Directing, 5th Edition

CHAPTER 30

MONITORING CONTINUITY AND PROGRESS

A director’s recurring nightmare is to discover, when crew and cast have departed, that a vital angle or shot has been overlooked. When a film’s story proceeds by a series of images, or when the narrative is carried by nonverbal actions, directing and keeping track of what you have covered are relatively simple. Mistakes and omissions occur more frequently when scenes involve several simultaneous actions, such as crowd or fight scenes with many people in frame whose relativity must match from shot to shot. Even complex dialogue scenes, especially those with characters moving around, can spring unpleasant surprises when shooting crosses the axis or if reaction shots get forgotten. Fatigue and last-minute ...