Mr Blocking Himself.

Yes, I am now onto Spielberg. No, I won’t apologise for focusing on mainstream stuff mmmmkkkaaayyyyy.

Welcome back to yet another Friday lunch time as I try and cram two breakdowns over the next two days in order to meet my quota and stay accountable…If I fail to do this then…the website has failed and we can’t have that now, can we?

Spielberg has been helmed by many as the master of blocking and recently, as you know from the previous post, I am midway through the process of storyboarding a feature film that I roll on later this year and it really gets the juices flowing about blocking. Specifically it makes you ask yourself…

"Is this really the best way we could be blocking this?" 

And then, you get self coonscious and over-correct by unnecassarily moving the actors around with no ties back to the subtext or the action of the scene. Now you look like a bit of a fool dont you?

Well have a look at the opening scene of “Temple of Doom” again. IT…IS...BLOODY…BRILLIANT!!!

It’s funny, tense, dramatic and holds your attention through the acting and the shots. It is also so clever how they reveal information and ask you questions as the audience whilst all the while making very precise decisions about camera movement in a motivated fashion, that ultimately allows for a very engaging, yet subtle and some absoluetly stupendous camera work.

Now, I don’t want to cover lighting in this breakdown as, although I love the look of this scene - I think our time is better to look at the how’s and why’s of seated dialogue scenes and how to really hold the attention of your audience and tell your story in a very interesting way.

Yes…This is a long bloody scene but it is so so important. Albeit the start of the movie and there is no better way to capture the everyday movie goer of 1984 than with some high tension dialogue, leading to a large action set piece with machine gun, dance numbers and 8 foot rolling gong across a dance floor (somewhat remeniscent of a particular large boulder in the previous film 3 years earlier) but also this both the set up of the new characters, displaying the motivations and the place that Indi finds himself in this time and all the while setting up the stakes and exposition needed to understand the new story…so lots to do.

Relaisically this could be a really boring scene, and thats the reason the only parts of this scene I want to cover are the seated parts. It’s much easier to hold attanetion in the hussle and bussle of action scene but once seated, it becomes a very slippery slope to audience disengagement.

I will only cover a few beats that shift the cinematography here as there is so much to cover.

THE SET UP:

We get this great walk in shot following the performance as Indi sees the men he is going to talk to. Wu Han, his friend that is planted as a waiter comes into the shot. It shows us that he has a plan, something is at play but no close ups - it is in a passing move, it isn't something to focus on but will be called back later.

THE MEETING:

Indi sits down, we sit in over the shoulder, a tight and tense scene. It feels like he has the upper hand in the scene as we know that he has Wu Han close by, although we don’t know what for. Lao’s men come and frisky Indy. This begins to feel like the playing field is levelled as clearly Lao has a lot of his men around. Everything is over a shoulder at this point, no one is free until —

THE PLOT POINT:

Lao’s line asking “Is it true…you have found Nurhachi?” - it is key information, both showcasing what Indi has been up to since last we left him but sets up the context for everything to come. This infomration is given a close up. The tightest we have been thus far in the scene.

INDI’S GRIPE:

Now we see why Indi is so prepared and clearly needed the plan that we know must be in place. As he refers to the men who tried to steal it from him. We get to see this infomration through the bandaged hand and the clear tension between Lao’s men and Indi.

TENSION:

The tension builds to an escaltion point, still in our closes and over the shoulders as things might be able to kick off until -

DIFFUSION & HOSTAGE:

Willie enters the scene and the tension is momentarily diffused. The shots shift out to a more 3/4 mid style. It visually feels as those we have something between Indi and Lao’s gang, which absolutely turns out to be true as Willie takes a seat on the far side of the table right between them. Again, just so so clever. Spielberg could have used a square table for this but by making it round, he opens up the options for unique blocking and storytelling.

And this comes in handy moments later as Indi takes Willie Hostage, after a gun is produced.

Love this push in on Lao’s signal, followed by the tilt down to the gun, discreetly held as table top height.

Indi rapidly pulls Willie to him, followed by a knife from the passing food trolley.

THE COOLEST NEGOTIATION SHOT EVER:

So…your characters are at a stale-mate. One is holding a hostage and the other a gun. They need to exchange goods, so do you have them pass it to one another? drop it on the floor and back away so the other can retrieve? or are you a grand master blocker?

The lazy susan…and do you cut this scene up into multiple shots? You could? Or you be a badass and hold on the shot, following the action with the knowledge that the context of the scene you have created will manage to hold the audiences attention and just slow the pace riiiigggghhhttttt down.

We start on Lao producing the small bag, we tilt with his hand to the lazy susan and follow it round to Willie picking the bag up, Indi scoffs at this as it wasn’t the deal that had been arranged, we tilt back down as Willie places the bag on the lazy susan, we follow it back around to Lao as we see him place the real diamond on the lazy susan and we FINALLY follow it all the way back to Indi…IS THAT NOT AMAZING!!!!

It is just perfect, subtextually motivated and bold storytelling.

Now Indi is pretty psyched by all that right? Damn right he is! He has won, we end the scene on him - that panning back and forth is the scales of the scene, who is winning, who isn’t and we end right back on Indi!!!! Victory!!!! So he celebrates with a little cheers, what he doesn’t know is that it’s poisoned. So…he could drink it and we could keep moving with the scene or do we set up the perfect win for Lao, that we don’t get context about until later and then take it away from him…Damn right.

As Indi goes to drink, Willie stands up to complain about the knife making a hold in her dress and spills the drink Indi was about to sip!!! So close Lao.

Spielberg covers this in a close up, very similar to the previous Lazy Susan shot. We start on the drink, hand comes in and we follow it up. We have only used close up sso far for key information, so we as the audience have a feeling something isn’t right. The best thing about it is that we don’t know why but it all seems to easy, and that is where the delayed information is so powerful.

Same concept in horror as the monster you can’t see, if you don’t know what or why something is there then you feel unneasy. Speilberg cuts to a shot of a drink, why? Why is it so important? I don’t know but it feels wrong in the context of the scene. Almost…menacing.

Now…what makes it even better than better…is that the drink Indie takes…is Lao’s…somehow Lao knew somethign would go this way and Indi would fall for it!!!! Like WHAT!!!! How cool is that.

THE RECALL:

Indi waves over Wu Han who we met at the head of the scene to bring the remains of Nurhachi. Indi places it on the table and what does he do…gives him exactly what Lao wanted and how do we show that shift? You guessed it, we pan back with the Lazy Susan.

Indi however, thinks he has still won -

NAIL IN THE COFFIN:

- Indi takes his drink finally. It is now that Lao reveals the poison and the only way to get the antidote is to give the diamond back to him. We stay close for this, the tension rises again …ultimately leading to the final straw of the whole scene -

PRE ACTION:

-BANG Wu han is shot, he colapses forward into Indi’s arms. Indi, sweating as the poison kicks in he looks up at Lao. We have jumped the line now, the game has changed, a death has occured, this now both personal and he knows that he might not make it out alive.

This scene is just a small part of the master storyteller and blocker that Spielberg is.

Anyway, I have no conclusion because there is nothing to conclude…this film came out 40 years ago and he’s stilling cooking up just as good blocking now!!!

Hands hurt…bye bye