Blocking was something that was very important to me. I knew some of the scenes would be quite complex with what I wanted to do. I first of all decided to do some research looking at how blocking can be done effectively. When looking at articles I came across one on a website called New York Film Academy. This explained that there are 5 stages to blocking effectively.
1. Determine where the actors are going to be
2. Work out the lighting
3. Rehearse the blocking
4. Make Adjustments
5. Shoot the scene
It also explained that its good to know where you are placing the camera to make sure the action is captured in the best possible way. Since Andreya is focusing on the lighting as it helps to coinside with camera settings and the way a scene looks, I decided my soul focus should be on how the rooms and locations are laid out as well as where the actors are, where they are heading, and where the camera is pointing/ moving. To give me a better idea on how this is done, I looked into some images from professional film shoots to make sure my blocking would be as affective as possible. You can see some of them below:
From these I have produced my own plans. When I was certain we were filming at a location and after I had done a recce, I was able to produce the plans more accurately to each room. I used my shotlist and worked out where the actresses and cameras were for each scene. Ive selected some extracts from the plan so you can see what I have done.
Bradbourne House:
With bradbourne house, this was the first location that I was filming in so in order for it to go smoothly I had to make sure my blocking was all planned out. One of the more complex shots was for the opening scene where Sophie is walking through the house. She walked through 3 different rooms and ended up by a piano. I wanted to try and do this all in one take to show her journey through the grandness of her house. Starting from the hallway, she walks forwards through a corridor, into the large open grand entrance room and then turning left into the piano room. It took some time and planning but I worked out the best way to do this with the camera in front of her. The camera would track backwards through both the first rooms and then turn into the piano room whilst backing into the corner to let her come past and stop at the piano. This was really complex but doing the blocking diagrams really helped me to understand how its going to work and helped me to explain to Andreya and Claudia where I wanted them to be. You can see a copy of this shot below as well as another shot in the piano room.
London:
The London scenes were a bit different in terms of blocking. I wanted to get so many different shots but I could not allow for the public that would be around us. I had to block as if it was an empty place but think carefully about what may be too difficult or potentially dangerous like crossing roads. following my shotlists I was able to plan effectively and it gave me a clear guide to all of the shots I needed to get and the overall movement of both Claudia and the camera.
Stonewall Park:
Stonewall park had a lot of scenes to block for. These ones took the most time as there were so many objects to allow for in each room but drawing them I felt was really important as I could plan paths around them. One scene in particular that I feel really helped to block was the dinning room scene. When going on a location recce I realised there were a lot of mirrors in this room. Drawing out the room and looking at where the mirrors were, I could find out what was going to work in terms of shot types and angles. I could tell that putting the camera to the right of side of the room would work a lot better than the left side of the room as you would see the camera in the mirrors. Another scene that I found interesting to block was the corridor walking scene. I found it very useful to block going from one floor to another as it was something I could not see when just looking at it. Blocking these scenes meant I could be on both floors looking at how the shots will move.
Who'd A Thought It:
This location was interesting to block for as I had to try and find a way of utilising a smaller space to what we had shot in all the other locations. In one of the scenes there was also 2 characters interacting with eachother with dialogue and a lot of movement all in one shot. The blocking for this scene really helped me to understand the whole scene knowing where the characters come in, where both of them are going and where the camera is and the movement of it.
Overall I feel that blocking has been a huge learning curve for me. I really understand how much help it can be to map out everything in a scene before you get to a shoot. Understanding where the actors are, where they are going and whats in the room really helped me to know where to put the camera and make sure I am capturing all the action in the right places.
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