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What is film continuity?
Film continuity is a process in filmmaking to make sure elements in the frame stay consistent from one shot to the next, or one scene to the next, as long as they make sense story-wise.
For example, if an actress is speaking to an actor, and we cut back to the actress, her hair or dress shouldn’t change.
Why not? In this case it’s pretty obvious. It distracts from what’s happening in the scene, and takes the audience out of the film. You don’t want that. This is why it’s important to have the same element from one shot to the next, as long as it makes story sense.
You can change an element if the story demands it. On a different day, or in a dream, or whatever, the actress can wear something else. Perfectly normal.
Continuity applies to many aspects of filmmaking. There are elements like hair, clothes, actor position, etc. In Pulp Fiction before the man emerges from the bathroom to shoot, we see bullet holes already on the wall. In Avengers: Endgame, Ant-Man changes location and size in an instant. In The Twilight Saga: New Moon, a tattoo changes position on the actor’s shoulder over different shots. In Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Dalton’s hair changes many times. These are called continuity errors, as a broad term.
You can have continuity errors due to the location. Halloween was set in Illinois but was shot in California. The palm trees and license plates sort of give it away. These errors are not completely under the control of the filmmaker.
There are lighting continuity errors where the light, usually sunlight, should be staying consistent and the shadows are all supposed to stay in one direction but aren’t. Sometimes clouds just roll by and the scene changes entirely.
Sometimes continuity errors happen over a span of films. Doc Ock wears clothes in Spider-Man: No Way Home that he wasn’t wearing in the earlier Spider-Man 2, even though he’s exactly from that timeline.
You also have historical continuity errors, like in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. They blow up a bridge with explosives that weren’t invented during the time period the film is set in.
Sometimes you have crew members visible, or cameras or microphones. I think you get the idea. These errors are typically continuity errors because they’re not supposed to happen.
Why do film continuity errors occur?
Filmmaking is a complex activity. A lot of people are involved over many days or years. Sometimes a scene is shot weeks or months apart. The cinematographer has to recreate the lighting, maybe the art director has to rebuild the exact same set. The costume designer has to make sure the clothes look just the same, and the makeup and hair department has to ensure the look matches. The actor had better not change physically or they will look different.
They might have to recreate the same emotional intensity, and maybe have to repeat the action exactly so they match. And all this is very common in filmmaking, because they save money by filming out of sequence.
Continuity errors are almost always an accident, and sometimes because the filmmakers have no other choice. In a scene in Gladiator you can see the gas tank, but the filmmakers decided the shot was too short for it to matter. Hardly anyone noticed.
All this begs the question:
Is film continuity important?
Absolutely.
Continuity also involves story continuity, editing continuity, sound continuity. Every element in a film must stay consistent when it must. If a film didn’t have any continuity it would be unwatchable, sort of like watching random Tik Tok videos.
The person who’s in charge of film continuity is usually a script supervisor, but really the entire direction team, the assistants as well as the director, is responsible for film continuity.
Film continuity is important, obviously, but are the occasional film continuity errors important?
Actually, no.
The small and infrequent continuity errors don’t matter. What they have realized over a hundred years of cinema is most audiences don’t see continuity errors unless it’s glaringly obvious. Here’s the truth: Every film has continuity errors. I can’t imagine a single film made without any errors whatsoever. There’s always something.
It could be fleeting like the director and crew visible in a reflection in The Godfather Part II or something confounding like a coffee cup in Game of Thrones. Yet the audiences don’t seem to care, and that’s what matters. You can howl at The Twilight Saga: New Moon for all its continuity errors, but the reality is, the film grossed $700 million+, and it sort of puts things in perspective.
If you’re a filmmaker you must pay attention to film continuity, but don’t fret if you make a mistake. Remember, someone already has made an even bigger blunder and has made money from it, so don’t let it spoil your day.
How do you pay attention to film continuity?
Let me show you. I’m going to break it down into three major portions – camera continuity, production continuity and editing continuity.
Let’s start with camera continuity, because that’s where it all begins.
Camera continuity
The simplest camera continuity is the matching of shot size. If your character is in an over the shoulder shot, you balance it in the reverse shot with the exact same shot size. You don’t want to drastically change the size of the actor in the shot or his or her position, because it distracts from the story.
To match shots make sure you use the same focal length, and same subject to camera distance, and this will help you maintain shot size.
The second is eye-line matching. This is probably one of the hardest things for a newcomer to check and be sure about. If two actors are speaking to each other, you want them to look at each other. If the eyeline is off, it appears as if they are looking somewhere else.
How do you fix this? The simplest way to make sure eye-lines match is to not move the actors’ position or look when you change camera angles. When you finish one actor’s portion and shift the camera for the reverse shot, make them sit in the exact spots and make them look at each other. If the first actor isn’t available, use a stand-in, or a light stand, or something.
Number three, the 30-degree rule. When you cut from one shot to the next, try to make sure the camera is away by 30-degrees or more. This ensures there’s no jump in the cut, and it appears better. That’s why you see cuts from multiple angles in feature films.
If 30-degrees wasn’t enough, how about the 180-degree rule? This rule is relatively simple. If an action happens from left to right, keep it that way throughout. If two actors are talking to each other, then keep them looking in the same direction.
Then there’s the point of focus, which is a powerful continuity tool that allows you to hold the action. When you frame shots try to continue the point of the audience’s focus at the exact same spot or at least in the general area. This allows the audience to follow the action, even if it’s a crazy action sequence. Otherwise they’ll be ping-ponging from left to right and get a headache.
Camera motion is also important. If a camera is moving at a particular speed in one shot, and you cut to a shot that’s faster or slower, that distracts the audience as well. It’s important to know at what speed you were moving the camera and to maintain the exact same speed later.
Production continuity
Acting continuity is important too. If an actor is hysterical in one shot he or she has to be at the same intensity in the next shot. If they are panting or tired in one shot, the next shot should be the exact same.
Take hair and makeup continuity. You don’t want actors getting a haircut in the middle of a shoot. Nor do you want to replace your makeup artist in between scenes. Any change just breaks the illusion of time and story you’re creating.
Film continuity also applies to important props necessary for the story, costumes and set design. You don’t want actors to rip apart their only costume in one take and they have to wear something else in the next.
And then there are a whole host of editing continuity rules you should be aware of.
Editing continuity
The first is to match the action. If an actor is stepping down a flight of stairs, make sure you cut at the moment in between so the action doesn’t look sped up or slowed down. If you don’t, you’ll draw attention to it. You can break this rule with action scenes.
The second is the continuity of information. If an actor is getting coffee in one shot, when you cut to the next shot you want them to still be getting coffee, not baking buns.
There’s a higher level of continuity called storytelling continuity. You could have montages where action doesn’t have to match, but there is still continuity of information. The Rocky training sequence is a good example of this.
There’s also basic editing continuity, which is a bit more complex. You want shots to match in a visually graceful way. You don’t want to insert cuts just for the sake of it, unless you’re Michael Bay and you’re making the next Transformers.
One powerful editing continuity rule is the cut on the look. An actor looks, and you cut to what he or she is looking at. If an actor looks up, and the next thing you show are shoes or something else, then the audience is confused.
And finally, the most important rule of all, is to break the rules. Countless great films have been made with the worst continuity errors. At the end of the day, rules are meant to be broken, and with experience, you’ll know when to break which rule, and when you can get away with it.
If the audience doesn’t care, neither should you.
The most missed continuity faux-pax I see is sky clouds/clear etc from scene to scene. Understand different days or time-of-day make different skies/lighting, so I guess sometimes an oversight or budget issue.
The simplest reason is you can’t control the sky and clouds. If a scene has to be shot on a given day it must be done, no matter what.