Chapter 9

Staging

Staging in film refers to the way we present an image or an action for our audience. We plan how something is seen and experienced so that the audience gets the story point. You have probably heard people say that something was “staged.” This may refer to planning something so it happens a certain way or that something is not a genuine incident, it is artificial. If something happens on stage—as in the live theater—it is art, but it is still artificial. Film is also art—and artificial—so it is important for the filmmaker to offer the audience a moving aesthetic experience, while providing the essential storytelling images. It is this marriage of the aesthetic and the narrative that should guide our decisions about staging.

Directing the Eye

Directing the eye refers to using visual devices to get the audience to look where you want it to look in the shot. When an image comes on the screen, the audience may be looking at the lower corner, the center or the upper third. Perhaps if an object is in the center the audience will look at that. However, if everything is placed in the center all the time it will get monotonous. Sometimes a moving image will draw more attention to itself than a stationary one. A strong color or anything that has greater visual attraction can direct the audience to look at that place on the screen.

Because our images may show for only a short time, we must make sure the audience sees what we need it to see while making the visual experience captivating. We have all seen group-shot photographs where someone would put a circle around someone or draw an arrow to get us to look at a certain person in the group. A spotlight is used on a live stage to accomplish the same thing. Spotlighting solutions are used in many films as well. In addition to light, graphic shapes, lines, and alignments can similarly lead the viewer’s eyes to see what you want them to see.

Place a character in front of the vanishing point in a one-point perspective shot of a room and the receding lines of the vertices toward the vanishing point can direct our eyes to that person, even if there are other people in the room. A case in point is Leonardo Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.” Shapes and lines created by foreground objects, shadow patterns, tone and color patterns can point to the place that you want the audience to see, thereby controlling the viewer’s attention.

Storyboard by Maria Clapsis Uses Leading Lines to Direct the Viewer’s Eye to the Man in the Window

Leading Lines Created by Shadows and Objects

Spotlight Effect to Get Us to Look in the Right Place

Aspect Ratio, Symmetry, the Golden Section and Rule of Thirds

Aspect ratio is the proportions of your screen. Early television screens were about one foot high and one foot, four inches wide. This is expressed as a 1 : 1.33 aspect ratio. Over the years, the ratio has generally changed to make the screen wider relative to its height. There are a number of reasons for this, one of them being to fill our peripheral vision more completely and approximate the experience of seeing things in real life. All good designs need to relate to the rectangle’s proportions and the framing edge.

Various Aspect Ratios: Most Images in this Chapter are 1:185

Over the centuries, painters have worked inside of rectangles to build their compositions. The objective has always been to keep the images looking fresh but appropriate to the theme or subject, just like filmmaking. Dynamic images of battles would be designed very differently than portraits. But the search for the best design has led the artist to discover that some relationships seem to work very well and others not so well.

It has already been mentioned that things in the center are boring. Centered things can tend to lack vitality and look inert. It is advisable that you never divide your rectangular frame down the middle either horizontally or vertically unless the purpose is to express division, symmetry, and monotony. The golden section or golden mean is a proportion that would have you divide an eleven-inch rectangle at a place that would split it into two shapes, approximately seven and four inches each. This is a ratio of about 1 : 1.618 and is based on a geometric formula that relates the division to the proportion of the whole rectangle. Artists, architects and other designers had discovered that many things in nature adhere to this proportion so it was considered to be divinely conceived. The golden section is a comfortable, asymmetrical method of organization and is followed by many painters and filmmakers.

Golden Section: BC is to AB as AB is to AC

Rule of Thirds: The Intersections of the Horizontal and Vertical Divisions are Hot Spots Where We Should Focus the Viewer’s Attention

Many filmmakers use the rule of thirds for compositional choices. The rule of thirds says that if you divide your screen into thirds vertically and horizontally, the intersection of these lines mark critical locations or “hot spots” on the screen. These hot spots are where the filmmaker should put the important information. This is a comfortable place to focus the audience’s attention. If you watch almost any well-made film, you’ll see the director using the rule of thirds extensively.

Maria Clapsis, Rule of Thirds

Eric Drobile, Golden Section

Redesigning the Rectangle

In the section on storyboarding, we saw how filmmakers can split the screen to show two things happening at two different places at the same time. Montage, superimposition, and picture-in-picture techniques have allowed directors to restructure the film’s framing rectangle. Today’s relatively widescreen films create special problems for filmmakers as they work to present strong, meaningful visual presentations. It can work to one’s advantage to find ways to reshape the area within the larger rectangle to create new and different compositional solutions. We are all familiar with a shot that shows the POV of someone looking through binoculars. This effect is called “mask shot.” It effectively changes the shape of the area of interest. “Frame-in-frame” is a similar compositional device that can allow one to reshape their area of interest and provide focus and variation for the audience. If a camera shoots between the limbs of a tree or into the rearview mirror of a car, the shape of the tree limbs or the edges of the mirror will become a new frame inside the overall shot composition. Sometimes these kinds of shots can make the audience feel like voyeurs looking through gaps in foreground objects as if unseen by the main characters. Other times it can make the audience feel that it is intimate and close up, immersed in an environment where one can reach out and touch the foreground elements. Frame-in-frame shots like any compositional device should not be used arbitrarily, but the use of foreground to reshape your area of interest and realign the audience to its experience is an important option.

Frame-in-Frame Compositions by Maria Clapsis

Redesigning with Tone

Silhouette

We are often trying to create the illusion of a three-dimensional world in our films. Therefore, we sometimes lose sight of the fact that the film is two-dimensional. Films usually happen on a flat screen. A character that in the story has three dimensions is only an illusion of light and actually has only two dimensions. It is only a two-dimensional shape on the screen and a three-dimensional form in our minds. This is why we often talk about a character’s silhouette. If you fill a character’s image in with a solid black, you will see only its shape, its silhouette. We should design our character, its pose, and its placement within the composition considering its two-dimensional interpretation.

Light and Patterns

Light patterns provide a way for an artist to break through the object contours and arrange the best shapes for telling a story. Any picture can be thought of as a puzzle pattern of two-dimensional shapes. There are dark, light and various colored shapes. The shapes of negative space between objects also form part of the puzzle. Sometimes the shapes of the darks and lights do not reveal an object’s contours but cut across the contours and background to create different shapes and new design possibilities. A strong light may place the shaded side of a character’s face into black shadow, if the background is also black then the head will merge with the background and some of the outside edge will be lost. The outer contour of the character’s head will be less apparent than the light pattern on the face. Light and shadow patterns can create varied shapes regardless of the original contours of the objects. Filmmakers, photographers, and artists of all kinds have realized that lighting can redesign your world and create many compositional choices and dramatic possibilities.

Frame-in-Frame Composition by Gary Schumer

Contrast

Visual contrast means that one thing in the image looks different from everything else. It may be the one window light that is on in a big house with many windows, a small red fish swimming in a school of blue and gray fish. It may be the one person who gets up and leaves in an auditorium of seated, stationary people. Our eyes are drawn to things that stand out against the sameness of their surroundings. You can direct the viewer’s eye by making something stand out visually. It is always important to consider where you want your audience to be focused in any shot. Don’t give the audience too many things to focus on or it may not see what you need it to see. Upstaging is a term used to suggest that the wrong thing is stealing the attention away from where it is supposed to be. Don’t let the wrong thing “upstage” your main area of focus. There should be one idea per storyboard and one main thing to focus the audience’s attention on in each shot.

Directing the Eye with Contrast

Camera Focus

The depth of field in a camera can be used to “blur out” the background while the foreground is in focus, and then to reverse the effect and let the foreground become out of focus, while the background becomes clear. This is called rack focus and represents a way that the live-action cameraman keeps the audience looking at the right thing.

Contrast of Scale

One way to think about scale is the distance of the main subject from the viewer. The distance of the subject is determined by the distance of the camera from the subject or the way the zoom is set on the lens. The standard categories are close-up, mid shot and long shot. There are also extreme close-up, medium long shot, etc. to describe intermediate variations. Of course, close-up shots are more intimate and can show the audience subtleties of facial expression or beads of sweat on someone’s upper lip. Distance shots can make the character look small and vulnerable in their environment.

Rack Focus

Close-up

Medium Shot

Long Shot, Storyboards by Steve Gordon

Many beginners tend to keep their camera at the same distance from the subject throughout a scene. You should use a range of shots to give your film visual variety and to take advantage of the emotional or psychological message that each type of shot can convey. You may want to avoid a medium-to-medium shot unless you change camera angle. It is often better to use a medium to close-up shot if the angle stays the same. Another aspect of scale relates to the comparative size of one shape or area of the screen to another shape or area. Since we are attracted to visual contrast, we tend to notice the shape that is biggest. In a cowboy movie gunfight, the camera may be behind one cowboy’s holstered gun as his hand twitches in anticipation. This silhouette may fill 80% of the screen making his opponent look small and distant. This kind of shot is surely more dynamic then simply filming the entire gunfight in profile with the camera the same distance from each cowboy. Compose your shots with consideration to a variety of shape sizes. The visual richness that shape size variation brings to your shots can translate into a more powerful telling of your story.

Pictorial Space

There is a great scene in the live-action film The Abyss (1989, 20th Century Fox). The screen is shown as if we are looking through the side of an aquarium. The aquarium is filling with water and our human character is drowning. The camera keeps moving closer, the water keeps rising and the ceiling keeps dropping until there is only a narrow strip of air space. Our character struggles to push her mouth into the narrow airspace to stay alive. The audience is watching, often with their necks fully extended and their chins pushing up, as they feel the space filling up and the anguished character fighting for her last breath. This is a great example of how the director makes the audience feel and on some levels experience the anguish of drowning through the manipulation of pictorial space.

Drowning Scene from the Film, Abyss

The way we use the real space of the screen and the illusion of space that the character moves in are important elements of staging. A character may be staged to look open and free or trapped and claustrophobic. A feeling of submission or dominance can be attained if one character is up looking down at another character who is down looking up. A tracking shot could have the camera follow a character walking to the right but the character is on the right side of the screen. This draws attention to the space behind him and may suggest he is being followed. If this same scene has the character on the left, we may feel that he has a comfortable amount of space for the character to move forward into, so we may simply feel that he is moving merrily along his way. There are many ways to change the staging and as a result, change the story.

Character has Space to Move Into

Character is Possibly Being Followed

Nose Room

If a character looks to the right and speaks to someone, you may want to put the character on the left third of the composition so he has some room to look and speak into on the screen. When you show who he is speaking to, you may want to put that person on the right third for the same reason. You can keep the space feeling fluid and dynamic by considering the attraction of the empty space around the subject.

Shallow, Flat, Deep, and Ambiguous Space

A scene that takes place in a small room could be considered shallow space if the back wall is parallel to the screen shots will be considered in a flat space. The camera may follow a character down a long hallway and then the flatness will be lost and a deeper space results. A film that runs for 30 minutes in a shallow space could suddenly transport the viewer to the top of a mountain looking out over a vast panoramic landscape. This contrast may cause a very strong emotional reaction in the viewer. We can use the range of restrictions of shallow space to the illusion of nearly infinite space to affect our story ideas in different ways. Your story may require the depiction of a world from a bug’s point of view or through the eyes of an eagle. Sometimes the story requires that the audience be kept uncomfortable or unsure about the space. Dreams and memories may be more effective if we are not entirely grounded in a familiar space. Other kinds of poetic solutions may require a more surreal departure from common experience of space. A film can make the audience feel the sensation of a type of space and the psychological associations that come with that experience.

Good staging will require a careful consideration of the type of space a shot is using in order to put the audience in the right emotional state.

Research

There is one sure way to learn and explore staging possibilities, and that is to study the choices of other filmmakers. Watch a film and notice the filmmaker’s staging decisions. Watch for the lighting and placement of important information and ask yourself, “How did the filmmaker get me to see what I needed to see?” Think about how the filmmaker may have considered the emotional aspects of the story when making staging decisions. Most importantly, make drawings of what you see. Simple thumbnails showing placement and tonal distribution can help you understand how grandeur and intimacy or pathos and comedy can be presented to an audience in the best way. Learn how the masters achieve that magical experience we all recognize when we are truly moved by a great film.

Studies of Staging for Akira Kurosawa’s Ran by Storyboard Artist Paul Briggs

Storyboarding Checklist

How do you know if your storyboards are doing everything they need to do to captivate and inform your audience? We are often trying to consider many issues at once when planning a film. This checklist may prevent you from missing important choices.

• What is the important storytelling information in this frame? What exactly needs to be seen?
• Does the image convey the emotion of story as well as the specific data of the narrative?
• Does the image tell what is happening clearly? Is my craftsmanship effective? Is there any chance someone could be confused or unsure about what they are seeing?
• Are there “gaps” in my storyboard? Do I need more panels to make the story complete and to keep the flow of action and ideas working?
• Will the viewer look where I want them to look? Have I chosen the best camera angle? Do I need lighting or color to direct the audience’s eye?
• Is this panel too predictable? Do I need to spice things up? What are some other options?
• Should I consider putting foreground elements between the camera and the main subject of my shot? Should I use “frame-in-frame” for this composition?
• Do the drawings flow visually and stylistically from the panels before and after?
• Should I move the camera to change this shot from the shot before and after; where and why?
• Have I put the audience “in the action” by using POV and other more intimate shots or have I kept the audience observing at a distance? Which is more appropriate at this point in the story?
• Will the storyboards that I am doing now require that I go back and re-evaluate, and then redraw some of my earlier story panels?
• Have I captured the most telling pose, gesture, action or facial expression? Does the body language convey what my character is thinking, feeling or doing? Do I need more reference, research?
• Does the character appear to be moving, in action, when action is required or does it look like a frozen pose? Do I need speed lines, arrows, or multiple images? Can I represent the essence or totality of this action in one drawing, or will I need to break it down into several panels?
• Is the light and atmosphere an important part of telling my story, setting its mood or emotional climate?
• What kind of space is right for this scene: flat, shallow, deep, ambiguous? Which best reinforces this aspect of the story? Is it important that my audience know of the season, time of day or weather conditions?
• Have I shown my boards to other people for a fresh perspective?

Summary

• Staging refers to the way you show us things in a film.
• The design of the shot can direct the viewer to see what you want them to see.
• The frame shape is your first design element.
• Some subdivisions of the frame are more effective.
• You can re-design the composition with lighting and framing devices.
• Contrast of movement, color, tonal value, scale and texture can direct the eye.
• Illusionistic space in a shot and the two-dimensional space of the screen can both be manipulated for emotional effect.
• The empty space around things helps to tell the story.
• Learn good staging by studying good filmmakers.

Recommended Reading

1. Marcie Begleiter, From Word to Image Storyboarding and the Filmmaking Process
2. Nancy Beiman, Prepare to Board
3. Bruce Block, The Visual Story
4. Mark T. Byrne, Animation: The Art of Layout and Storyboarding
5. Jeremy Vineyard, Setting Up Your Shots