How to Deliver Information to an Audience (Director's Edition)

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Updated: March 29, 2019

When making a movie, a director's job is to communicate with the audience. This means that the director must present the information in a way that can be understood and absorbed. Here are some ways to do this effectively.


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    Identify the information that the audience needs to know and ensure that all of it is included. A common mistake for directors is omitting information. Though some information may seem not so important, it will confuse the audience and take them out of the movie.
    • For example, a scene involving a burglar and a locked cabinet of valuables might be shown like this: The burglar discovers that the cabinet is locked, and opens it with a key. Where did the key come from? How did the burglar get the key? If it is not shown, the audience will not know it. Instead, try this: The burglar discovers that the cabinet is locked, we see the burglar open the top draw and remove a key from it, thus opening the cabinet. Now, with the missing piece of information included, the audience will be satisfied.
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    Emphasize the information appropriately. Though identifying all the information is important, if you un-emphatically present the information, the audience might miss it. When adding emphasis to information, remember the following:
    • The bigger the image size, the more emphatic the information contains.
    • By organizing the composition of the image, you can call attention to the information you wish to emphasize
    • The perspective from which the audience sees the information, or camera angle, is a powerful tool for emphasizing information. Objective inserts is shot from no particular point of view, thus neutral; subjective inserts are usually from a certain point of view, thus more emphatic.
    • You can control emphasis simply by how long you display a piece of information on the screen. The audience has more time to notice and absorb the information when it is on screen longer.
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    Communicate both information and feelings to your audience. Communicating information is only half the job of a director; A good director presents information in a way that involves the audience emotionally. Here are ways to do this effectively:
    • The bigger the image size, the more emotional impact it carries.
    • Control the length of a sequence by shooting it in greater or smaller number of shots. By stretching the length of a sequence, the director increases the feeling of urgency. A sequence with ten shots is more suspenseful than a sequence with three shots.
    • Camera Angles can contribute to the overall emotional effect of a scene. High angles often convey a feeling of detachment, while low angles emphasize the power of the image, and the powerlessness of the viewer. Head-on, frontal angles feel formal and calm, while diagonal setups convey movement and energy.
    • The feel of an image is strongly affected by the lens used to record it. Wide angle lenses exaggerate depth and motion toward or away from the camera; the effect they convey is dynamic and energetic. Telephoto lenses, by contrast, suppress depth and motion, keeping the viewer at a distance and conveying a sense of formality.
    • Camera movement can add significantly to the emotional cast of a scene. A stationary camera, panning and tilting from one position, conveys a sense of detached observation. A moving camera, especially when dollying in and out, becomes a part of the action. Moreover, a constantly moving camera imparts a feeling of restless energy.
    • Individual shots can be made shorter or longer, depending on the effect desired. Short shots with quick cuts convey a sense of dynamic energy, while lengthy shots feel calm and deliberate. That is why fights are typically constructed from many brief shots, while romantic scenes are often assembled from fewer but lengthier angles.

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      • Movement is an easy way to draw attention to a subject, especially when the rest of the frame is still. You can also reverse this procedure. In one of his many famous shots, Alfred Hitchcock showed a tennis match grandstand full of spectators whose heads swiveled left-right-left-right to follow a long volley on the court. Only the villain's head is not moving, because he is watching his prey rather than the match. Though he is small in the frame, the viewer's eye goes to him immediately.
      • Use audio emphasis. Audio emphasis is possible thanks to digital post production programs offering complete control over stereo imaging, and even surround sound imaging. This ability is especially useful for emphasizing important elements that are off-screen.
      • Emphasis certain actors by brighter lighting, or by having them wear costume colors that stand out from the overall color scheme.
      • The more you can trust your co-creators, the more exclusively you can focus on the core tasks of directing.

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      • A movie director should only be in charged of shaping the performance by blocking the action, guiding the actors, and pacing the scenes; choosing the setups by determining where to place the camcorder, where and when to move it, and how to select and change the focal lengths; and designing the coverage by how much action to include in each shot, how much overlap to allow between shots, and how many ways to re-cover the action with alternate setups.
      • Directors should only give input in the aesthetic and technical quality of the video images, the overall design of sets, locations, costumes, etc., and the structure and language of the script that provides the blueprint for the production. You can explain what you would like to achieve in these areas and you can express dissatisfaction when the results do not satisfy you, but you should not dictate the ways in which those results are to be achieved. That responsibility and authority should belong to the videographer, the art director, and the writer, respectively.
      • Be careful when using audio emphasis Although audio emphasis is ultimately created in editing, the director must anticipate it in production. Have the actor react to the sound, even though it is not heard on the set.


      1. Stinson, Jim. "Video: Digital Communication and Production Second Edition." Illinois: The Goodheart-Wilcox Company, 2008. Print

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      Co-authors: 8
      Updated: March 29, 2019
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      Categories: Filmmaking
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