Filmmaking

How To Write Set Pieces – Anthony DiBlasi

Filmcourage

Published

November 17, 2023

[Watch the video interview on Youtube here]

Film Courage: What is a set piece?

Anthony DiBlasi, Filmmaker: A set piece for me is (and I think maybe every person has a different example of what they’d call a set piece), but a set piece for me are those tent pole moments in a movie that are designed to attract people to a film in a way they’re the things that are going to show up in the trailer. They’re those goal posts that you move toward that Okay, this is a set piece it’s where something big is happening. It’s that big action car chase or it’s that big scare in the basement and it’s complex to do, it’s complex to shoot, it’s complex to write. That has always been my definition of what I’d call a set piece, those things that are going to end up in the trailer and things that are going to get you to the end of the movie.

Film Courage: Can you provide an example of how you create a set piece within your films?

Anthony: It can be strategic. Everything is set up in payoff, everything you set up in a movie you should be dropping hints things that you want to pay off. I think in a set piece there’s a lot of shoe leather in between, you are doing character development and you’re getting to something that you are staging. I think in horror you’re setting up a good magic trick, you’re providing information so that the trick is going to land in the set piece and you’re giving the audience enough detail that when they get there, they know where they are in space and time because if someone is confused in a moment, you’re not going to scare them, you’re not going to be able to scare someone. If they’re not quite sure where they are and what the stakes are…(Watch the video interview on Youtube here).

Watch the video interview on Youtube **here**

About:

Anthony DiBlasi graduated film school at Emerson College in Boston MA. Upon moving to Los Angeles he became a protégé of filmmaker/novelist Clive Barker. DiBlasi partnered in Barker’s production company Midnight Picture Show for nearly ten years, serving as a key executive & producer on films such as “Midnight Meat Train” (2008) and “Book of Blood” (2009). DiBlasi made his directorial debut with the psychological thriller “Dread” (2009), a feature film he wrote based on the Clive Barker short story of the same name. “Dread” was released theatrically in January of 2010 and went on to win Best Independent Feature at the 2010 Spike Scream Awards. He directed and co-wrote “Last Shift” a critically acclaimed supernatural horror film released by Magnolia Pictures in 2015. And directed “Extremity” a psychological thriller based on Extreme Haunts, released in 2018 by Epic Pictures.