In my plot, the boy enters a room looking for his pencil. The girl, who is already in the room seated at a desk, acknowledges his presence but pays little attention to him. Finally, she responds to him and locates his pencil behind his ear.
For the purpose of this exercise, start with the ground plan shown in Figure 6.4, which is a living
room. There’s a door that swings in at the upper left side of the set, through which the boy will enter. He’ll cross to the girl, who is seated at the down- stage right desk. Down left (camera left) is a small bar. (“Downstage” is toward the cameras, and upstage is toward the back wall or curtain.)
The first thing the director does is to mark out all the characters’ blocking on the script. I use a col- ored pencil (usually red) to indicate the characters’ movements, or blocking. These notations are placed in the script at the precise points where the blocking is to occur. Red pencil stands out during blocking rehearsal, and the instructions are easy to find. I also use the letter “x” to mean the word “cross.” Sometimes that refers to actors’ blocking: “Boy x to Girl” means “The boy crosses over to the girl.” At other times “x” refers to camera directions: “This is a ‘x2,’ or a ‘cross two-shot.’” A cross two-shot is sometimes referred to as an over-the-shoulder shot.
For the sake of this exercise, let’s assume that the first thing to block is the boy coming through the door on the left and crossing to the girl (Figure 6.5). Ordinarily all the actors’ blocking would be done first, and then the camera blocking would be done. It will be easier to enter the subsequent blocking as it
occurs. Here is how the first part of the actors’ blocking would look and be marked (see Pencil Exercise II).
G The first mark is a cue to the stage manager to
start the action. The stage manager’s cue to the boy must happen before the scene begins so the boy can be in motion (making his cross) as the scene fades up.
G The actor’s blocking would probably have been
written first, since we deal with the actors before the cameras. The actual marks on the script are put in place where the action is to occur. I mark the action in a colored pencil so it will stand out on the page and not get confused with any other kind of instructions. Red marks refer to character blocking, and black pencil refers to cameras. Colored pencil marks are not an industry standard.
Figure 6.5 This is the framing for shot #1. The boy is in a waist shot ready to cross. His blocking “B x to G” and the cue for his entrance are noted in the script. A line has been drawn down the side of the script, which sometimes helps locate a shot when it’s needed quickly.
Pencil Exercise II shows how camera shots would be added to the already actor-marked shoot- ing script.
1. When the shot is taken (in this case not a word cue but action)
2. How the shot is to be put “on the air” (it will fade up)
3. The shot number 4. The camera 5. The character 6. The framing
7. The development within the shot
Everything about the shot is indicated on the shooting script, as if the shooting script itself were a time line or map of the individual events that make up the scene. All the director’s shot choices must indicate seven things:
1. When the shot is taken. In this case the shot has to “fade up” rather than be “taken.” The convention is that the scene “fades up” just as the action or line begins so the scene goes on the air as the action begins. We don’t want to fade up and see an actor waiting for his cue.
Therefore, the actor is cued before the fade-up, and the director watches the monitor to be sure that the action has started before commanding the fade-up.
2. How the shot is to be put on the air. Usually there is no mark, which indicates that the shot is a take. If the intention is to go from one picture (or black) to another with a fade-up, a wipe, or a dissolve, that is noted on the script. If there is no notation, the assumption is that the shot is to be a take.
3. The shot number. Each shot is numbered. The shot numbers are used by several different people to keep track of where they are in the script. These people are:
a. The associate director. The AD’s function is much like that of a stage manager in the theater. ADs are responsible for readying upcoming events, such as the next shot, a light cue, a prop cue, a sound effect, and so on. They do this through a closed-circuit intercom system that connects the control room, the cameras, and other “as assigned” locations: the audio booth, the light booth, sound effects, and so on. Sometimes the AD wears a headset, and sometimes there is an
open mic in the control room. Headsets are worn on the floor. At the as-assigned positions, crew members may use either headphones or speakers, depending on need. The numbered shots help keep the AD and the technicians at the right place in the script. In television, this function is assigned to an associate director. In film, the
directors work with an assistant director. Assistant directors may perform some tasks that are similar to those of associate directors, but essentially, assistant directors work in film and are not as involved with setting up shots. Instead, they serve as liaisons among the director, the cast, the crew, and management—notably the unit production manager.
b. The technical director. A technical director (TD) is responsible for the technical aspects of the program and pushes the buttons or fader bars, at the director’s command, to put the cameras “online.” Although the TD listens to both the associate director’s “readies” and the director’s “takes,” the TD sometimes keeps a step or two ahead by using his or her copy of the numbered script. Under some contracts the TD doesn’t get a script but works from the AD’s and director’s calls instead.
Conversely, there have been contracts under which the director isn’t allowed to talk to the crew. The director lets the TD know, via the shooting script, what is expected; the TD then acts as if he or she were the director of photography on a film-style shoot. That way, it’s the TD who readies every shot; during actual production the director simply calls the takes. Later in this chapter we’ll look at the more traditional control room operation during a taping.
c. Camera operators. Camera operators use the shot numbers to keep track of their shots. Each camera operator has a shot sheet, which contains a list of only his or her individual shots. In a way, it’s a personalized script for each camera’s performance.
d. The edit suite. Additionally, the shot numbers will be used when the program is edited. It’s much easier to say, “Use shot #320 from the third take” than to say “Use the shot of the boy that comes after he crosses to the girl and says, ‘I’m looking for
my pencil,’ in the second scene of the fourth act from the third take.”
4. The camera to be seen. The camera number of the camera to be used is circled or written larger than any other mark on the script so it really stands out. It’s made particularly
distinctive because the director may be looking at a monitor, thinking about a note, or
concerned about some other part of the production and needs to return to the script quickly. The large camera numbers stand out and help the director, associate director, and technical director find their places in the script. 5. Who is seen in the initial framing of the shot.
This notation limits the starting frame of the shot to whoever or whatever is supposed to be in the shot when it first goes on the air. It is what the camera operator sees in the frame just before the shot is taken. In this case, the first shot should only include the boy. Later, we’ll see the girl.
6. How they are seen. In our example, the camera operator knows that the initial shot is of the boy. How we expect to see the boy—the framing, whether it is a head-to-toe shot, a waist shot, or a chin shot, for instance—is very important. It is therefore indicated in the shooting script and is part of the notation for the shot sheets for each camera. When the director says “take,” it’s expected that the camera operator will have framed the shot as it had been planned and rehearsed. Once the shot is on the air, it may well be changed by action, but at the instant before the director calls for the take, to put the shot online or on air, the director expects to see the shot framed as had been planned. In the first example, the shot started as a waist shot of the boy and changed when the girl came into the picture.
7. What developments will happen in the shot. It’s expected that the camera operator will maintain the director’s framing. If the character moves and there’s no indication of a change in framing, the shot, as noted, will be held. Sometimes, however, that’s impossible. In our example, if the boy crossed so he was standing near the girl, it would be impossible to hold the boy in a waist shot without having a very badly framed shot in which the bottom of the frame held only the top half of the girl’s head. If the director expects a change in framing or knows that new framing must happen, the new framing
will be noted for the camera. In our example, the boy, first seen in a waist shot, brings the shot to a cross two-shot. By using the zoom to widen with the boy’s cross, the camera operator will hold the boy, then include the girl, and hold focus throughout. It’s expected that the
camera operator will know the conventions and will understand that the two-shot develops only as the girl appears in the viewfinder. Focus will be held because the lens has widened, which automatically increases the depth of field and the apparent depth of focus.