A Psychology-Based Directing Guide: Designing Emotions with Instinct, Not Feeling

This book presents directing principles based on 'human instinct' rather than simple techniques to those who have been thinking about directing based on vague 'feelings'.
Based on 20 years of experience in broadcasting, the author systematically analyzes what scenes viewers focus their attention on, what structures move their emotions, and how they become immersed in a program from the perspectives of perception, cognition, evolutionary psychology, and neuroscience.
This book, which explains the entire directing process from storytelling to emotional design, scene composition, and editing through psychology, is structured so that anyone can easily understand it by providing abundant examples from movies, dramas, entertainment, and animation.
It will serve as a practical guide to transform directing's 'feel' into 'understanding' for not only beginners in video production but also working PDs, YouTubers, and creators.

Before we get into the actual discussion of scene design, there's something we absolutely must remember.
'Why do we direct?' Of course, it's to achieve the video's planning intention.
In my previous work, “The Fundamentals of Broadcast Directing,” I defined directing as follows.
'Directing is the work of making the intended story immersive until the very end.' This is similar to sports competitions.
The director (=producer) makes the players follow the tactics (=the story they are trying to tell) to the end (=makes them immersed until the end) in order to win (=achieve the intention).
Let's recall the strategy that Mr. Ahn devised to defeat the mountain king in Slam Dunk.
Song Tae-seop breaks through the pressure defense, Jeong Dae-man and Seo Tae-woong lead the offense, and Chae Chi-su and Kang Baek-ho dominate the paint and rebounds.
If everyone does their part, even a 20-point deficit can be turned around, but if even one person collapses, the game is over.
The directing is also like that.
Every single scene in the video is a 'player'.
Just as the five players of Bukhansan gather together to perfect their tactics, the scenes come together to complete a single story.
And just like Bukhansan, if even one scene fails to fulfill its role, immersion is broken and the planning intent is not conveyed.
Therefore, the director, like Mr. Ahn, must assign a clear role to each scene.
And to accomplish that role, you have to immerse the viewer in the scene.
--- From "The Role of the Scene"

Understanding human cognitive processes provides a clear guideline for all directing elements, from how to handle emotions, how to structure stories and scenes, to the arrangement of cuts, camera movements, and even audio processing.
Yet many people overlook this.
The reason is simple.
Cognitive processes occur so quickly and automatically that they are perceived as instincts that do not require questioning.
This is where the problem starts.
Since everyone has instincts, in the field, they are simply lumped together as a word called 'feeling'.
And there is only an exchange of evaluations such as “It has a feel for it, it doesn’t have a feel for it,” but it doesn’t actually become a subject of research.
Even in real-life settings, it is rare to find a director who designs a scene by considering the cognitive process.
This is because they do not feel the need for cognitive process education, or because they have a deep-rooted perception that “How can you teach a feeling? It only develops after seeing, taking pictures, and pasting.”
Even people who want to become directors take it for granted and try to develop a 'feeling' that has no substance without any objection.
But I can confidently say that the 'feel' we talk about in directing can be developed by understanding and applying human cognitive processes.
The age-old advice to "observe people" ultimately means observing how emotions intervene in cognitive processes and guide behavior.
So, there is no need to be distressed and say, ‘I have no feeling, so it’s hard.’
--- From "What kind of emotions should we design?"

But this ‘God’s move’ cannot be used at any time.
As it is a weapon that induces emotions, it should be used in the first half of the cognitive process in which emotions occur - 'sensation reception-perception-attention'.
Why? Because from the later stages onwards, the director's intervention becomes dramatically more difficult.
When the viewer enters the 'memory' stage, he or she begins to consciously interpret the scene.
This means that you begin to think critically by relating it to previous scenes and contrasting it with your own experiences.
Even if you try to draw out emotions with the weapon of directing attention, it is becoming less and less effective for the viewers.
The next stages, ‘thinking/reasoning’ and ‘judgment/decision-making’, are even more desperate.
Trying to draw out emotions at these stages is like 'closing the barn door after the horse has bolted.'
Since the interpretation of the scene is almost complete, if you try to appeal to their emotions, the viewer will just snort.
At this time, the only way to survive is through rational persuasion, not emotional persuasion.
This means that the scenes, characters, and story must all be logically convincing to the viewer - but it's questionable whether that's possible.
The final stage, the 'reaction/action execution' stage, is literally the 'end'.
The viewers have already come to their conclusion.
“This scene is ridiculous!”, “Why is the main character like that!”, “Let’s just stop watching...” Now, no matter how you direct, it’s hard to turn back the clock.
You can consider it impossible.
--- From "Emotions begin with gaze"

As with all video production techniques, these cannot be defined as 'must-do' or 'essential'.
All you have to do is choose the technique you need depending on the situation.
Don't worry about what others think, saying things like "The basics aren't there, the video grammar is a mess, whatever," based on techniques that are nothing more than mere methods.
Instead, what we must pay attention to is consideration for the viewers.
Their stability is important.
So, I recommend using extreme margin adjustments only when you need to express your intention.
A production that doesn't take the viewer into consideration is just its own art, and no viewer is willing to endure the pressure to appreciate that art.
--- From "Space within the Frame"


The instinct to 'gain information for survival' is the standard that determines the range of shot sizes.
In other words, it serves as a basis for determining ‘where and to what extent the character will be framed.’
For example, unless there is a specific intention, a close-up usually includes the area from the face to the collarbone.
This is because the viewer unconsciously activates the 'closedness' principle.
Following the line from 'face-neck-shoulder-clavicle' in the close-up, the brain complements the rest of the body to infer the overall shape of the person.
It is a result of the evolutionary instinct to infer the entire form of an animal even when only part of it is seen in the forest.
But what if the screen were cut off at the neck? Just as the viewer would feel uneasy because they couldn't imagine the size of the predator's body, the viewer would feel awkward and uncomfortable because they couldn't imagine the rest of the character's form.
The same goes for joints.
Elbows, wrists, knees, and ankles are key cues for predicting movement, so if the screen is cut off at these points, the brain becomes tense because it cannot guess the next move.
Ultimately, humans are creatures who try to predict 'what will happen next' through visual information, and immersion is maintained when this prediction is possible.
--- From "The Camera's Seat"

'Running time 10 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours…
All images are media bound to the flow of time.
Therefore, all the principles we have examined so far must ultimately be coordinated over time and connected as a single flow.
Editing is what makes this process possible.
In other words, editing is not simply connecting cuts, but the final process of weaving the designed emotions into a single story.
But there is something else that actually gets on the directors' nerves during the actual editing.
This is the phenomenon of 'the cut is sticking out'.
Now, I don't think it's a big deal to have a cut that pops out, but back in the day, I also tried very hard to get rid of the cut pop.
I was afraid that one minor mistake would make me look like an incompetent editor.
Of course, just because someone is cut off doesn't mean they are incompetent.
But it's also true that smooth video helps keep viewers engaged.
This is because viewers must feel that the story continues in the same space and time to remain immersed.
However, if the screen is awkwardly cut off, the viewer will first notice that the editing is awkward rather than the story, and at that moment, the immersion is broken.
Therefore, in this chapter, we will cover video without jumps, or 'continuity editing'.

--- From "How to not stand out"