How to direct a dialogue scene - The basics

so in this video what we're going to do is talk about how to direct and cover a simple dialogue scene so if you're just starting out and you're interested in directing this is a good video to start with how to shoot a simple dialogue scene between two characters now what I'm going to tell you is how I work this doesn't mean it applies to everyone people have different preferences some people like to storyboard everything and some people do it like me which is I like to live on set rehearse with my actors and decide what to do with the camera now this first part is very important when you're rehearsing with your actors you want to decide everything that relates to acting where they're going to be what they're going to do at a certain point all those little details that will Define the scene and this is the first step where you actually decide with the actors everything where you allow the actors to be creative as well which is a very important process you're going to be making decisions as a team as a director you listen to the actors you see what they want to do you see if that works for you or not narratively and that is a crucial step which will Define the entire scene so once you've decided everything with the actors where they're going to be when they stand up when they sit down when they pick up whatever when they do this or that all those little intricacies of the scene once that's decided then you can start working on your coverage so what is coverage coverage is basically how you're going to cover the scene with your camera how many shots you will need with the camera it's important to say that what I'm talking about here is using just one camera which is called traditional film making where you use one camera and you do it over and over again on different angles to achieve all the coverage that you need so A good rule of thumb is to start with your master shot what is a master shot a master shot is a white shot it's a shot that's covering the entire action from start to finish usually you can do this but some scenes will require you to break up your master shot in once or in two I'm sorry in one or two pieces or even more but that's for another video thank es skip to a simple basic setup so why is this master shot important well it's important for the DP for the Director of Photography and if in case you're doing the lighting yourself it's important because you're going to establish the main lighting of your entire scene and then when you go to the close-ups you'll make you'll might make some adjustments here or there but the main the main mood and the main lighting of the scene is established with the white shock with a master shot so for instance if you have two characters like in this example right here where they walk in in this kitchen and they stop this is my white shot okay so I've lit up the scene for this entire shot and then when I move in for the close-ups all I need to do is just tweak the light a little bit here and there but before we jump into the close-ups let's talk about a very important rule which is the 180° rule the 180° rule is an imaginary line you establish between the two characters you're working with so for instance in this case the imaginary line is just in the middle of the two carat is crossing them through the through the shot this is what we call the line the important thing about this line is you never want to jump the line and I'll explain that a bit later so to begin you have your wide shot you have it all lit up and now you're going to start shooting you direct your actors how they want them you you want them to perform the scene and then you roll take one take two take three how many takes you need to get what you want and remember this is very important the actors have to memorize and mimic everything they've done in the master shot to then replicate in the close-ups because if they do something different in a wide shot and then in a close-up you won't be able to edit that together so keep that in mind always instruct your actors to once they've decided what to do always stick to those decisions and never CH never change anything in the process of course changes will happen organically people aren't robots so things will happen but try to keep it as faithful as possible to that first wide shot and what they did in their first wide shot and mostly what you established while re rehearsing so now that the wide shot is done we're going to move into the close-ups so we can have a closer coverage of each character so when doing your close-ups there are a few things you should keep in mind not that they are actual mandatory rules but they're just you know in Good Taste and in good practice so when framing your actor you will you will want to leave your lead space which is the space that doesn't have anything in it except without the actor I mean so that lead space without the actor should be facing the other actor so in this example is as you can see the actress here is talking to the left and the other actress when it cut to her she's talking to the right this is called the leading space the space between the actor and the end of the shot the end of the frame now you can do this in several ways you can also do the same effect but with negative space what what at least I like to call negative space which is framing the actor in the exact in the exact opposite so creating a negative space opposite of what we spoke before in this case in this scene you can see right here I chose to do that because the two actors were sitting on a bench and I just didn't feel that giving the lead space to the proper way would be interesting so I decided to go the opposite way which makes more sense to me and probably to the viewer as well so you can see here they're talking I'm respecting the line which is very important but my negative space or my leading space is opposite of what it normally would be this is obviously a creative choice so it's up to you so just to summarize the close-ups are the meat of the acting for the actors so this this is where the actors will be allowed to shine because usually the master shot is an establishing shot you're not going to cut that much into the master shot unless it justifies this if there's a big action thing you want to do otherwise most of your edit in a dialogue scene will be between these two shots you have to put a lot of effort both you and the actors in terms of lighting how you frame it because that will be everything the viewer will be viewing for most of the scene so remember never jump the line if the actor is looking let's say to the left side of the screen the other actor when you cut away to them they should be looking to the right side of the screen so the the eyelines connect okay if for instance you decided to frame one actor on one on side one side and then the actor let's use this example here of my phone if I decided to cover this phone from here imagine this is a character if I decided to cover this phone from here and then when I did the uh opposite shot and I decided to cover like this I would be jumping the line the correct thing would to be covered covered like this because the line is here you've established that in your master shot which is let's imagine I'm the master shot camera okay so the line is this point right here between the two actors okay so one two the line so you got to do this and this but there's an exception of course if you want to jump the line you should always do it in shot okay so if I'm here covering and this character is s saying something whatever relevant to the scene and then let's say that the character leans over or something like that something that justifies the movement of the camera that's another Point camera movement should should always be justified in my opinion but that's also Rel that's also a little more complicated so just scratch that for a second so if the character is here right so what do you want to do is in shot in during the take you will then jump the line but it has to be done in camera view view visible to the viewer and then when you cut back to this character it then should be at the same time already on the right side okay so remember never jump the line instantly if you want to jump the line do it in camera lastly after the wide shot and the close-ups you'll do inserts inserts if necessary what are inserts inserts are detail shots of something let's say a character picks up a glass or picks up a gun you'll maybe want an insert of the hand picking up the gun do this if it's relevant for the story don't do that for the sake of it only if it's relevant for The Narrative that you're telling if it's not important if it's just someone drinking a glass of water during a scene but it's not really relevant to the narrative there's no point in making that insert shot but so to summarize you start with the white shot close-ups then the inserts and there you go you've shot your first dialogue scene and that's it guys if you like videos like these please let me know in the comments below like subscribe and all those good things YouTubers ask you to do I'm also doing the same thing all the GE that I'm using in this video will be available in links below mind you those are affiliate links so you've been warned okay uh yeah thank you very much and I'll see you next time [Music]

Channel: The Filmmaking Channel

Views: 1,428

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Id: M1yt7yNmulE

Length: 9min 0sec (540 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 30 2024