Framing
Blocking
Blocking is where actors are placed and how they move within the frame. It tells you who holds power, who is being excluded and how relationships are shifting -- usually before anyone says a word about it.
Blocking is the oldest tool in the kit and the easiest to overlook, because it looks like people simply standing where people stand.
But every position is chosen. Who is higher. Who has their back to us. Who is closer to the camera, and therefore larger. Who has to turn to be seen. A character placed behind another is subordinate to them in the shot, and your eye reads that hierarchy long before the dialogue confirms it.
The most useful thing about blocking is that it changes. Watch who moves toward whom during a scene, and you are watching the scene's argument being settled.
Where you have seen it
Any confrontation staged with one character seated and one standing. The geometry does the work: the standing figure occupies more frame, the seated one has to look up. Reverse it mid-scene and the power has changed hands without a line being spoken.
What to watch for
- Who occupies more of the frame
- Who has to turn, look up, or move to be included
- What changes between the start of a scene and the end of it