Continuity Tips for Making a Movie

Video Transcript

"Rhet Rieger White Caspian studios on behalf of Expert Village. I want talk about coverage and continuity. Now it should go without saying that the director has to make sure that everything gets taken care of on a movie set. There are people there to help him but most of that burden is going to lay on his or her shoulders but two things that must be taken care of, must be taken care of on a movie shoot are coverage and continuity. It is so important to have somebody working with the director who will say, somebody move that cup, she's not wearing the right shirt because continuity can destroy a scene if somebody is not, if something is not, does not have continuity in a scene there's often times, there's nothing you can do but re-shoot that scene. So to know that everything is where it is supposed to be especially if you're shooting a scene on one day and completing it on the next day. Where there's a break of time between when you shoot, you've got to make sure the continuity is there. It will save you so much heartache and stress and the other thing is coverage. You can almost not get too much coverage but you can very easily not get enough coverage. So you've got to make sure that you get the cutaway shots and I would suggest, especially if you're shooting digital, do this, shoot the floor, shoot the wall, shoot the cat in the window, shoot the building, shoot people just hanging out just looking at each other on the set. The actors, when they're not, I have used footage in a movie that was not even intended to be used. Actors completely acting out of char, character excuse me, but it worked perfectly for that scene. So again to stress you cannot get too much coverage because it will really save your neck later on."