Watch this analysis of how Hitchcock positioned characters to tell a story

If you're a fan of Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo then you should watch the video above. And if the word "blocking" only makes you think of football and Twitter, you should definitely watch it. This 8-minute clip from YouTube channel Nerdwriter breaks down a scene from Vertigo in which Gavin Elster (seated at the beginning) enlists "Scottie" Ferguson to follow his wife. Gavin claims she's been possessed, but really (spoiler alert) plans to kill her, and wants Scottie to be his alibi.

The video looks particularly at Hitchcock's use of blocking — how he positions his characters in relation to the room, the camera, and each other — and how this reflects this power dynamic between the two men. Gavin begins seated, slightly apart, intending to intrigue Scottie, before standing up and moving over him, above him, as he delivers his crucial lies about his wife. You can, of course, overstate the importance of this sort of thing on audiences' perception (how much of this sort of craft is ever consciously noticed?), but it's still fascinating to see it all filleted so neatly.

• ViaMentalFloss
• SourceNerdwriter (YouTube)