Exercises in Continuity

For today, we enjoyed a little demonstration aka exercise in continuity. As most will probably know, film continuity is one of the most vital parts of storytelling since it keeps the illusion of the created world (and story) alive.

Botched continuity - like the breaking of the 180-degree-rule or the switching of cigarettes between hands - can be annoying and even disruptive to the keen eye of the cinephile and are to avoid at all cost.

But how difficult is it to uphold a film's continuity? And how do you spot continuity errors?

On massive film sets, there will be this one dedicated eagle eye aka script or continuity supervisor whose sole purpose it is to not only keep an eye on the actors, the props and the scene but who also checks that XXXX.

To demonstrate us how vexing and mentally challenging this job can be, we were set out to a little experiment today. Five of us left the room while the rest would be arranging various objects on a table. The five guys would come back and now have 30 seconds to try and memorise the objects on the table. After that, they would be sent out again and we would rearrange or change the objects as we pleased. The group outside would then come again a second time and now they would have to guess all the objects that changed and how.

Needless to say that after one round each, everyone was mentally exhausted. Imagine doing that job (okay, not to that specific extent, but still) for a whole day, several days or weeks in a row! Being overflowed by impressions, perhaps even under time pressure as is customary on set, it is easier to overlook a detail or more than you would like to admit.

An actor who would play a scene slightly differently or who is ambidextrous and thus does not recognise that he changed hands or even long scheduled breaks between the shoot of the beginning of the scene and the shoot of its end, can really mess with your continuity.

Which is why I will make sure to be prepared and not only know the script by heart, but also be equipped with a camera and pen and paper to capture every tiny detail on set. After all, preparation is key to success.

Which brings me to another topic: Smoke machines! Not only because I am looking forward to the exercise on and the handling of an actual smoke machine, but also because it just dawned upon me that this might pose tremendous continuity issues for my upcoming 'Me, Myself, and I'-project. I will have to make sure that the smoke remains a rather subtle background filler instead of an actual recognisable waft of air.

Yay!