Chapter 10 — Exercises

Directing is a doing skill even more than a knowing one — you cannot learn to relax a nervous subject by reading about it any more than you can learn to swim from the shore. These exercises put you in the director's chair with real people (and with the hardest person of all, yourself). Most need nothing but a phone and a willing human; a few need only your attention. Take the starred ones seriously, because they build straight toward Project 1's performance.

Exercises are graded by effort and depth:

• ⭐ Warm-up — a few minutes; locks in a concept.
• ⭐⭐ Core — the real practice; do as many as you can.
• ⭐⭐⭐ Stretch — deeper or more ambitious; where the biggest gains are.

Model solutions and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises are collected in Answers to Selected Exercises at the back of the book. Try each one before you read its answer — a directing note you figured out yourself sticks far better than one you only read.

A. Seeing the direction (Eye & Ear Training)

These need no camera — just your eyes and ears, pointed at video you already watch.

1. ⭐ Spot the eyeline. Watch five different videos with a person talking to camera. For each, name the eyeline: to the lens, off it, or into the scene. Then say, in a phrase, what relationship that choice creates with you as a viewer. (Answer provided.)

2. ⭐ Real or performed? Find one interview or testimonial that feels genuinely relaxed and one that feels stiff or coached. Write one sentence for each on what tipped you off — voice, eyes, hands, pace? You are calibrating the radar every director shoots with.

3. ⭐⭐ Watch the tone. Find a behind-the-scenes or blooper clip of a real shoot (they're everywhere). Watch how the director or host talks to the people on camera between takes. What are they doing with their tone, and what effect does it have on the performers? (Answer provided.)

4. ⭐⭐ The result you can see. Watch any clip where a non-actor is clearly trying to show an emotion (a reality-show confession, an amateur ad). Identify one moment where you can feel them "acting" a result rather than being true, and rewrite the direction you'd have given instead — an action or circumstance, not a result.

5. ⭐⭐⭐ Block the scene you're watching. Pick a 30–60 second scene with two or more people and one clear movement (someone crosses, sits, hands something over). Draw a top-down blocking diagram of it: where the people are, where they move, where you think the camera is, and where the cut lands on the movement. You're reverse-engineering a director's plan. (Model answer provided.)

B. Reading the direction (Read the Sequence)

6. ⭐ Name the beat. Re-read FIGURE 10.3 (the reaction, directed). Without looking, list the physical beats of the performance in order (there are four). Why does the chapter insist the performance be small? (Answer provided.)

7. ⭐⭐ Diagnose the eyeline. In FIGURE 10.2, a director shoots a testimonial with the camera on a low table, so the subject looks down into the lens. Name the two problems this creates (one about power/reading, one about the eyeline connection) and the one-move fix. (Answer provided.)

8. ⭐⭐ Rewrite the direction. A described take: a director tells a nervous shop owner, "Okay, this time really smile and show me how passionate you are about your business!" The take comes back worse. Rewrite what the director should have said, using at least one action verb and one true circumstance. (Answer provided.)

9. ⭐⭐⭐ Write the reaction, undirected. Write a Described Shot (all seven fields) of the café reaction as it would look badly directed — the subject told to "look shocked." Then, beside it, note the specific tell in each field (frame, sound, effect...) that betrays the fake. This is the counter-example to FIGURE 10.3. (Model answer provided.)

C. Directing others (Shoot This)

This is the heart of the chapter. Point the camera at a real human and direct.

10. ⭐⭐ The two-minute relax. Do the §10.5 🎬 On Set assignment: interview a camera-shy person for two minutes about something they love, using only the relaxation tools (roll early, give a task, ask don't instruct, react silently, let a silence sit, steal a take after "wrap"). Forbidden words: "relax," "be natural," "more energy." Find the most relaxed ten seconds and name what you did just before it. (Model self-critique provided.)

11. ⭐⭐ Block a mark and hit it. Direct someone through a two-beat move (enter and sit; set something down and turn). Give them a physical mark. Shoot three takes and confirm they land on the mark, in frame and in focus, every time. Then shoot one take with no mark ("just stand wherever") and compare. (Answer discusses what goes wrong without the mark.)

12. ⭐⭐ Action vs result, back to back. Film the same person delivering the same short line twice. Take 1: direct a result ("say it more confidently"). Take 2: direct a circumstance ("you're explaining this to your little brother, who's about to mess it up"). Watch both. Which is truer, and can you say why in one sentence?

13. ⭐⭐⭐ Direct the café reaction. Stage FIGURE 10.1 with a real person: window table, phone, camera on a third, a slow push-in or a locked medium. Direct the reaction by feeding the circumstance (decide what the message says and tell them privately), not the result. Shoot at least six takes. Keep the one that stops being a performance and becomes true. This is the chapter's anchor beat and feeds the Café Scene thread. (Guidance provided.)

14. ⭐⭐⭐ The eyeline, three ways. Film one person saying the same two sentences three times, changing only the eyeline: (a) straight to the lens, (b) just off it to you beside the camera, (c) into the scene, looking at an object. Watch all three. Write down how your relationship to the person changed each time. Keep them; you're building a personal library of the single most important directing choice.

D. Directing yourself (Shoot This — solo)

15. ⭐⭐ Separate the roles. Record a 30-second piece to camera about anything. Do it in the disciplined order of §10.6: first be the operator (lock frame, focus on a stand-in at your mark, lock exposure), then be the talent (step in, forget the tech, deliver). Notice how much calmer the performance is when the technical worry is already handled. (Answer provided.)

16. ⭐⭐ Talk to one person. Record the same 30 seconds twice: once delivered to "an audience," once delivered to one specific friend you picture at the lens. Watch both. The second is almost always warmer — name the specific differences you hear and see.

17. ⭐⭐⭐ Steal your own true take. Record yourself doing the same 45-second piece eight times in one continuous take, without stopping to check the screen between attempts ("no chimping"). Review the batch once at the end and pick the most relaxed take — not the most perfect. Which number was it? (Almost never take 1.) (Answer discusses why the later takes win.)

E. Recreate It

18. ⭐⭐⭐ Recreate a piece of "business." Great directors give non-actors something to do with their hands to relax them and reveal character (Case Study 1's glove, a barista's tamp). Choose a person and a simple, real task, and shoot a 30-second piece where they talk while doing the task. Compare it to a version where they sit still and "just talk." Which is more natural, and why does the task help? (Model answer provided.)

19. ⭐⭐⭐ Recreate the "overheard" interview look. Study any documentary interview, then recreate its exact eyeline setup: subject looking just off-lens at you, you seated at lens height a hand's width beside the camera. Shoot two minutes. Does the off-lens eyeline make your subject more relaxed than talking to the lens would? (This is a direct rehearsal for Chapter 19.)

F. Five Ways

20. ⭐⭐ Five circumstances, one line. Pick one neutral sentence ("I'll see you tomorrow"). Direct a person (or yourself) to say it five times under five different circumstances you feed them — e.g., relieved, dreading it, hiding a secret, exhausted, in love. Never name the emotion; only give the situation. Watch: did the real feeling arrive on its own? Which circumstance produced the truest read? (Answer discusses.)

21. ⭐⭐ Five ways to relax one subject. Take one nervous friend and, across five short takes, try a different relaxation tool each time: (a) give them a prop/task, (b) ask a memory question, (c) tell them take one doesn't count, (d) let a long silence sit, (e) keep rolling after "wrap." Rank which worked best for this person — because subjects differ, and directors learn to read which lever to pull.

G. Fix the Shot & Settings Drill

22. ⭐ Fix the direction. A friend says: "I'm filming my dad's testimonial tomorrow. I'll sit him down, tell him to be himself, hit record, and ask him to talk about the company for a few minutes." List three directing changes that would transform the result. (Answer provided.)

23. ⭐⭐ Fix the blocking. A described shot: a subject is directed to "walk around while you talk" in a room with a bright window on one wall. In the footage they drift out of focus, pass through a dark patch, and end up a silhouette against the window. Name each problem and the blocking fix (marks, camera position, where to end the move). (Answer provided.)

24. ⭐⭐ Fix the solo take. A creator's piece-to-camera feels cold and stiff, their eyes keep flicking away from the lens, and they re-record forty times getting more tense each time. Diagnose it against §10.6 and prescribe three specific fixes, in order. (Answer provided.)

25. ⭐⭐ Settings drill — direct address vs interview. For each scenario, write the eyeline you'd direct (to-lens / off-lens / into-scene), the lens height, and one relaxation move you'd use: (a) a CEO's welcome message to new hires; (b) a shy artist describing their process for a gallery; (c) a dramatic reaction shot for a short film. (Model answers provided.)

26. ⭐⭐⭐ Write the blocking plan. For your Project 1 talking-head, write a one-paragraph blocking plan: where the subject sits (and their mark), the camera position and height, the eyeline you'll direct and why, the background depth you want, and the one thing you'll give their hands. This is pre-production for the Production Checkpoint. (Model answer provided.)

H. Interleaved (mixing prior chapters)

These deliberately braid Chapter 10 with earlier Part II skills, because on a real shoot they all happen at once.

27. ⭐⭐ Block for the line (Ch. 7 + 9). Block a two-person conversation. Draw the 180-degree line between them, choose your side, and mark where each person sits so their eyelines will point at each other across the cut. Then direct the eyeline precisely. Shoot the two singles and confirm they cut together. (Answer provided.)

28. ⭐⭐ Direct a move to cut on (Ch. 8 + 9). Block a motivated cross (someone stands and crosses to a window). Direct it as matching action — same pace, same path — in a wide and a medium, then cut on the movement. The blocking (Ch.10), the move (Ch.8), and the matching action (Ch.9) are one combined skill here. (Guidance provided.)

29. ⭐⭐⭐ The composed, directed frame (Ch. 6 + 10). Direct a subject into a frame that is both well-composed (thirds, headroom, lead room from §6.2) and a relaxed performance. The exercise is doing both at once: get the composition right without freezing the person, and get the performance without wrecking the frame. Which was harder to hold, and what did you trade? (Answer discusses the trade-off.)

30. ⭐⭐⭐ Teach it back. In about 200 words, explain to an absolute beginner why "you can't direct a result." Use the actor-vs-non-actor inversion, one concrete rewrite (result → circumstance), and one sentence on why the café reaction works better small. Teaching a concept is the strongest test that you own it. (Model answer provided.)

When you've done these — especially the ones with a real, nervous human in front of the lens — you've crossed the line from someone who operates a camera to someone who directs what happens in front of it. That is the whole difference between footage and a performance. Next, in Chapter 11, we finally light the scenes you've learned to stage.