Two kinds of continuity
Continuity happens at two scales, and they're handled differently.
Scene-to-scene continuity is about story time. If scene 42 and scene 61 are the same rainy night, Maya's jacket is equally wet in both even though they shoot on different days. This is planned in prep, from the story day chart and the breakdown sheets.
Shot-to-shot continuity is about matching within a scene. The actor picks up the mug on the same word in the wide, the over, and the close-up. This is tracked live on set, take by take, by the script supervisor, the props person, and the actors themselves.
What gets tracked
A single entry in a continuity log for one setup:
| Field | Entry |
|---|---|
| Scene / setup / take | 7 / 7C / take 4 (circled) |
| Story day | D1 |
| Wardrobe | Joe: grey hoodie, sleeves pushed to elbows; watch on left wrist |
| Hair/makeup | Joe: hair wet from rain (scene 6 continuous) |
| Props | coffee mug in right hand, half full; keys on table, left of napkin |
| Action | Joe sits on "You're late," picks up mug on "Relax" |
| Eyeline | Maya camera left of lens |
| Notes | envelope slid with left hand in takes 1-3, right hand in 4; director preferred 4 |
That last note is the kind of thing that saves an editor. If the close-up of the envelope was shot with the left hand, the editor now knows which takes can cut together. The script supervisor's notes feed the continuity report and the lined script.
Department photos go alongside: costume shoots each actor front and back per change, makeup shoots faces and wounds, and set dressing photographs the set before a strike.
How the breakdown sets it up
Continuity problems usually start as breakdown gaps. A few that the breakdown should catch:
- Recurring props tagged in only the first scene they appear in
- Wardrobe states (wet, torn, bloody) without a clear progression across scenes
- A continuous scene pair with a scene number gap between them, like 6 and 7, split across shoot days
- A picture vehicle damaged in one scene and clean in a scene shot later that happens earlier in the story
- Weather: a scene that follows a rain scene in story time but is scheduled for a sunny exterior day
Common confusion
People tend to think of continuity as a wardrobe and props job. Performance continuity (the line reading, the level of anger, the hand the actor uses) causes plenty of mismatches too, and the editor can't fix those with a crop. Scheduling also affects it: the 1st AD can reduce risk by shooting continuous scenes on the same day where the locations allow.
For how items are tracked across scenes in software, Storiara's Assets module tags props and wardrobe to specific scenes; see props and wardrobe.