Key factors to consider in cinematic storytelling
From Anora (2024). Writer-Director Sean Baker. Cinematography Drew Daniels. (Main characters centre frame, in sharp focus, mid-deep.)
I used to give my directing students at AFI Conservatory an exercise. I would take the pages of a scene with two or three characters. I’d task each of two or three students to shoot and cut this same scene from the narrative POV of one or other of the characters. (Not in one subjective “POV” shot but through the connective tissue of shot selection, camera placement, angle, and editing.)
Finally, we would watch the two or three versions, noting the contrasts. (I could have asked for a change in the narrative POV from one character to another, which would have led to further permutations.)
One of the students, formidably talented, commented that she’d never realized there was no single correct way to shoot a scene and that there might be many different possibilities. For her at that moment, and for the class, the notion of correct grammar as the foundation of a filmmaker’s approach went out the window. And the very concept of directing a scene in some definitive, proper way went out with it.
It’s not about grammar, it’s about language — the communication of emotion, of information (or its concealment) directly or obliquely, and of visceral and neural sensation.
Great! I thought, reacting to my student’s epiphany. Now, she can start to reflect on other considerations there might be, apart from the articulation of narrative POV, to bring to bear on the shooting and cutting of a scene.
Let’s consider a few of these criteria…
First things first: INTUITION.
I recently came across this:
I make all my decisions on intuition. But I must know why I made that decision. I throw a spear into the darkness. That is intuition. Then I must send in an army into the darkness to find the spear. That is intellect.
Ingmar Bergman. Ingmar Bergman Confides in Students. New York Times, May 7, 1981.
No matter their method, without the director’s intuition, the conscious factors they make use of as they formulate their decisions would result in little but clinical work-throughs.
Different filmmakers will have their own intuition that might at times come close, but might more often be distinct from others. Try watching the movie versions of the appearance of Banquo’s ghost in Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Kurosawa (Throne of Blood. 1955), Polanski (Macbeth. 1971), Joel Coen (The Tragedy of Macbeth. 2021). Each one, by each master, is completely different.
In contrast to intuition, and what is largely unknowable about it, are the practical constraints filmmakers face. Time, budget, location and what that latter reality offers in terms of space and light (not to mention accessibility and distance from other locations and the effect this might have on the time available to shoot) — all play a part in the construction of a scene.
Here, the director’s practical abilities and their experience come into play. What might have worked in pre-vis they come to realize may need tweaking or even radical reformulation when its comes to the shoot. That might not always be to the detriment of a scene, not always a compromise, indeed the nature of a location might suggest options the director has failed to consider, which might prove superior to their original intentions.
Available (and affordable) equipment will obviously play a part in how a scene might be shot, as will the level of the skill of the crew, the DP, operator, AC, grip, and steadicam operator.
The cast’s degree of experience and their abilities might also be taken into account. Non-actors or newbies might not be so adept at hitting their marks or following precise timing and staging as their professional counterparts. And actors may come up with options that haven’t struck the director, who might then incorporate them into their approach.
Even a filmmaker as rigorous and masterly as Stanley Kubrick acknowledged the benefits gained by working in rehearsal and on set with his actors:
I find that no matter how good it ever looks on paper, the minute you start in the actual set, with the actors, you’re terribly aware of not taking the fullest advantage of what’s possible if you actually stick to what you wrote.
Stanley Kubrick
Let’s return to other creative considerations:
No scene is an island entirely of itself. Just as shots within a scene relate to each other, so do shots within an act (what I call a movement), and indeed, within the whole movie, need to connect with each other.
Every shot should relate to every other shot.
Abbas Kiarostami. Lessons with Kiarostami. Sticking Place Books, May 29, 2020.
The filmmaker needs to consider the visual architecture and connective tissue of their complete film rather than approaching each scene piecemeal.When, at moments in the movie, might the protagonist be on the left of the frame, when on the right? When might they be closest to the camera? When furthest away? Which scenes could work from detail to context, which from context to detail? What does the viewer need to see and what is better not shown and perhaps just heard, or even implied?
Which scenes punctuate structure, perhaps providing breath, a pause in rhythm, and how might that be shown? Through a moment of rest, of emptiness? A new image? A vista? Some new place?
Which scenes are best working by montage and which as “oners”? And how does this play into the modulation of rhythm throughout the movie?
There’s genre to consider also. In an action movie, an explosion might be covered by multiple cameras, each capturing some dynamic composition, so that several shots are available to the editor who can subtly expand the duration of what in reality would be an event over in a split second, thus rendering it visually thrilling.
In a more intimate drama, for example, in which emotion within a character is more important than hyper action without, such an event might play out in a wide shot, far from camera or be heard rather than shown.
(I learned this from writer-director Anthony Minghella when I was directing the 2nd unit on The English Patient. At one point in the film, a jeep runs over a landmine. I wanted to shoot the instant up close, from several angles. Minghella said “No! It’s not that kind of a movie.” He went on to shoot it from the point of view of Juliette Binoche’s Hana, in a truck a couple of hundred yards away. Hana loses her close friend in that moment so the drama is not physical but emotional. Thus the camera placement. Lesson learned! And a proviso to my argument. This was the correct way to shoot the event! Although it depended on context.)
Another consideration. Classical comedy might invite a predominantly third person narrative point of view, and third person objective at that — as can be seen in much of silent cinema:
Comedy is merely tragedy happening to someone else. — W C Fields
Adopting a less formal approach, the comedic director might by contrast opt for what I call promiscuous NPOV — going opportunistically to wherever and whoever’s POV best serves the gag.
Can any general instruction, out of context, on “How to shoot a scene” be helpful then? What scene? What “how”? Surely there’s no one-size-fits-all. A scene is not a baseball cap — best worn on a director’s head rather than being imposed on their staging, shooting, and cutting.
Sorry! No easy answers here.
You’re on your own — and all the better for it…
Peter Markham
July 2025