Set versus blocking...
Printed From: Community Theater Green Room
Category: Producing Theater
Forum Name: Directing
Forum Discription: For questions about handling shows, actors, crew, board members, children ...or do we repeat ourselves?
URL: http://www.communitytheater.org/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=5049
Printed Date: 11/27/24 at 10:03am
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Topic: Set versus blocking...
Posted By: MusicManD
Subject: Set versus blocking...
Date Posted: 4/18/11 at 11:19pm
I'm doing research for our production of Seussical next fall, and I came across a Youtube video where the set consists of two large turntables with circular ramps that wrap around the turntables up to a circular 5' platform. Pretty neat set.
As I started watching their show, however, I noticed that they were using those turntable platforms for every single scene. Even when there was no real reason, they were spinning the turntables and walking characters up and down those ramps constantly. It became quickly apparent that the set came first (either in idea or in execution) and the blocking came later... at the expense of the set.
So what are your thoughts here? I've certainly been guilty of constructing a platform or a door or stairs or whatever and then wanting the cast to use it more than once or twice, but I try very hard to do so within the confines of the script and only when it either makes sense or serves a practical purpose (sight lines, etc).
What's your technique? How do you keep yourself from creating interesting sets that end up taking over your production?
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Replies:
Posted By: didj1028
Date Posted: 4/19/11 at 11:35am
I think about this all the time. I'm a little confused by your statement "It became quickly apparent that the set came first (either in idea or in
execution) and the blocking came later... at the expense of the set." I think the set has to come before the blocking. I would not want to have to design a set around the blocking. that would be a setup for failure.
To me a set should always be interesting. a boring set doesn't add anything to a show and can even detract. That's not to say you can't do a very minimalist approach; minimalism is a very appropriate design choice for some shows.
I too have designed and built things that i wish the director/actors would use more than once (or at all). Sometimes I will tastefully suggest to the director that he may have missed what I was envisioning and I want to share it with him. However I try very hard to not complain or feel diminished if he rejects my suggestion. (at least not to him or the actors. my girlfriend hears some complaining sometimes.)
What's particularly frustrating to me is when i have a great design idea which gets rejected in the initial stages and it becomes absolutely clear to me during the rehearsal process that I was completely right and it would have worked perfectly my way and what we settled on is a pale second. Usually though that was a failure on my part to explain or present my idea well.
Ultimately the blocking choices fall to the director, as we all know. How to keep the set from "taking over" is a challenge sometimes, but i think it is lessened significantly by good communication through the entire design/build/rehearsal process.
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Geoff Ehrendreich
Waterloo Community Playhouse
Waterloo IA
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Posted By: MusicManD
Date Posted: 4/19/11 at 2:06pm
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Hmm... that's why I should not post late at night. What I meant is that the set was apparently conceived without any concept of what blocking the show might require. The blocking was then forced into overusing the set until the novelty quickly wore off. Actors were walking places for no reason other than to show off the set, which for me is incredibly distracting.
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Posted By: MusicManD
Date Posted: 4/19/11 at 2:20pm
To further (over)clarify, most shows start with the script and rough blocking needs; ie, need a door into the kitchen and a place to call the bedroom. They then design a set that meets these needs and more, and specific blocking happens from there.
Sometimes the director or set designer skip the first step and either block with no concept of the finished set or build a set with no concept of how the actors will actually use it. In either case, blocking then must change to accommodate the set, often resulting in awkward movement on stage.
And then there is the third situation, where director and set designer come up a novel set design and purposefully block the actors into utilizing that set every possible moment. This often results in arbitrary and confusing blocking.
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Posted By: PaulyWally
Date Posted: 4/23/11 at 11:40am
Originally posted by didj1028
I too have designed and built things that i wish the director/actors would use more than once (or at all).
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That's why I believe in the value of designer meetings. Inevitably, everything should be up to the director (using the expertise of the designers). But there are far too many directors that simply don't have the experience, knowledge, or ability that is required of them.
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Posted By: tech_director
Date Posted: 7/04/11 at 11:36pm
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Right now I am working with a director who had her entire set design done in her head before the first production meeting (she does not have the "experice, knowledge, or ability"). There was no room for discussion in her mind though. So when does "everything should be up to the director" become too much?
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Posted By: Rorgg
Date Posted: 7/05/11 at 2:07pm
Never, really. The correct response is to try to convince her, and if she refuses to budge, give her what she wants and don't attend the funeral.
As a director, I know where my experience and strengths lie -- I can read and bring out the subtext, and work with actors to find what the script is saying and play it appropriately, and help them find what they're missing. I never, ever let a joke die on the floor unacknowledged (and it kills me when my directors do).
Similarly, I know where my strengths are not -- and this includes set design (I meet with the designer, give him a vague ugly drawing, and talk it over, then let him go to it with occasional check-ins, just in case he's got questions, or I need to add/change something due to rehearsal business) and costuming (super vague ideas ... go to it, costumer!)
But that doesn't mean I don't have final say. One of my actors came to me once appealing to me to intervene with the costumer. I listened to the costumer, and decided I disagreed with her, and overruled her. I'm sure she thought I was wrong, but her point of view conflicted with the larger theme and message of the scene in question. It's ultimately all on my head.
And that goes for any director. And if they're ultimately wrong -- well, maybe she'll learn that they're not as good at set design as she thought and the next time around, she'll be less forceful. But as the show's ultimately on her head, she gets last word -- for better or worse.
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