Continuity

Most people are familiar with the fundamental problem of continuity in film-making; e.g. someone who was out in a storm enters a room … and appears completely dry! Because sequences are shot in the most convenient order (which is usually different from the final edited running order), errors and incongruities can easily arise.

Regular continuity problems

• Temporal discontinuity. When the visual clues to the passing of time are inconsistent in successive shots; i.e. clock time, seasons, ageing.

• Physical discontinuity. Variation in appearance or physical state between shots; clothing, action, items being consumed or used; e.g. wearing a raincoat in one shot, but not the next.

• Location discontinuity. A person unexplainedly changes their location; e.g. we see them standing in one place… cut to a graphic… cut back to them, and they are now somewhere else.

• Pictorial discontinuity. Where there is supposed to be continuity, an exterior should not appear ‘day’ in one shot, and ‘night’ in the next, A series of shots should be reasonably matched in brightness, exposure, color quality.

• Spatial discontinuity. Loss of any sense of direction or location during intercutting; particularly where backgrounds are similar (e.g. in a forest). Has A nearly caught up with B or is he still some distance behind?

• Attention discontinuity. On switching, having to search around the new picture to find where the subject is.

• Relationship discontinuity. Mismatched cuts, causing the subject’s position in the frame to change considerably on the cut, momentarily disrupting the picture flow (jump cuts, reverse cuts).

Deliberate discontinuity

We do not need to see every moment of an action sequence to follow what is going on. A cir stops outside a house, and an instant later, we see the person entering a room. All the intermediate action is omitted, to quicken the pace. The TV/film audience has long since been accustomed to the conventions of filmic time in which the action jumps on in time, and filmic space intercutting action that is concurrent at different places.

Similarly, in a cooking demonstration, we realize that we are not seeing every moment of the process, and a mix/dissolve becomes a time transition between stages.

Cutaway shots are now so accepted as a way of introducing ‘time jumps’ or ‘viewpoint jumps’ that the audience is usually unaware of the subterfuge.

Broken continuity

When retaking action, avoid broken continuity due to articles having been consumed or repositioned throughout the original take. Action and positions should be matched.

Deliberate discontinuity

The various stages of making a decorative bangle from a plastic bottle section wrapped with string. Showing isolated steps, saves the time and tedium of watching the entire process in continuity.