Author Topic: REHEARSALS: Recording blocking  (Read 15794 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

SMeustace

  • SM Expert
  • ****
  • Posts: 115
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: Theat Troupe Theatre Company
  • Experience: College/Graduate
REHEARSALS: Recording blocking
« on: Aug 19, 2010, 08:44 pm »
Is it really necessary to record blocking? I mean what if there is a lot of blocking to record within one or more scenes, doesn't the script have too many notes in it and make it hard to distinguish blocking from light/sound cues. My method I've been using now is to use different coloured highlighters and highlight my light cues in yellow, sound in blue, set changes in green. Blocking notes remain in pencil. Does my idea sound smart to use or no?

Edit to subject line-Rebbe
« Last Edit: Oct 16, 2011, 09:22 pm by Rebbe »
"On the first day the lord said....Light cue 1, GO! Then there was light".

AdamJ

  • Guest
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #1 on: Aug 19, 2010, 09:40 pm »
Blocking notation (in my opinion, and of course depending on the show) Is an essential part of what the stage manager does during the rehearsal process. Something I like to do is have a separate sheet in my book facing every page that has numbered blocking notations on it, and in my script i just write the number where the blocking occurs.

As far as it getting in the way of your cues, I like to have 2 different scripts. One of them is my rehearsal book. It records blocking, specific stage business, and specific directorial notes so that if i need to correct something during the run i can just refer back to that. My second script is my call book. It has all of my cues laid out and only blocking necessary to call cues that need it.

Maribeth

  • Moderator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1056
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA
  • Experience: Former SM
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #2 on: Aug 19, 2010, 10:39 pm »
I think blocking is a necessary part of the rehearsal process. Your blocking notes can be used as a reference for any number of things- understudy rehearsals, archiving the show, for that moment when the director asks you "how did we do that yesterday?", etc.

There are a number of threads on SMNetwork regarding blocking methods-

http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,3348.msg20505.html#msg20505
http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,4038.msg24550.html#msg24550
http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,438.0.html
http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,1884.0.html

(along with, I'm sure, tons of others)

One thing that can help free up some page space is to write the blocking on either the back of the next page, or on a page inserted between pages of text. If you insert a "blocking page" between your text pages, you can put a diagram of the stage on it, which can be useful for noting where people and props are onstage. Using a separate page also allows you to easily replace a page, if it gets too cluttered or if, say, the director decides to completely re-block a scene.

If you have your blocking on a separate page, then you can write your cues on the same page as the text. If you need more room to write, printing the script with a wider margin can give you more space.

Everyone has their own method- some people use colors or shapes to make their cues stand out, some make a clean copy of the script just for cues. Find a method that works for you.

PSMKay

  • Site Founder
  • Administrator
  • *****
  • Posts: 1357
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
    • http://www.smnetwork.org
  • Affiliations: None.
  • Current Gig: SMNetwork *is* my production.
  • Experience: Former SM
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #3 on: Aug 19, 2010, 10:55 pm »
It's absolutely crucial to record blocking.  The beauty of live theatre is in the sheer number of variables that can and do change from show to show and from actor to actor - no two performances will be identical.  Movies can't do that.  TV tries, but cannot capture the urgency of it all going down in the same room with the viewer.  However, variables are pesky and unreliable critters.  The best defense in keeping a beautiful, well-coordinated symphony of performances from descending into utter chaos is the stage manager with their book.

Things do go wrong.  Scripts get lost, people miss rehearsals, and blocking evolves from rehearsal to rehearsal.  Even the most well-organized director is not going to remember every single bit of motion that he's assigned to every single actor in the cast.  The best actors in the world still get a little wobbly with their placement onstage once you take the script out of their hands.  Even if you have a photographic memory for blocking, you are still a variable.  If you and your lead actor were in a horrible accident on the way to rehearsal, perhaps in high school they would postpone the performance.  In professional venues? Fat chance.  They'd find a new stage manager, fly up the understudy and keep right on trucking - if your book is in good enough shape for the new folks to figure out what's going on.

This doesn't even tap into what happens six months down the road when your school decides to remount the show for the all-state festival, or another company wants to restage your version of the show - your book will become the only record of how it was done the first time.  Or what happens when your director doesn't attend performances for weeks on end and it falls to you to make sure the show looks the same - exactly the same - every single time.

So yes, blocking in the prompt book is a must.

As for how? For the stage manager, convenience and tradition always take a backseat to what works best for your show.  While we get finicky on this website about tidy paperwork and trading pointers in prompt book artistry, that's all frosting.  The real cake is keeping the information and details on hand so that the people onstage can keep being productive.  While having a sharp, svelte prompt book will help keep you in a better mental state, all that really matters is if a) you can read it, b) you can use it efficiently and in a helpful manner, and c) if someone else can read it effectively in the event that you are taken out of commission.  Get the function down first before you worry about the form.

There's definitely some conventional shorthand and diagramming that stays similar across all prompt scripts, but as the infinite dialogues about prompt book setup seen across SMNetwork show, no two prompt books will be identical.  If you don't have enough room to write blocking, make more room.  As I'm right-handed, I usually started with the script printed on only one side of the page - usually the left hand side of the binder- with blank space on the right for blocking.  If that isn't enough room, add more pages to the flap on the right and fold them over so that your book still closes flush.  Or, staple extra pages to the top of the right hand side to make a mini notebook for each page of the script.  Make as much room as you need.  The one thing I don't recommend is spacing out the lines of the actual script - you'll want to have your pagination be identical to whatever the actors have, so that if someone says "turn to page X," you wind up in the same place as everyone else.

I've seen prompt scripts for particularly elaborate staging that wind up looking like an origami nightmare of extra, added pages.  I've seen others with handwriting so tiny as to require magnifying glasses. I've seen (and used) the two-script setup that Adam describes above - usually for musicals and/or large casts.  I've even seen condensed, blocking-only scripts for running understudy rehearsals with only the bare minimum of the actual script included, but every single bit of movement.  Given that you're still in school, I think it behooves you to experiment a bit while your mind is still open, before you get bogged down with "this is how your prompt book must be, Amen."  Definitely get the blocking down.  How you do it is up to you.
« Last Edit: Aug 19, 2010, 11:06 pm by PSMKay »

missliz

  • Superstar!
  • *****
  • Posts: 569
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
    • Personal Site
  • Affiliations: AEA
  • Experience: Professional
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #4 on: Aug 20, 2010, 12:14 am »
I have a show right now with 30 actors, including 4 children. People are constantly moving around the set, wandering on and off, and conversations are overlapping. Timing is ESSENTIAL, and there is no way I'd remember it all if I didn't write it down.

I photocopy each script page individually  onto an 8 1/2 x 11 piece of paper so i have PLENTY of margin space. on the backside is a sketch of the set to record where people are/move to during the course of the facing page. Sound and light cues go in the left-hand margin. I use a lot of shorthand, and I have very small handwriting. It all manages to fit.

I also invested in a large eraser. :)
I personally would like to bring a tortoise onto the stage, turn it into a racehorse, then into a hat, a song, a dragon and a fountain of water. One can dare anything in the theatre and it is the place where one dares the least. -Ionesco

bex

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 298
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
    • Twitter
  • Affiliations: AEA, Auburn University
  • Current Gig: Freelance SM/ASM
  • Experience: Professional
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #5 on: Aug 20, 2010, 12:24 pm »
I agree with everything everyone else has said as to how absolutely essential it is to take blocking notes.  I use the same system as missliz, with a small version of the floorplan on one side of the binder and a page of the script on the other.  As to there not being enough room on the page, I have spent countless hours physically cutting and pasting and recopying pages of a poorly photocopied script to get rid of the gross black photocopy edges so that I had nice white margins.  I also use the 2-script method, and on blocking-heavy shows I number each section of blocking on the page with the groundplan and just put the number on the script page.

In addition to that, just a word of warning about color-coded hiliters.  I love me some color-coding, but I never color-code my cues.  Maybe it's just because I'm color-blind, but when I get into the booth and have a dim blue or purple-gel run light to read my cues by, those colors no longer look the same.  Plain old pencil and "LQ 7," "SQ 3," etc. work the best for me.  Do what works best for you, but I would hate for you to get into dress rehearsals and have all of your hard work on your calling script be useless because you can't read your cues.
You will have to sing for your supper & your mortgage, your dental coverage & your children's shoes, over & over again while people in desk jobs roll their eyes the minute you start to complain. So it's a good thing you like to sing.

AdamJ

  • Guest
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #6 on: Aug 20, 2010, 04:32 pm »
Going along with what bex said, I would be cautious putting anything in your script in ink, including highlighter ink. With how fluid live theatre is, ink is final, and is very difficult to move if you need to move something. For cues, Post it flags or tabs or stuff like that are wonderful... and the neon color ones glow under certain gel colors...

SMeustace

  • SM Expert
  • ****
  • Posts: 115
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: Theat Troupe Theatre Company
  • Experience: College/Graduate
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #7 on: Jan 29, 2011, 07:34 pm »
Is there a procedure that you do when blocking musicals, mostly when it comes to the music numbers
"On the first day the lord said....Light cue 1, GO! Then there was light".

hbelden

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 412
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: AEA
  • Experience: Professional
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #8 on: Feb 01, 2011, 09:06 pm »
If you're calling from the score, I've found it very helpful to trim a half-inch off the right side of blank pages and insert the blank pages in between every page of the score.  That gives me room to record blocking notes as above.  Ground plan minis are very helpful in chorus musicals.  I number each blank page as the score page it's facing, and when I get to calling the show, I take the blocking pages out and stack them all at the back of the prompt book for reference in U/S rehearsals, actor notes, etc.

If you're calling from the libretto, it's just like calling from a straight play, as described above.
--
Heath Belden

"I'm not good, I'm not nice, I'm just right." - Sondheim
--

On_Headset

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 402
    • View Profile
  • Experience: College/Graduate
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #9 on: Feb 02, 2011, 02:57 pm »
Is there a procedure that you do when blocking musicals, mostly when it comes to the music numbers
It depends on any number of things. Two of the basic questions:

How complex are the sequences? Are we talking tightly-choreographed sections with flying and automation, or comparatively simple stuff?

How reliable is your dance captain? (Do you have a dance captain?) Do you need to take some responsibility for the blocking itself and for maintaining consistency in the movement, or is the blocking more for your own notes and purposes?

If you're just taking notes for your own purposes, what I'm inclined to do is run a separate "dance book" which is full of scribbly football-style diagrams. Don't call from it, just take down the blocking so you can correspond with the various departments.

If you're doing something more intensive, or if you need to call from movement, things get more complicated. There is formal dance notation, although the only people I know of who use it in calling are former dancers and dance students themselves. I don't have much background here.

SMeustace

  • SM Expert
  • ****
  • Posts: 115
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
  • Affiliations: Theat Troupe Theatre Company
  • Experience: College/Graduate
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #10 on: Aug 28, 2011, 11:49 am »
How do I record the blocking for a dance number. ? Dance/choreography notes?
Any suggests and tips? Blocking notations for dance?

I just want to get in the habit of doing so just in case notes and/or blocking notes are needed or required for a dance number in a musical.
"On the first day the lord said....Light cue 1, GO! Then there was light".

BeccaTheSM

  • SM Expert
  • ****
  • Posts: 153
    • View Profile
    • Becca Pickett
  • Affiliations: AEA, SMA
  • Experience: Professional
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #11 on: Aug 28, 2011, 12:13 pm »
SMeustace -- There are a some examples of dance/choreo notations in the forms section. Just search around a bit and I'm sure you'll find something useful.
Art, in itself, is an attempt to bring order out of chaos. - Stephen Sondheim

BayAreaSM

  • Permanent Resident
  • *****
  • Posts: 410
  • Gender: Female
    • View Profile
    • Bay Area SM
  • Affiliations: AEA
  • Current Gig: VP, Operations in AV Events
  • Experience: Professional
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #12 on: Aug 28, 2011, 06:47 pm »
SMeustace - as rpicket6 said, there are a lot of posts in the forums regarding dance notation. You can use the search box in the upper right corner and type in your key words. Here's a quick reference that also links to other forum posts. You can end up with a nice long chain of information:

http://smnetwork.org/forum/index.php/topic,2581.0.html

Though, in the end, as long as the notes make sense to you and you can explain it to someone else later (understudy, dance captain who needs a refresher) then you're fine.

austingresh

  • New to Town
  • **
  • Posts: 6
  • Gender: Male
    • View Profile
    • Austin's Website
  • Affiliations: Santa Fe College, University of Florida, Wayne State University
  • Current Gig: Stage Manager / Instructor at Santa Fe College
  • Experience: Professional
Re: Recording blocking
« Reply #13 on: Sep 04, 2011, 03:24 pm »
I think recording blocking is very helpful and necessary.  The other day we were on a second day of rehearsal and found out that one of the three actors got another job and had to leave us.  We just finished a first blocking and now we are getting a replacement to take the role.  The god part is we are early in the process but that also means that the other actors do not know each others so the director is relying on my blocking notes to clear up some confusion. 

The way I take notes is by using short hand references to locations and directions on stage.  I usually number the exits and entrances from left to right so that I can say "Ent 1 X SL to US of Table" meaning the actor enters from door 1 (on SL) then crosses to the upstage side of the table.  Pick out some common notations that work for you and for the show you are doing.

I also tend to record my blocking in a separate rehearsal script and only transfer blocking to my show script that will deal with cues or is of particular importance (such as entrances and exits).
Austin Gresham
newbielink:http://www.austingresham.com [nonactive]