Shadowing Practice: Directing Without Words: Visual Storytelling in Film - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Film is a medium where the adage show don't tell is a golden rule.
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And yet since the advent of sound, many filmmakers have used dialogue as a crutch to tell the audience what is happening.
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That spider can give superhuman strength and power like Las Arañas.
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This isn't necessarily bad, and there can be captivating and cinematic ways to use dialogue.
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Sometimes you can relay an entire conversation's worth of information with just a look, a shot, or a cut.
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A great scene that doesn't rely on dialogue can contain nuances, subtleties, and lightning in a bottle moments a conversation couldn't get close to.
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So how can a film talk without using words?
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Why waste time say lot word when few word do dreck?
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Before we shut up, be sure to subscribe and enable notifications to stay up to date on all our videos.
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We will be spoiling the following films.
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Time to get quiet.
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A non-verbal exchange between two characters often puts the focus on performance.
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In this extended silent moment between Reynolds and Alma in Phantom Thread, The audience is left to interpret what is going through the characters minds simply based on facial expressions
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The games begin as Alma prepares the omelette Reynolds watches on curious even a bit confused Alma meanwhile seems in control
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The test of wills is at hand hand.
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When they sit to eat, their expressions are playfully petulant, with suppressed grins and exaggerated movements.
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But once Reynolds takes the bite of the omelette, which the audience knows has been poisoned, Alma's grin vanishes.
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Paul Thomas Anderson moves to a close-up in order to get the extreme nuances of her reaction
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that both the audience and Reynolds are trying to read.
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And in this context, a subtle tilt of the head feels enormous.
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As Reynolds tentatively chews, Alma explains what she wants.
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I want you flat on your back.
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Helpless.
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Tender.
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Open.
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With only me to help.
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And then I want you strong again.
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You're not going to die.
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You might wish you were going to die, but you're not going to.
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You need to settle down a little.
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And it's a simple swallow that acts as an agreement to the dynamic she's laid out.
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Camera placement too can help guide a sequence without words.
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In this scene from Sound of Metal, where the camera is located creates a small emotional arc.
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We start in front of Ruben.
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He's in his own head, wanting to be left alone.
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When the kid behind him first bangs on the slide, Ruben is mildly amused, but still not fully giving him his attention, so the camera stays in front of him.
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But when the kid hits the slide again, we get a new angle.
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This time behind Ruben, signalling that he is now focused on the child.
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The camera is also much more mobile, underscoring the burst of energy Ruben is feeling as he's able to impart his passion for drumming onto someone else.
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Eventually we get a new angle on the kid, a little bit closer, and we see Ruben closer as well, strengthening the bond between these two characters.
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It's an intimate moment, and when we cut out to a wide shot, we are reminded of how small it is, just two people playing on a slide.
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but it's these small moments of joy that Ruben has to learn to appreciate.
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When characters aren't talking, setting can often take the foreground.
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Take this sequence from Portrait of a Lady on Fire, where the two principal characters make a big step in their forbidden relationship.
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Their relationship is forbidden because of the suffocating norms of the society they exist within, so it is fitting that it progresses outdoors,
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far from the trappings of their buttoned up world.
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The singers provide a rousing diegetic soundtrack, underscoring the rising feelings the two characters feel for each other in this moment.
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The bonfire, meanwhile, acts as a symbol for their passion.
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Sparks are literally flying in front of Eloise.
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She herself is lit on fire, symbolizing the danger their feelings pose.
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And of course, it provides for a powerful match cut.
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We've moved to the next day, but the match signals to the audience that the yearning continues unabated and leads us to its culmination.
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Of course, without words, how a character moves can speak multitudes.
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Beau Travail is a symphony of blocking, letting movement inform themes, relationships and narrative.
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This scene between rivals Galoup and Gilles is perhaps the culmination of director Claire Denis's approach.
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The two military men circle each other like boxers in a ring, getting closer and closer.
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This simple movement creates compelling coverage, letting the deserts spin around them, and revealing subtly that they are being watched by the rest of the Legionnaires.
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But it also speaks to their relationship, as well as the themes of the film.
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Neither man is going to back down.
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But there is also something more complicated than just rivalry happening.
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As their faces get closer, the scene begins to feel almost erotic, prompting the audience to wonder, do these men hate each other?
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Or are they denying something deeper inside of them?
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This scene also makes great use of a soundtrack.
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The music hears from the opera Billy Budd, based on the same novella as the film,
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and its bombastic crescendos help elevate the scene and its tension.
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Other post-production choices, such as how a scene is cut, are also pivotal when creating a non-verbal conversation.
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This climactic scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotage shows how powerful editing can be on this front.
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This sequence is between a husband and wife.
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The husband is a terrorist whose plot has resulted in the death of his wife's brother.
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Just before the scene, the wife learns that her husband was responsible for his death.
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I didn't mean any harm to come to the boy.
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When the dialogue cuts out of the scene is when the drama really kicks in.
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She debates whether or not to kill him, told entirely through reaction, eyeline matches, and shot reverse shots.
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The camera pushes in on the wife who looks off screen.
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We match her gaze with a close-up on her husband.
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Then his stare is matched as we cut to a close-up of his wife's hands reaching for a knife.
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back to him and we see that he is beginning to put the pieces together.
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He looks up and we cut to his wife's nervous face.
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After another close-up we cut out to a medium to follow the husband as he moves closer into a tight shot.
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We cut to another eyeline match this time dollying in on his wife as he approaches.
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The tension builds in a two-shot which holds and holds.
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until the climactic move.
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Help me!
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It's a suspenseful scene from the master of suspense, all created through cuts.
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With performance, smart coverage choices, setting, blocking and editing, you can tell an entire story.
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After that, the dialogue is just the cherry on top.
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One, two, three, yippee-yay.
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Ready to make your silent film?
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Start planning with StudioBinder's pre-production software, which includes apps for shot listing, storyboarding and more.
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And keep in mind, if a picture's worth a thousand words, a movie image is worth a whole lot more.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Directing Without Words: Visual Storytelling in Film”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: scene, cut, character, shot, Ruben. This video has 91 sentences and 1233 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:23. The speaker talks at a steady 131 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| climactic adjective | /ˌklaɪˈmæk.tɪk/ | Of, pertaining to, or constituting a climax; reaching a decisive moment or point of greatest excitement. |
| culmination noun | /ˌkʌl.mɪˈneɪ.ʃən/ | The attainment of the highest point of altitude reached by a heavenly body; passage across the meridian; transit. |
| eyeline noun | The horizontal portion of the face that includes the eyes. | |
| nuance noun | /ˈnjuː.ɑːns/ | A minor distinction. |
| omelette noun | /ˈɒmlɪt/ | A dish made with beaten eggs cooked in a frying pan without stirring, flipped over to cook on both sides, and sometimes filled or topped with other foodstuffs… |
| underscore noun | /ˈʌn.dɚˌskoɹ/ | A line drawn or printed beneath text; the character _. |
| grin noun | /ɡɹɪn/ | A smile in which the lips are parted to reveal the teeth. |
| forbid verb | /fɚˈbɪd/ | To disallow; to proscribe. |
| verbal adjective | /ˈvɜː.bəl/ | Of or relating to words. |
| soundtrack noun | /ˈsaʊndˌtɹæk/ | A narrow strip running down a movie film that carries the recorded sound in synchronization with the pictures. |
| bombastic adjective | /bɑmˈbæs.tɪk/ | showy in speech and given to using flowery or elaborate terms; grandiloquent; pompous |
| bonfire noun | /ˈbɑnˌfaɪɚ/ | A large, controlled outdoor fire lit to celebrate something or as a signal. |
| captivate verb | /ˈkæptəˌveɪt/ | To attract and hold (someone's) attention and interest; to charm, to entrance, to fascinate, to enchain. |
| compel verb | /kəmˈpɛl/ | To overpower; to subdue. |
| crescendo noun | /kɹɪˈʃɛn.doʊ/ | An instruction to play gradually more loudly, denoted by a long, narrow angle with its apex on the left ( < ), by musicians called a hairpin. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| back down verb | To take a less aggressive position in a conflict than one previously had, or has planned to have. | |
| close up verb | /kləʊzˈʌp/ | To close (remove a gap) completely or fully. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| lay out verb | /ˌleɪ ˈaʊt/ | To expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase. |
| look off verb | To put off by one's facial expression | |
| look up verb | /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ | To have better prospects. |
| settle down verb | To make or become quiet and calm after a period of disturbance or restlessness. | |
| shut up | /ʃʌt ʌp/ | Stop talking (usually in the form of making annoying, irrelevant, or false comments, during a period of peace and quiet, or when one is not allowed to talk)… |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is left · has been poisoned · is located |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been poisoned · We've moved · has resulted |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 9 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, aren't, couldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: culmination /ˌkʌl.mɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, crescendo /kɹɪˈʃɛn.doʊ/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: culmination /ˌkʌl.mɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, diegetic /ˌdaɪ.əˈdʒɛ.tɪk/, exaggerate /ɛɡˈzæd͡ʒ.ə.ɹeɪt/, kinematic /kɪn.əˈmæt.ɪk/, tentatively /ˈtɛntətɪvli/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like climactic, culmination, eyeline.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.