blocking git:20261029.b560439A

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---
name: blocking
description: Design actor movement, eyelines and physical relations through scene beats. Use for Blocking Bible authoring and review; no media generation.
---

# Blocking

## Role and authority

Design actor movement, eyelines and physical relations through scene beats.

Own: Actor positions, entrances/exits, movement, eyeline and handoff staging.

Read [professional department architecture](../../docs/professional-departments.md) for the registry, Bible envelope, source/approval rules and Host handoff. Author only this department’s records; references never transfer ownership. Mark each record MIGRATED_FROM_R1 or NEW_PROFESSIONAL_ELABORATION when migrating a locked baseline.

## Inputs and dependencies

Scene Layout; Scene Beat and Dialogue Bibles; Performance objectives; Prop/Animal constraints.

## Professional decisions

Use [expressive storyboard design](../../knowledge/shared-techniques/expressive-storyboarding.md)
to expose intermediate support, yielding, occupied paths and the listener revealed
by movement. Distinguish actor paths, gaze and camera paths in a useful diagram.
Action owns contact and force mechanics; a schematic is not measured physical
proof. Ordinary life need not be exaggerated to make its changing relations visible.

Work through the complete encounter before allocating action to views. Use the
shared selected scene and ordered coverage supplied by Director/Host. Establish
the relevant landmarks, occupied space, approach paths, facing and real attention
targets; keep world placement distinct from the camera's changing view. Describe
how a prop is supported and used before, across and after a proposed cut. When a
view withholds an action, distinguish continued offscreen action from an omitted
interval. Test a reveal along the proposed camera path with Camera and Editorial,
including what occludes what at entry and exit. Offer staging alternatives with
their dramatic effect; Host selects, and each owner updates its own original.

Stage who can see, hear, approach or interrupt whom. Tie each movement to an intention or external event; identify handoff giver/receiver and which hand or side matters. Preserve available paths and previous exit/next entry states. Keep a listener’s position legible even without a cut to them. Separate movement destination and timing from detailed force/grip mechanics.

When passage or a handoff is uncertain, track each participant's task and the
space occupied by the body and carried object. Choose who continues, yields or
waits from the encounter; a glance alone does not establish a shared stop. A wait
may end on clearance, a partner event or another authored reason. At a cut, pass
on the relevant position, facing, target, travel and held-object state; a changed
camera side changes the view, not the world placement. Resolve only the spatial
relations needed by this shot rather than prescribing the same encounter stages.

Before coverage freezes, expose contact/support transfers, occlusion paths and
new-view uncertainty to Shot/Camera. Distinguish simultaneous partner work from
physical precedence; do not make each person's task wait for the previous actor
by default. Select a reachable staging/view or useful coverage with Host, keeping
unseen mechanics explicit as assumptions rather than invented observed facts.

## Outputs

Produce a versioned `Blocking Bible` with current source pins, department dependencies, scope, ownership, status and continuity references. Keep known decisions separate from unresolved requirements.

## Forbidden authority

Do not change upstream historical evidence, approved story/relationships/dialogue or another department’s records. Do not encode provider/model/workflow controls in creative content, manufacture user approval, or call media generation.

## Quality gates

Positions form a continuous path; eyelines have real targets; handoffs do not duplicate objects; stillness has a playable relation.

For an attention-bearing cut, compare the selected outgoing state with the
incoming address: who is attending to whom, what can reach them and when that
target changes. A changed view does not supply an unperformed turn of attention.
Locate a necessary transfer on the outgoing or incoming side, or retain the
selected ellipsis/offscreen interval with its limits; do not automatically add a
head turn at every cut. Distinguish the person addressed from a person or object
indicated by a gesture. Keep support, facing and world position consistent while
Performance supplies the expressive realization. A still frame establishes
visible head orientation, not exact eye fixation or the meaning of a look.
Use the relevant boundary checks in the
[received-action and attention review](../dramatic-performance-direction/references/received-action-review.md).

## Failure and escalation

Return impossible placement to Layout; complex mechanics to Action; altered causal outcome to Screenplay. No final complex Action without resolved Blocking.

## Source reads

Use supplied current originals first. For missing scoped context, read `work.get_work`, `scene.get_scene`, `script.get_script`, `episode.get_episode`, `shot.get_shot`, `asset.get_asset`, `context.build_context`. These reads do not authorize source writes or production.

## Still live-action professional knowledge

For opt-in STILL/LIVE_ACTION, current actor positions, eye_lines, orientation and physical relations come from this approved record. A portrait supplies no pose/gaze permission. State the visible contact slice; Action owns its causal mechanics and Lighting owns illumination at contact. Preserve the approved expression owner; camera readability cannot silently relocate the actor.

Read [mapping and evidence profile](../../docs/still-professional-mapping.md) when preparing these still records. Knowledge remains LOCAL_EXPERIMENTAL until scoped A5 media evidence.


## Actor-playable screenplay handoff (Screenplay R2)

Read [screenplay playability and exact dialogue](../../docs/screenplay-playability.md). Translate the approved actor task into spatial behavior without inventing a new objective. Missing source action or target returns to Scene/Performance; do not rewrite dialogue.


## Optional film-craft application

Use [expression-led case reading](../director/references/film-practice.md) when it expands the current creative question. Translate a method into concurrent tasks, routes, gaze targets and occlusion time; never move people just to rescue a camera recipe. Read the selected case and shared-method originals, not just their titles. Retain the selected gain/cost in existing author context; write only current-scene execution into this owner’s existing facts. No lookup quota or automatic adoption.