You would not believe how easy it is for the most well known and popular movies to have continuity problems.
What exactly are continuity problems? Have you ever watched a scene unfold where a character is drinking a glass of water, finishes the water, and then all of a sudden has more water without anyone filling it? That’s a continuity problem. They can be subtle screen errors or massive mistakes that pull us out of the movie. But however big it is, it’s the responsibility of the on set script supervisor to prevent potential continuity errors.
Vanity fair recently put out a video of Martin Scorsese’s script supervisor analyzing a scene for errors and showing how to fix the errors on set.
The script supervisor, often called “scripty”, carefully watches everything happening in the frame to ensure that everything that happens in the first angle is repeated in the following angles. This means the scripty keeps track of things like the background extras, the environment, and what the actors are doing and saying.
This is such a crucial role because later on when the edit is splicing scenes together, editors have a hard time doing so if there are massive mistakes in continuity that pull the audience out of the story.
Take in some sweet filmmaking advice, give the video a watch, and learn how you too can be a script advisor!
