8.4): The camera looks over the shoulder of one actor toward the other actor; when the camera looks in the opposite direction, it is a reverse angle. In your shot list, indicate specific placement by using OLS (over left shoulder) or ORS (over right shoulder).

•  Close-up (CU): A tight shot of the actor, clean, that is, with no one else in the frame; this can be in varying sizes, from a cowboy (bottom of frame is where the bottom of the holster would be, mid-thigh) to waist, to two-t (“two tits” at the bottom of the frame) to a choker (bottom of frame is the neck) to extreme (the frame can hold only a part of the face). A close-up can also be called a single; if the camera pans (goes sideways) from one character in close-up to the next character, it’s called a swingle. In Figure 8.5, we have diagrammed where the camera frames these shots. Figure 8.6 shows how a director might ask for a waist shot.

•  Inserts: Extremely tight shots of objects or movement to illustrate a story point. For example, if a character reads something, an insert may be necessary of that paper so that the audience can see it also. If you do an integrated insert by including the object within another shot, it’s called a tag.

•  Rake (raker, raking): The camera is not directly in front of its object, but off to the side. It’s a nice way to stack the frame by, for example, lining up several people in more of a profile shot rather than looking at them straight on and creating a flat effect (Figure 8.6).

FIGURE 8.4 Camera operator Ben Spek shooting an OS shot of Luke McFarlane (facing camera) and Matthew Rhys from Brothers & Sisters.
Brothers & Sisters trademarks and copyrighted material have been used with the permission of ABC Studios.

FIGURE 8.5 The camera frames the actor in various sizes.

In our story about the Soldier and his Wife, a shot list of the first scenario might look like this:

Opening montage:

1 a)  boot steps out of cab

b)  name badge: dolly back

c)  hands on straps

d)  reverse angle: backpack

e)  back of head waiting at door

FIGURE 8.6 Bethany describes a waist shot on Brothers & Sisters to 1st assistant cameraman Nick Infield and dolly grip Cranston Gobbo.
Brothers & Sisters trademarks and copyrighted material have been used with the permission of ABC Studios.

2  door knob turns: tilt up to reveal Wife, becomes close-up of Wife (she looks camera right to Soldier), at end, he steps toward her and door closes in fg (foreground, close to camera)

3  tighter on Wife (choker)

4  reverse: CU Soldier (he looks camera left to Wife), he steps out of frame at end

5  choker Soldier

6  pull-back to high and wide, camera in street, possibly a crane shot (camera is on an arm that allows it to swing up, down, and sideways; used for fluid movement generally requiring a higher angle than the camera dolly can provide). Figure 8.7 illustrates the height a crane can achieve.

Notice that the shot list indicated screen direction, that is, which side of the frame the actors were looking to in order to achieve the illusion that they were talking to each other. The Wife looked right, the Soldier looked left. If the director made a mistake and didn’t set the shots up in that way, it would be crossing the line. It’s a big topic that we will cover in the next chapter.

In order to complete this shot list, you must have physically been in the space as part of your prep. You will imagine the scene and possibly act it out yourself or have an early rehearsal with your actors (and no crew) so that you can all work it out together. You will be provided with a blueprint, or floor plan, by the art department, or you can draw a small diagram for yourself on the same page as your shot list. (The diagrams for this chapter showing the house, the porch, and the sidewalk would be the floor plan.) You can do this on the computer or by hand. Our preference is to have a separate shot list for each scene, on the backside of a piece of paper, which is then inserted into your script, facing the relevant scene. This method is very helpful when a script gets revised—you can reinsert your shot list on its separate page, rather than having to do the work over.

FIGURE 8.7 A traditional crane; the operator and dolly grip sit on the arm of the crane.
Photo by Paul Snider, NCIS

Let’s go back to where we started in this chapter, with the actor asking you, “Why would I do that? Why would I walk over to the desk and sit down?” Because you will have thought everything through, broken down the scene for story and character, and know how the physical blocking of the scene is a visual representation of each character’s point of view, you can say, “Because there’s a power struggle in this scene, and if you ask for the information straight out, he knows you’re in the weak spot. If you walk around the desk and sit down, you’re covering, you’re bluffing, you’re making him sweat, and you’ll realize the intention of forcing him to concede to your power and give you the information.” The actor will look at you with a little smile. “Okay,” he’ll say, and then he’ll walk over to the desk and sit down, knowing he’s in good hands.

NOTES

1  Arthur Allan Seidelman. Email, June 26, 2015.

2  Blain Brown, Cinematography Theory and Practice. New York: Focal Press, 2015, p. 36.