Continuity 101

Ensuring that actions are carried over seamlessly from one shot to the next. You know, things like running through a door shooting with the gun in your right hand, but coming out of the door with the gun in your left. Those Action Cut Points we just talked about aren’t much use if the action doesn’t actually match.

Which does however get a little trickier when in Take 2 (a print) Mr. Orange had the gun in his right hand, but in Take 4 (also a print) it was in his left…^[1]

1. It was neither – he had a gun in each hand. [↩︎]

Similar. I don’t actually look at performance – that is very much outside my remit. And I can’t watch performance per se, as I am somewhat occupied constantly scanning all the other things that are part of my remit.^[1][2] Hence the only aspect of performance I’m actively watching is continuity of performance.

In theory watching for performance continuity covers making sure^[3] that Marla isn’t crying in one shot and ecstatic the next.^[4] You might think this isn’t likely to come up (and that I should keep well out if it does), and you’d generally be right. At least with adult human actors.^[5]

But if say there are performance variations between takes – Take 4 was the low-key withdrawn one, Take 7 the Here’s Johhhnny one – someone needs to be keeping track of which is which and which is being used for matching when we come to the subsequent shot in two weeks time. Someone = me.

1. Well, okay, obviously I do look at it – it’s right there in my earpiece and on the monitor in front of me. But it’s more like I’m looking (and listening) past it to everything else. And either way, I don’t watch for it or have any judgement on what’s good/bad/indifferent – that is a sacred relationship between the actor and the director, and no-one else on set should be involved. [↩︎]
2. There is only one director on set. At least until the executive producer turns up “just to see how it’s all going”. [↩︎]
3. Very tactfully. [↩︎]
4. Okay, maybe not the best example… [↩︎]
5. Don’t ask me about greyhounds. Please. [↩︎]

This one’s more for the actors. You (the actor) ask me “when did I turn around?” and I say “immediately after you said “I’ll be back”, and you turned to the left”. And so on.

Because if it doesn’t match – it won’t cut.

Not really. It’s a bit simpler from now on anyway.

There being so many things to look at and for, it’s not actually possible to look at them all at once. So that’s why it’s a priority list. From here on down, these are the things that are likely to be the focus of the audience’s attention in pretty much this order, so this is what I try to focus on.

If we’re shooting T-Rex marauding through the car park, I’m focussed most on T-Rex. If Cyrano and De Guiche are fencing to the death, then I’m not paying a huge amount of attention to the 32nd Musketeer on the left.^[1] When Spartacus is admitting his identity, I’m Spartacus. Until it’s Antoninus’ turn, when we’re looking at him.^[2]

And we don’t want that extra^[3] in the front row wearing shocking pink when all the main characters are in khaki. Extreme and unlikely example,^[4] but you get the idea – the eye is drawn to bright colours, so the only bright colours seen on screen should be the ones you want to be seen on screen.

More common are reflections – maybe distracting like a bright Japanese cartoon playing on the tv reflected in the painting on the wall behind^[5], or just plain bad like a crew member reflected in the shop door as it opens.^[6]

As for In & Up – we tend to shot in from the wide shot to the close-up. So generally we’re more concerned about what we will see in the close-up – character’s heads are more important than their feet.^[7].

And in any event, once we get to the bottom of the list, there are actually other people looking out for most of these things.^[8][9][10]

Props come under the Art Department, who (in Australia in the person of Standby Props) are responsible for resetting all props between takes and shots, and who will have someone watching every take. Standby Wardbrobe will similarly be watching to make sure their carefully-designed costumes are being shown to full advantage, worn correctly, and reset correctly between takes and shots. And likewise for hair and make-up: there will be on-set make-up artists watching every take to ensure that both are always as they should be, and dashing in during Final Checks to do touch-ups, apply powder to reduce shiny spots, spray on the fake sweat and that sort of thing.^[11][12] All have their own comprehensive breakdowns and systems for maintaining continuity between takes and shots, and my role is to assist as a reference and double-check where necessary.

But of course, where they are looking specifically at their own area, I am looking at it all in the context of the shot, the cut and the story.

1. Yes, I know Cyrano and De Guiche never actually fence to the death – it’s back-to-back – but I have a soft spot for them and wanted to get them in here somehow. [↩︎]
2. This is assuming the person speaking is both on-screen and in-focus, as opposed to say a foreground blur asking about Voodoo Economics. Anyone? [↩︎]
3. Sorry, “background artist”. Although I’ve done a lot of extra work, and anyone who tries calling themselves a background artist is in for a considerable degree of Michael-extracting. In mime, naturally (extras never speak). [↩︎]
4. It would never get through Wardrobe, and even if it did the 3rd AD (who is responsible for extras) would pick up on it anyway. [↩︎]
5. That was this. Except you won’t see it, because we caught it and did another take. [↩︎]
6. Or the entire camera crew reflected in the passing train. Oops. [↩︎]
7. Usually. [↩︎]
8. At least on a properly-resourced production. [↩︎]
9. So not an Australian one then… [↩︎]
10. Tsk tsk, not funny. My bad. [↩︎]
11. It is perhaps mildy ironic that these are the very things which tend to come to mind to the uninitiated when they think of Continuity. [↩︎]
12. Okay, substitute “annoying” for “ironic” and you’re there. [↩︎]

Bingo!^[1] I’m not just the editor’s representative on set – I’m also the audience’s representative on set.

When an audience watches a film, they are supposed to be watching the story and sucked into the world that is being created for them up on the screen. Anything that distracts them from this is a problem. A big problem. Once the audience is distracted by something – anything – they are no longer absorbed in the story on the screen. One moment they’re thinking “Hey, wasn’t she wearing a purple hat before?” or “Hang on, how did he suddenly appear on that side of the room?” or “Oh come on, that’s just plain stupid – you expect me to fall for that!”, the next they’re moved on to what they have planned for the weekend or what’s for supper. Or they then start to notice all sorts of other things “wrong” with the film. Which are more likely to be story or character problems. Either way, you’ve lost them, and it will take a while to get them back – or you may never get them back. So my job is to look for anything that might distract them, and if at all possible stop it from happening.

Of course, this isn’t just those things I mentioned in that priority list above – that’s just what I’m looking at when the camera’s rolling. Audiences also get pretty distracted by things which in continuity terms you could view as geographic and temporal continuity.^[2]  This can range from “hmmm, that’s some pretty speedy horse you’ve got there to ride 800 miles in two days and nights” through “hang on – how did he get from that second-floor schoolroom window to outside the front door in 1.2 seconds?”^[3] all the way to “um, isn’t Krakatoa WEST of Java??”^[4] All of which are really problems of plausibility and consistency,^[5] of which there are many other variants, which thankfully for you I’m not going to go into here.^[6][7]

Suffice to say that as the audience’s representative on set, I’m actively looking for these problems, and trying as much as possible to head them off at the gate.^[8][9]

The most important continuity is Story Continuity – that everything we see actually flows – and all aspects of my job basically boil down to ensuring that it is preserved while we’re filming. So that it can be preserved when you get to the edit suite, and so that when the audience watches the final film they’re picked up, sucked in, and never taken out of the picture.

1. If not very succinctly put. Tsk tsk. [↩︎]
2. If you were the sort of person who tried to impress people with long words. If not, you could view them as continuity of space and time, but personally I can’t do this without thinking of Tom Baker. [↩︎]
3. Although you were probably more concerned by the Wonderful Oirish Accents To Be Sure. [↩︎]
4. Or this. Yes, the “Silent” Predators in question are, ahem, rattlesnakes. [↩︎]
5. Apart from the last two – they’re just plain idiocy. [↩︎]
6. In fairness to the makers of both though, they wouldn’t have chosen the titles. In much the same way that the actual filmmakers have very little to do with what you see in the trailer. The best (worst?) example I know of for this would be Shoot to Kill. Known as Deadly Pursuit in the UK, in France it was titled (in translation) The Killer Without A Face. Which is significant – the point being that for most of the film, we are left in suspense as to which of the six men on the fishing expedition in the Rockies is said killer, as neither we nor our pursuing heroes Sidney Poitier and Tom Berenger have any idea what he looks like. Hence showing the killer’s face in the trailer was perhaps not the most inspired marketing brainwave. [↩︎]
7. And yes, I realise it’s not exactly a modern classic, but it’s been annoying me for twenty years and I wanted to share. [↩︎]
8. Within the realms of whatever it is we’re shooting of course – there would be a rather different degree of concern with historical and geographical accuracy between Carry On Henry (pretty much irrelevant) and Elizabeth: The Golden Age (um…). [↩︎]
9. Okay, maybe that’s not such a well-chosen example – let’s go for, er, Carry On Up The Khyber vs. The Man Who Would Be King instead. There, that’s better. [↩︎]

Aha! An astute deduction sirrah. There is always something that does not match from take to take and shot to shot. The gallant continuitist notices all these things.^[1] And then decides whether or not they matter.

Pretty much any film you watch, if you know what you’re looking for, you can even identify when different takes are being used for different segments of a scene. With a live-action film or tv show, it’s just not possible to match identically.

But if as a scripty you pull the director aside after each take to explain exactly what was wrong with it and demand another “for continuity”, or even just request that she decides, you’ll be hurting the film, not helping it.^[2][3]

I have constantly to make a judicious call on whether or not whatever “problems” I have just seen warrant actually bringing up, if they can/should be fixed before the next take, if the director needs to be made aware or if we can keep it between me and the art department / wardrobe / make-up / whoever, or if I need to steel my nerves and (gulp) approach the 1st AD to explain how no, we really really do need another take because that last one just isn’t usable and there aren’t any other shots that the editor can use instead. No, there aren’t.^[4]

And to be able to do this requires a considerable level of trust on the part of the rest of the crew.^[5] The Director has to trust that when I do flag something to her and suggest that she has to make a call on it, she really does have to make a call on it. The 1st has to trust that when I am strenuously attempting to get him to allow another take, the reason is a very good one. The DoP has to trust that we really would be crossing the line if we take that shot as it’s currently set-up. They’re all relying on me to know what matters and what doesn’t.

So mostly I just mutter to myself and make a note.

Similarly, as mentioned already above, most shots are “cheated” somehow. Thus I have to make a call on what can be cheated, and by how much, before the audience is going to start doing that slow “Heyyy…?” (or that fast “oh come off it!” or just the plain old “huh?”).

And therein lies the true heart of continuity – knowing what you can get away with. This varies from take to take, shot to shot, scene to scene, film to film. But if say there’s a nasty glare off the gold brocade on an armchair in the background which is driving the DoP nuts, and it’s still there no matter how much we adjust that chair, and it’s going to take half-an-hour to somehow adjust the lighting to get rid of it, then I’ll suggest just ditching the chair and putting another similarly-dark and similarly-shaped one in its place (since we have one to hand). Which will absolutely horrify the art department and even the 1st AD, but I’m calling that no-one is going to notice the slight change in the blurry-dark-chair-shape in the background, it’s still better than the glare that’s driving the DoP spare, if they do notice then we’ve lost them from the film anyway, and we really need that half hour for another shot.^[6]

In the same way, what you see in the frame is very unlikely to be the perfect composition that the Director and Director of Photography saw in their heads and planned for so carefully. It’ll be close (most days), but it won’t be exact.^[7][8][9] This is why 1st ADs spend so much time hustling DoPs – to quote one very able DoP I know, “Hey, I’ll light all day if you’ll let me.” It can (almost) always be improved somehow, always be tweaked.^[10]

It’s the trade-off between getting it right and getting it shot.^[11].

1. Yeah, okay, maybe not all. Bah. [↩︎]
2. And chances are she’ll be asking the producer to find another scripty by tomorrow. [↩︎]
3. And if not, the 1st AD is probably going to take out a contract on you. Quite rightly. [↩︎]
4. Explanatory note to non-industry readers: the First Assistant Director (1st AD) is not really an Assistant Director at all, and is certainly not an Assistant To The Director (you know, like “Assistant to Ms. Campion” / “Assistant To Mr. Hanks” / “Assistants To Mr. Rudin”). He Runs The Set. He is In Charge. Period. Picture him as, oh, an overseer on a slave galley, and you’ll be getting somewhere close.
   And he does not want Another Take. He wants you to Move On to the next shot on his schedule. Now. No, Now. Or you’re not going to get those other five shots by the end of the day. Understand? Do You Understand? [↩︎]
5. Which is why crews stick together so much from project to project – it can take a long time to achieve that trust in each other, and once you have it things really do work so much better. The first day with a new crew is always, well, a bit shambolic… [↩︎]
6. True story – how did you guess? [↩︎]
7. Except arguably in Pixar movies, where every single thing you see anywhere on the screen matches perfectly, is there for a reason, is exactly as it should be, and has had at least twenty exceptionally talented people working on it for a month. Which is (in part) why they are so effective in sucking audiences so completely into their world. [↩︎]
8. The other part is the usual stuff like, y’know, story and script. [↩︎]
9. Which is why while it may appear that they don’t have anyone doing my job, in effect it’s more that they have about four hundred people doing it. [↩︎]
10. Just a bee’s sneeze to the left on that reflector please Mark. [↩︎]
11. Which is pretty much the whole business of film-making, but that’s rather outside our remit here [↩︎]

Yes. I make mistakes all the time. Most of the time, no-one except me ever realises – but I realise. And hate it. And try very hard to make sure that I don’t make the same mistake again.^[1]

Mostly, they’re not important mistakes – and not ones that anyone other than me (or another scripty) will notice. So then I just fix them, and make a note (for myself, or for the editor too).^[2]

But, occasionally they are important.^[3][4] At which point I have to take a deep breath, ‘fess up, and try to get them put right.^[5]

1. If you don’t get better and learn something new every day, you need a different job. [↩︎]
2. And no, I don’t have a photographic memory. I do have a lot of photographs, and a lot of notes. I’m not relying on my memory – I write everything down, take photographs, and constantly scan and cross-check. [↩︎]
3. Such as the unfortunate “Um – isn’t his other arm meant to be broken?” moment. Where we didn’t have time to fix it, so it stayed in. And where strangely, no-one watching has ever been aware (well, it was a long-shot through a window and the cast was off by the next time we saw the character and so on). [↩︎]
4. Okay, yes, there have been big mistakes too, but no, I’m not telling you about those. [↩︎]
5. This is partly why many people think of Continuity as something of a thankless task – people only notice when it’s wrong. When you do your job well, no-one ever knows about it. But hey, I know. [↩︎]