2. Continuity
Continuity problems occur when there are inconsistencies between shots or scenes. Continuity requires every detail on screen
to remain the same across takes, whether this be the costumes, set, props, etc.
It is important to ensure your film has continuity as it helps keep viewers engaged and immersed in what they are watching. If
they are focusing on how a costume keeps changing or how a prop keeps jumping from left hand to right then they won’t be
giving their full attention to the important elements of the film such as the dialogue or the story.
Maintaining continuity can take extra time and care during productions, but it’s well worth doing to improve the quality and
immersivity of your film. There are several ways you can ensure you keep continuity between scenes. These include; Taking
photos of your sets and actors so you can ensure everything remains consistent between takes, keeping continuity reports which
details things like camera settings and props, and try to plan your shoots for days that are close together so you aren’t leaving
too much time to make errors.
Problems to consider when making my own productions regarding continuity would be whether I maintain it. I have made films
in the past with some obvious continuity errors that haven’t been picked up till after the film was published and using some of
the methods listed above could help me ensure that costumes didn’t change between shots.
3. The Wizard of Oz (1939) – Dir. Victor Fleming
The wizard of Oz is a film that has a lot of continuity errors throughout that are
pretty noticeable when you know what you are looking for. Examples include;
Dorothy’s hair changing length (as seen on the left), Dorothy’s shoes consistently
change between the iconic ruby slippers and some black shoes she likely used off
set, and when the witch melts, her broom moves places in the following scenes.
Whilst these scene don’t ruin the film, and most of them require the spectator to
be actively searching for them, they can easily be avoided. If the crew had
effectively used someone who could take pictures of the set and characters
between takes, then they wouldn’t have encountered so many of these mistakes
as they could look back on how the scene was organised in the previous shot
and ensure the current take matches up with it where it needs to. This film is a
great case study as to why you should put always put time away to make sure
the film’s continuity is correct. It isn’t always completely obvious the audience
which is likely the reason as to why it is sometimes overlooked by some
filmmakers, but once it is brought too an audiences attention then it can take
them out of the film resulting in a less immersive experience.
4. Lighting Tests
Lighting tests are a film procedure which is used to ‘test’ how the lighting will look on your actors on
screen. To do this, filmmakers will usually get someone who has a similar skin tone and build to the
main actor (it isn’t usually the actor who does this) so they can visualise how the main actor will look
on screen.
They do this so they can fix any errors with the lighting and get it all set-up so when the time comes
to film the main actor, the lighting is ready and the crew can move on to other things like filming.
You would need to consider continuity when performing lighting tests so you don’t have two different
lighting styles whilst filming. You’d also have to ensure that you can get a stand-in who looks like the
actor, as light can appear differently on different people and you may find that your set-up that works
on your stand-in, doesn’t work for your actor.
5. The images on the right are from a lighting test performed by a Media studies
student who wanted to experiment with both Noir lighting and green screen
filmmaking. They conduct lighting tests to see how the film would look with a
particular light set up and whether they’d want the film to look the way it does
or whether they’d need to adjust anything. The black and white shots have a lot
of low key lighting that result in a lot oof contrast between the brightest and
darkest parts of the image. This looks very effective especially for the genre and
I’d image they’d choose to go with this lighting set-up or something similar. The
green screen work wasn’t as effective. The lighting on the green screen wasn’t
even so their were different shades of green in the film likely resulting in it
being more difficult to key in the image they wanted to use. Also the lighting on
the actor was different to the background making him stand out against it
instead of making him blend in. This isn’t bad though, as it’s the reason behind
a lighting test. They will have been able to see what looked good and what
didn’t and could improve it so that each shot has a similar quality. There aren’t
many reasons to not do a lighting test. It makes sure that an often forgotten but
important part of the cinematography (the lighting) looks good and even though
there will be additional cost and time associated with it, it wouldn’t be as big as
if you didn’t do it and made a mistake in the final stages of production.
6. Storyboarding/Narrative
Storyboarding is the process of planning out what every single shot looks like by
creating a visual aid either by drawing out how the shot should look or by using a
camera and shooting the scenes from a film using only stills.
By compiling these drawings/stills you will be able to see how every shot in your film
should look when it comes to filming. Any shots that don’t work as well on paper as
they did in your head can then be changed before production. It allows you to ensure
you are 100% happy with your film looks before you start making it.
Storyboarding can be quite a lengthy process and you have to ensure you start it sooner
rather than later during production otherwise you can either wind up with delays, or
you’ll be forced to cut corners which can severely effect the quality of the film.
7. Spider-man 2 (2004) – Dir. Sam Raimi
Storyboarding is important for several reasons. It help you vision exactly
what each shot will look like ensuring that you haven’t accidently missed
any gaps in the story or even small continuity shots. It also allows you to
see whether the film will work or whether you’ll have to make changes.
The storyboard on the left is of the train scene from spiderman. We see
how the scene pans out and how the shots connect to one another. A
storyboard is particularly useful in aa blockbuster film as directors can
work out whether a big idea (such as a fight on a train) would work in
practice and not just in theory as they can see the scene unfolding on
paper. They also help save time and money as you won’t need to go back
to do as many reshoots as you’d commonly need due to having efficiently
planned it all out.
Photography storyboards are also an option you can take. These are
storyboards where stand in adopt the roles of characters and act out the
film in stills. This allows the director to see how the film could look, and
make appropriate changes where they feel they are necessary. They are
more details than drawings as you can see charters, sets, angles etc, how
they would be on set, but it is more expensive as you usually have to have
sets build, and actors (or stand-ins) used to plan out the film.
8. Shot Testing
Shot Testing allows you to experiment with film ensuring that everything that you planning on using
works as you expect it. This can include the shot types, the angles of the shot, the cameras and
lenses used, the post-production possibilities such as VFXs or CGI (it can be good to give test shots
to special effects artists to they can explore the possibility of VFXs and tell the director exactly what
needs to be filmed for them to be able to successfully work with it).
It is very beneficial to do some shot testing before you start shooting the footage you intend to use
as it allows you to see how everything looks on screen and gives you an opportunity to practice
some (possibly tricky) cinematography before you have to execute it for real.
Shot testing can be quite labour intensive and can take up a substantial amount of time before
filming but it’s very important to do in order to test how your shot types will look on screen. It is
also important to consider camera setting so no details are changed between testing and filming as
that would effect the final product.
9. When To Do A Test Shoot For Your Film
Test shooting, similarly to storyboarding, is very useful for seeing if the shots you
have planned are practical, and whether there are any changes you’d have to
make before you started shooting. The video linked above shows how test shoots
can be done and explain what it is you are hoping to achieve by doing them. You
aren’t recreating the film, but are simply looking at whether the shot would work.
You don’t need the exact costumes, locations or camera angles (unless these are
the reasons you are doing the test shoot) so it isn’t too much of an additional cost
unlike making a photography storyboard which would be more effective if you
included the correct settings, angles and costumes. The link also mentions that
test footage can be really useful when sent to different members of the
production and post production crew. If there is a particular edit or VFXs that you
are after, you can send the test footage over to the editors, who may be able to
work out a ways of doing so by experimenting on the test footage, which would
make the final cut look a lot nicer due to the additional pre-time. This would likely
cost you more though as you’d have to pay the crew for extra work. Test shoots
aren’t always require, especially for simpler films that have been effectively
planned out and lower budget films may not be able to afford them when
compared to the traditionally drawn storyboard (They are cheaper than
photography storyboards as they don’t require costumes, set, etc, but they do still
require you to pay for workers and possibly the use of the kit). Overall, I’d
recommend doing one if you can as it’ll highlight and mistake or impracticalities
with the storyboard and you’ll likely save a lot by spotting these early if they arise.
Test Shot
Final Shot
10. Shot composition
Shot composition refers to how you place and arrange elements of your film on screen and
the message that is conveyed by how you choose to do this.
Planning this out is extremely important as it can be what makes the audience look at
particular elements of your film. You can include important characters and details in the
middle of the shot to ensure audiences notice them, or you could break the rules of
composition and place things away from where audiences usually look to try to try and
increase audience interaction. By planning this out, you can add extra depth to your film
and it also makes your film more aesthetically pleasing.
You have to ensure that the lenses, camera settings, shot type, etc remains the same
throughout planning and filming. If you plan your shot using a particular layout, then you
can’t change how or what that shot is filmed with otherwise you’ll be met with a different
looking shot which may not portray the same thing as you’d intended.
11. Rear Window (1954) – Dir. Alfred Hitchcock
Rear Window is a good example film when looking at why
composition is important in photography. It uses the rule of thirds
a lot to direct the audiences view to particular points of the
frame. The rule of thirds is the most popular type of composition
and it creates four points on the frame where the eye is drawn to.
In the image at the top, L.B. Jefferies’ face is placed in the top
right point, his hand is in the bottom right and the camera he is
holding stretches across from the bottom right point to the
bottom left. According to related theory, this rule works as your
eye is naturally drawn to the middle on an image, so placing the
subjects elsewhere results in your eye having to look around for it
meaning your eye stays on the image for longer meaning you see
more of the image. It also allows for two characters to contrast
one another in placement on the screen. In the bottom image,
Lisa’s face is in the top left which is the exact opposite of the
screen as Jefferies who is situated in the bottom right of the
screen. Not only can this be used to show power (Jefferies is in a
wheelchair and is less powerful (thus smaller) than Lisa, but it
creates a more visually appealing shot.
12. Film based role I’d like to do: Screenwriter
5 Photography uses ranked from most to least important:
1.) Storyboarding/Narrative – The screenwriter is in charge of developing the story and the storyboard can show how well the director and
cinematographer has understood the narrative. If the storyboard doesn’t show the right film that has been intended by the screenwriter, then it’s
likely the film will also fail to capture what the writer intended.
2.) Shot Testing – After seeing the story on a storyboard, it is then time to see how it looks on camera. This includes what distance the film is shot
from, what angle, how the actors costumes look, how the set looks etc. At this point, the screenwriter can mention whether there is something that
has been lost in translation between page and screen, and whether the mise on scene and cinematography represents everything that it was
intended to.
3.) Lighting Tests – Lighting tests are important for similar reasons to shot tests. They can let the writer know if the story that he wrote is going to be
produced and conveyed in the right way.
4.) Continuity – Whilst this isn’t a huge concern to the screenwriter, they may notice if a particular prop or clothing piece that represents something
in the story has been neglected between scenes. For example clothing can say a lot about a character, and the screenwriter will have considered this
whilst writing, if these elements are missing in certain scenes, a screenwriter may chose to bring this up to the crew.
5.) Shot Composition – Shot composition has a similar importance to 2-5, but is arguable the one they will care least about. There may be some
instances where they have wrote about a particular composition in the script but it isn’t something they usually tend to focus on. They are likely to
leave this up to cinematographers and directors to design.
