How Cinematographers Block for Filming
As I have already mentioned in my blog entry ‘Of Casting Calls and Auditions: How to Hold an Audition’, our ACTION! film-crew reverted to doing a blocking session on Monday when our auditions got cancelled by our scheduled actors.
As I am the producer in the ACTION! commercial, I did not have a particular job to do during that blocking session, apart from booking the relevant equipment and studio. After sorting out the particulars, I then stood in for our actors so that our director Lynley and our cinematographer Nathan could sort out the properties and difficulties of the shots both imagined for the ad.
However, when we went through the blocking process, I realised that I had not yet researched how a proper blocking session would go down across all units and departments, much less what is required of the cinematographer. Thus, I decided that, for our own blocking session on Sweeney Todd, I would do some research as well as apply my findings. And here it is.
What is Blocking?
First of all, blocking is what renders cinematic conversations exciting. While this may sound like a pseudo-reply to an important question, blocking in film is doing just that. In blocking, you essentially decide how the film, its scenes, and every single frame, will be staged, framed, lit and shot. And all that is not only done by careful preparation, but even more so by experimentation.
Blocking entails the precise staging of actors in a performance while, at the same time, the positioning of camera equipment and lighting equipment is mapped out. It might seem like a hassle, but it is a fool-proof way of getting every member of production on the same page while clarifying an entire bunch of elements pertaining to the film production.
But first things first.
How to Block a Scene
As I mentioned above, blocking is a crew endeavour that usually requires the director, the cinematographer, the script supervisor, the gaffer, and the talent to be on set. You would usually want to literally walk through each scene and prepare for it. Thus, the first stage usually starts out with the positioning of the actors. It settles the question of where everyone is located in the scene and where everyone will subsequently be moving to. Consider it
While, in the best case scenario, you would do the blocking with your actors to get a feel of how they plan to act or move about (and thus, of how much space they take up in framing, and whether a moving shot might instead be required), in the high end industry, this would be done with stand-ins to minimise the budget for star-actors.
This first stage of blocking is called ‘actor blocking’ and does just that. If the actors and their movements have been mapped out, decided upon, marked down with markers, and taken into consideration, the second stage of ‘equipment blocking’ ensues. Once the performance is set, the next question to settle would be the exact positioning and/or movement of the camera:
Is there a spot where the camera would be in shot (let’s say, reflected in a mirror, for example) or where the camera could cast a shadow on the scene? Would there be tracks in shot? Does the chosen lens still fit or would you have to change the focal length or the positioning of the camera to incorporate all the relevant action?
Once the camera aspects are set, you would then move onto stage three: Lighting and rigging. Is there a way to improve the lighting situation? Would there be a light in shot? Could that light being in shot be replaced by a practical light? Does the shot now require a special rigging for the lighting?
Why the Hassle?
As insinuated above, the act of blocking out your shots not only creates a plan of action for your crew to adhere to, and thus saves a lot of money once you enter the production stage, it can also make your dialogue in film much more intriguing. The more movement you are able to block in, the more cinematic your style becomes, the more interesting your dialogue, your conflict, your reveal, in short: your story becomes. If it’s well thought out and done, blocking can create a dynamic, realistic look, that, on a subconscious level or second layer can tell more about the story and maybe even save a script.
Tips and Tricks
As the video above demonstrates, there are – to my mind – four important tips that help you breeze through blocking. These, for quick reference purposes are:
Have a shot list ready and start blocking from that
Let the actors show their interpretation first and then make suggestions
Decide your camera placement according to what you want to depict
Since speed is of the essence, try to storyboard and block your scenes in a way that your action develops into one direction, thereby eliminating the time-costly factor of re-rig your lighting in the opposite direction.
While the last tip in this list initially sounded to me like a lot of lazy filmmaking, I quickly changed my mind when I realised that this actually might be applicable to the set of our shoot. While our chosen, but not yet confirmed location offers all that we could possibly require of the scene, it is also a rather confined space that limits the possibilities of both actors and lighting, essentially requiring us to block in one direction only.
But How do You Explain Your Blocking?
As always with filmmaking, time is of the essence, which is why I asked myself as on how to efficiently and quickly explain and exchange blocking ideas with Has. After a little bit of research, I found this very short but also very helpful filmmaking video that reminded me of my learning of last year.
Duh! As our Youtuber Jay here quickly pointed out, lighting plans obviously not only inform the gaffer and best boy about their jobs, but can also double up as a basic map for the blocking itself! Since lighting is the last step in the blocking process anyways, it already entails the details of all the important elements to a dot: The set, the actors and their movement, the positioning of the camera, and the positioning of the lighting itself.
Talk about smart and quick solutions.
Our Application
Since we’re not having the location confirmation yet and are furthermore lacking the exact measurements for our set to start mapping out a realistic lighting plan (we were not able to access all of the set without explicit permission and thus could not measure it at all), I decided that I would wait with the creation of a lighting plan until further notice and instead focus on implementing the storyboard into framed shots, thereby experimenting rather with positioning, distances, timing, and lens choices, instead of lighting. While my choice of prime lenses for the various shot sizes is the matter of another blog entry, today, Has and I were able to recreate the entire commercial with the help of Nathan, Hannah, and our lecturer standing in as actors. The video will be uploaded here as soon as it is edited, to give you an impression of the outcome.
PLACEHOLDER - EDITING IN PROCESS - PLEASE BEAR WITH ME
Of Spaces, Shapes and Lines
During today’s blocking session, I kind of felt that our shots somewhat looked flat. Apart from the close up shots that Has and I experimented with and that we shot with a 85mm lens, the rest rather looked like a theatre piece: boring, static, and not engaging enough. But it's a cinematographer's job to translate the story into meaningful images and add layers of meaning in the way the cinematic world is depicted. However, to me, it seemed like I was yet unable to translate the three-dimensional world onto the two-dimensional plane AND make it look intriguing at the same time.
Thus, I decided to do a bit more research and found the video above. It quickly and succinctly pointed out the power of spaces, shapes, and lines on the frame. Whilst ‘space’ in the three-dimensional world translates into ‘size’ in the two-dimensional world (of an object within the frame), this size also informs about power relations: The bigger the character, the more dominant they are, the smaller, the more inferior.
Shapes, then, can only occupy two directions in the two-dimensional world. However, much similar yet also different to sizes, shapes do also possess an emotional quality and create assumptions. While the archetype of circles is considered to allude to safety and inclusion, squares can feel limiting, and triangles can feel sharp and aggressive, pointing towards either the void or something to come.
Lastly, lines, harking back to size again, will inform about power dynamics. The video above vividly demonstrated how vertical lines are conventionally read and interpreted as powerful and dominant, while vertical lines allude to passiveness and weakness.
Looking back at my own footage then, I realised that I somewhat neglected the use of shapes and lines and only ever went with size regarding the actor’s performance. I then furthermore realised, that I tried too hard ‘balancing’ the sizes of our actors, which not only created a flat and boring image, but also ignored the implemented variety that is inherent to the Rule of Thirds.
With these findings in mind, and hopefully with a confirmation of our location soon, I think I will be able to improve not only upon our paperwork such as storyboards and lighting plans, but also upon the visuality of our commercial.
However, without today’s blocking session, I don’t think I would have spotted the issues. So yeah, it’s definitely worth the hassle!
References:
4 Eye Media Works (2017) How to block a scene | Film Making | 4 Eye Media Works [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIsscxAmfBI&index=149&list=WL&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 13 November 2018]
CinematicJ (2016) How to Explain Blocking to Your Crew [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ-EprSMp9Q&index=130&list=WL&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 13 November]
Jared Isham (2017) Basics of Blocking in Filmmaking [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KTiGgLLJIw&index=149&list=WL&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 13 November 2018]
StudioBinder (2018) Film Blocking Tutorial – Filmmaking Techniques for Directors: Ep3 [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AGaECt9j4g&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 15 November 2018]
The Film Look (2018) How to Block a Scene | The Film Look [online] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0NBodzdAEg&list=WL&index=149&frags=pl%2Cwn [Accessed on 13 November 2018]