Directors Tell the Story Read online

  FIGURE 7-1 The character 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 I see a cab pull up in front of a house, I 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’s 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. In Figure 7-3, you can see the camera placement for this scenario.

  FIGURE 7-2 The character moves as well as the camera placement for the dolly moves and the 50/50 shot.

  FIGURE 7-3 The character and camera placement for the establishing shot, the POV shot, the Soldier and Wife close-ups, and the wide end-of-scene shot.

  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. (We discuss more complicated blocking and crossing the line in Chapter 10.)

  YOUR PALETTE OF SHOTS

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

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

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. 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.

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

  6. Over-the-shoulders (OS): 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. Figure 7-4 shows a perfect OS shot.

  7. 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, midthigh) 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, it’s called a swingle. In Figure 7-5, we have diagrammed where the camera frames these shots. In Figure 7-6, Bethany shows 1st assistant cameraperson Nick Infield and dolly grip Cranston Gobbo that she wants a waist shot on the set of Brothers & Sisters.

  FIGURE 7-4 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.)

  8. 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.

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

  Opening montage:

  boot steps out of cab

  name badge: dolly back

  hands on straps

  reverse angle: backpack

  back of head waiting at door

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

  FIGURE 7-5 The camera frames the actor for various shots.

  tighter on Wife (choker)

  reverse: CU Soldier, he steps out of frame at end

  choker Soldier

  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 7-6 Bethany describing a waist shot on Brothers & Sisters. (Brothers & Sisters trademarks and copyrighted material have been used with the permission of ABC Studios.)

  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 back side 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.

  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.

  Have a separate shot list for each scene, on the back side 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.

  Insider Info

  How Do You Interact with Directors?

  I always want to make sure that I’m visually telling the story: the camera, the lighting, the lensing have to contribute support and enhance the story, whether it’s a
comedy or drama. As a DP in episodic TV, I am hired by the producer, so my first responsibility is to the continuity of the show. I need to protect whatever the signature of that show is. At the same time, I feel an obligation to be the director’s compatriot, to be his eyes, to execute his vision. If a director, for example, is going off in another direction, I won’t say, “No, we can’t do that.” I try to cloak it and say, “On this show, we don’t generally stage something like that, or we don’t generally use a wide lens.” I want to give the director the parameters of how we’re working. Then if the director still wants to go with that route, I will work with him, supporting and respecting his wishes, but I will try to massage it, blending the signature and style of the show I was hired for while still trying to execute his vision.

  What Do You Wish Directors Knew About the DP’s Process?

  Cinematography is an element of storytelling and lighting is an element of cinematography, so indirectly, lighting is very much an element of storytelling. Often, directors don’t understand that when a DP wants to add another light, it will make a difference. It will illuminate the scene both literally and—more importantly—figuratively. People will forget the extra 10 or 15 minutes of overtime when the film is great, but they don’t ever forget when the film is mediocre. Just as the director may need extra takes to embellish a performance, a cinematographer may also need several takes to tweak the lighting and camera from his point of view as a visual storyteller.

  Also, when I am willing to compromise the look of the show to make the shoot work and accommodate a director’s wishes, the director needs to meet me halfway. For example, if I’m lighting opposing angles simultaneously (as they often want to do on a sitcom) but I’m still trying to give the show a “cinematic look” and we’re still rolling and we have zoom lenses on, and the director says “go tighter,” I may want to change the lighting minimally when we go from a wide shot to a tight shot. It may take only 30 seconds, but I wish I didn’t feel like the director was resenting the time it would take to make a 30-second change. I want them to let me do my thing, safeguarding the style and look of the show. For instance, they need to trust me to know whether this actress needs more front light or whether I need to do this with a long lens instead of a wide lens. Or if we’re staging something, it’s better sometimes to not go from the beginning of the scene all the way to the end of the scene, because at a certain point, I just run out of places to put lights. Finally, having now worked with directors who were formerly cinematographers, like Michael Watkins, I appreciate the respect they pay me by asking me after rehearsal and before releasing the first team, “Are you going to be okay with this?”

  What Advice Would You Give a Director Who is Starting Out?

  See as many films and watch as much television as you can. Understand the medium you are going to work in. I think it is important to spend time on sets and observe directors at work. Shadowing a director is a great way to understand what is going on. And do this on all kinds of shows. Every situation has a different rhythm, a different beat, a different lingo, a different style.

  Joe Pennella

  Director of Photography

  Monk, Ed, Party of Five, Life Goes On

  Vocabulary

  50/50

  act

  act-out

  blocking

  break frame

  camera angle

  camera left

  camera right

  choker shot

  clean

  close-up (CU)

  cowboy shot

  crane shot

  dolly back

  downstage

  establishing shot

  exit frame

  extreme shot

  first cut

  floor plan

  foreground (fg)

  frame the joke

  full figure

  hero

  high and wide shot

  inserts

  integrated insert

  make a cross

  master

  match

  mini-master

  montage

  motivated

  organic

  overlap

  over-the-shoulders (OS)

  pan

  point of view (POV)

  pull out

  push in

  reverse

  shot list

  single shot

  starting point

  storyboard

  story point

  swingle

  tag

  transitions

  two-shot

  two-t shot

  upstage

  waist shot

  wide lens

  wide shot

  Chapter 8

  Blocking and Shot Listing, Part Two

  Now that you’ve imagined how the actors will move in the scene (blocking), it’s time to imagine how you will shoot the scene (shot listing). Come to the set with your plan and enlist the services of the DP. If it’s an exterior location (where the light is less controllable because no one has figured out yet how to manage the sun), the DP will definitely have an opinion about in which direction he would like to shoot first. If it’s a night exterior or an interior set, the DP will give you more options.

  Your DP will generally prefer to light the widest shot first and condense the scope of the lighting as you go on. So in your shot list, go from wide to tight. The DP will also want to light directionally, that is, to shoot everything in one direction, using the same group of lights, before you turn around to have the camera look in the opposite direction. If you have multiple scenes in the same area (like a courtroom), you may want to block shoot those scenes, that is, to shoot every scene with the witnesses on the stand before you turn around to shoot the attorneys. You begin your shot list by indicating where you want to put the camera to establish the scene; then you ask yourself, “What would be the next shot while lighting in this same direction?” After you have continued that process and listed all shots, finishing with your tightest/last shot in your first direction, you note on your shot list that you are going to turn around/reverse, and you begin again with the widest shot and work your way down to the tightest shot. When you have completed the shot list, double-check the work by indicating next to the dialog/description of the script page which shot you anticipate using—this methods helps make sure that you haven’t forgotten anything. It is important to note that your shot list is created in the order in which you plan to shoot it, not the order in which it will be edited. For example, you may be putting an insert shot or montage first (like in our first scene with the Soldier) when you cut it together, but you would shoot the widest shot first, (in that case, that is probably the dolly shot that leads the Soldier to the porch). So your shot list will be in shooting order, but when you doublecheck your work and put a shot number in your script next to each piece of dialog or stage direction, that will illustrate your editing order.

  Once you have all your shots, you can edit it in multiple ways (more to come on this in Chapter 14). Your job as a director on the shooting day is to make sure that you have all the coverage you need. The best way to ensure that you do is to plan it out ahead of time (block and shot list) so you’re able to focus on understanding the subtext and providing all the shots required to illustrate the story.

  Whether you shot list or storyboard, the point is to “see” the movie in your head before shooting a single shot.

  You could also storyboard this scene, which would be a literal depiction of the blocking and the shots, shown in a succession of boxes (frames). This step can be done by skilled artists who listen to the director describe the scene and then translate it by drawing a picture of each shot onto storyboards. (Or if you can draw, you can do it for yourself.) Since Bethany can draw nothing but stick figures, a talented artist named Joe Mason drew the storyboard for the opening sequence of an episode of Castle she directed, which you can see in Figure 8-1. The storyboards essentially show in still frames what the finished pro
duct will look like. It’s a visual representation, rather than the logical/literal method of shot listing. You then shoot it so the shots resemble the storyboard as seen in Figure 8-2. If you choose storyboarding, there are several computer programs for this, including Google Sketchup and Adobe Photoshop. There is even a Hitchcock storyboarding application for the iPhone/iPad.

  The reason Mary Lou and Bethany prefer shot lists is that they better illustrate how shots are reused during scenes. (Plus, as we know, Bethany can’t draw.) In the example from Chapter 7, you would cut back and forth between shots #f and #3, between the Wife and the Soldier, and as you wanted to go tighter, you would cut back and forth between shots #2 and #4. But storyboards might help you “see” the finished film better because with computer programs, you get a better three-dimensional sense of the set in which the actors are moving. Whether you shot list or storyboard, the point is to “see” the movie in your head before shooting a single shot.

  Just as blocking and shot listing utilize two separate abilities of a director (feeling and logic), shots deliver two kinds of impressions: objective or subjective. Objective means the camera is merely recording the scene as an unseen and nonparticipatory observer. The audience should not be aware of what the camera is doing; that is, the camera movement is organic to the action and does not call attention to itself. Subjective camera is used when the lens of the camera is the eye of a character; that is, the camera is a character. This impression is prevalent in action or horror sequences and in cases in which the director wants the audience to feel as if they are “in” the scene with the actors. So when planning the shot list, the director should take into consideration the kind of feeling the script requires and know how to integrate the camera with the actors in front of it to provide either an objective or subjective point of view.