Directing Actors — Blocking & Performance

Pre-production Pack

Deliver the full pre-production package for your summative short — the documents that make Week 12 shootable.

Week 11

• Script
• Storyboard
• Shot list
• Risk assessment v1

• 3–4 minute target runtime
• Realistic for available kit and locations

• LO1 — Prepare a scene using objectives and obstacles.
• LO2 — Give an actor a note they can play.
• LO3 — Run a rehearsal without hijacking the actor's process.

• Objectives as verbs, not adjectives ("to accuse", not "angry")
• Playable notes — one action, one line
• Rehearsal as conversation, not direction
• The read-through, the walk-through, the run
• Trusting the take when the actor asks

1. 01

   Prep before the room

   For each character, write objective, obstacle, and the one line that is the hinge of the scene.

2. 02

   Read-through

   Read the scene with the actors, sitting down. No performance yet — text only, ask questions.

3. 03

   Walk-through

   On your feet. Discover blocking with the actors, don't dictate it. Watch where they naturally move.

4. 04

   Give one note per run

   Between runs, one playable adjustment per actor. Never five.

5. 05

   Run for camera

   Final run at pace, as if the camera were rolling. Time it.

• Adjective notes ("be sadder") — nothing to play.
• Result-directing ("cry here") instead of cause-directing.
• Rehearsing the performance out of the scene.

You will direct performers on your Assessment 1 shoot. This workshop is the only rehearsal that isn't the shoot itself.