BLOCKING PLANS FOR OUR FILM

We didn’t use our storyboards as much as we used blocking plans, which is actually quiet common in the film industry.

It’s quicker and easier to adjust.

Keep in mind that these are just the basic plans and we added camera angels on the fly as well.

So 75% of the shots were planned like this and 20% percent were improvised. The other 5% were planned through storyboards.

Mr Anderson

Eddie

Steve Extras

Scene 1

Scene 1 was a long scene and had the most cameras, which were improvised, because we didn’t know how many would actually come.

We had 15 cameras planned out.

Camera 1-10 covered the first half of the scene, which was the actual lesson and students leaving. We added a few cut-away shots on the fly, which turned out to be really useful during editing and keeping continuity.

Camera 11-15 is a basic set up for the dialog part of that scene. Two over the shoulders, two close ups and a right angle master shot.

Camera 2Camera 10

Scene 2

Scene 2 was the easiest scene to plan, because it was a quick dialog scene. So we started off with the basic set up and added a bit of interest with the tracking shot.

Camera 4

Camera 1

Scene 3

Scene 3 was a difficult scene to plan, because the space was limited.

Camera 6

Camera 2

Scene 4

Cameras 1-7 cover the first part of the scene, which set up the scene and show Steve's motives.

Except camera 5, which is only used when Eddie is walking away and turns back to Steve.

Cameras 8-14 cover the dialog part of this scene.

A few camera angles were improvised, because we realised that we didn’t have enough coverage and other shots just seemed to come as a natural by-product of the basic blocking plan.

Camera 12 is a cut away to the exam answers, which are on the floor.

Improvised camera angle

Scene 5

Scene 5 was an easy scene to block, because there was not a lot of character movement going on. So we started off with the basic dialog set up and added a few artistic shots.

Camera 2 is a close up of the phone and camera 8 is a cut away to the map on the wall.

Camera 6

Improvised Camera angle

Scene 6 DialogThe dialog part of scene 6 was the most difficult scene to block, because it had the most character movement and it was hard to find the right blocking without breaking the 180 degree rule.

That’s why we had 3 tracking shots. They would follow one characters movement and set up the next camera. For example, we can’t use camera 7, because its on the wrong side of the line. But if we follow Steve from his 2nd position to his 3rd with camera 6, we are on the right side of the line again.

Camera 6

Camera 1

All in all the blocking plans turned out to be essential to move quickly on set and get stuff done in a short period of time.