Former Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats tweeted a number of valuable storytelling rules during her time at the animation studio.

1. You admire a character for trying more,  than for their successes.
2. You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.
3. Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.
4. Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
5. Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.
6. What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?
7. Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.
8. Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.
9. When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.
10. Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.
11. Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.
12. Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.
13. Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.
14. Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.
15. If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.
16. What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.
17. No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.
18. You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.
19. Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.
20. Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?
21. You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?
22. What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

 

Read through the end-credits of any blockbuster movie and you’ll see hundreds… sometimes even thousands of names roll by. Everyone from the top tier directors, producers and actors to the truck drivers and craft services get their name on the big screen.

But do you know the  film crew member(s) among these names  who is  responsible for guaranteeing that everything in a scene was in the exact location and laid out in the same manner take after take, even if the shooting schedule covered days or weeks at a time?

The responsible film crew member is  the Script Supervisor, also  known as the continuity person. 

The Script Supervisor keeps track of what parts of the script have been filmed and makes notes of any deviations between what was actually filmed and what appeared in the script. They make notes on every shot, and keep track of props, blocking, and other details to ensure continuity from shot to shot and scene to scene. The Script Supervisor’s notes are given to the Editor to expedite the editing process. The Script Supervisor works very closely with the Director on set.

Keeping continuity straight can be difficult. Consider that the crew might shoot an outdoor winter scene for a Christmas movie in the spring, then they discover that they need to go back for some pickup shots in the fall, long after the movie has wrapped. Not only does the fake snow need to look real, it needs to fall with the same consistency as the fake snow in the scenes shot months earlier, and all the props around the scene need to lie in the same way. It’s nearly impossible and directors and editors will often use cutaway tricks to mask the break in continuity.

Even with all the diligent efforts of the Script Supervisor,  all the  hundreds of photographs of a scene and thousands of notes on detail, light placement, actor marks, etc.,  accidents still happen.

Are you curious as to what these mistakes are ? 

But of course you are.

Have you personally noticed mistakes in movies?

Probably.

Well, there is a website devoted to these “accidents”   www.moviemistakes.com where you can see the continuity mistakes from all of your favorite movies.

 

#1: Poor Soundtrack – One of the first mistakes beginning editors make has nothing to do with the image. The soundtrack often makes or breaks a video production. No amount of excellent video can overcome a poor soundtrack.

Even the most basic video editing programs provide at least some means of audio editing, volume control, and equalization. Use them. For videotaped interviews where the person is heard but not seen, edit out distracting “uhs,” “ums,” and other audio “fluff,” including awkward pauses. This technique applies when supporting images or footage (called “B” roll material) is displayed while the person talks. This helps the person interviewed appear to be a better communicator than they actually are, and will improve your video and shorten your program (a good thing). A sure sign of a beginning editor is an ignored soundtrack.

#2: Wrong Music Selection- Music moves people. The wrong music (or no music at all) can move people to tears—of boredom. Take the time to seek out or create the music which will literally underscore your program. When mixing music with narration or interviews, be sure the music complements the spoken words in style, tempo, and volume.

#3 Poor Organization – Every video editing software program offers some means of organizing the elements of your video: titles, audio, video clips, pictures, sound effects, etc. The organizing tools include digital folders, sub-folders, clip bin icon display options, and file naming/renaming features. Master their use. Decide not to allow yourself onto the timeline until all your raw material is well organized and easy to locate. If you know you have the perfect shot or picture somewhere but can’t find it, then you really don’t have it. And don’t even think of leaving unlabeled videotapes lying around. An unlabeled videotape is crying out, “Erase me, please!”

#4 Too Long – Everyone, without exception, during the early stages of their video editing journey creates scenes and video programs that could be improved—sometimes dramatically—by simply making them shorter, tighter, and more concise. Keep only the essentials. Shorten, shorten again, then shorten some more. “When it doubt, cut it out” is the video editor’s eternal chant. The over-used phrase “less is more” is never truer than when editing video. Edit mercilessly (but remain merciful).

#5: Weak Start and Weak Finish Spend three to five times as much time on your opening and closing 60 seconds as you do on any other portion of your video. Like every good book, movie, or message, the importance of your video’s opening and conclusion is impossible to overstate. Pull out all the stops for your start. That doesn’t mean going on “visual overload” with all manner of purposeless digital transitions, over-the-top soundtrack, in-your-face computer graphics, and 70s-music-video special effects. It means you have thought long and hard about how you are going to grab your viewer’s attention for what’s coming next. Simplicity can be very dramatic.

#6: Overused Special Effects Only the few, the brave, the strong, and the wise avoid the trap of sprinkling all manner of special effects throughout their videos. Sure, your editing software (not to mention your video camera) has dozens, even hundreds, of ways to manipulate your titles, pictures, and video clips. Flips, spins, tumbles, squeezes, zips, zooms, and fly-a-ways are only a few of the usual suspects. Then there are the video fillers such as strobe, monochrome, motion blur, old movie, sepia, etc. Arrest them. Ignore them 95 percent of the time. They can be appropriate and downright fun in a few (a very few) youth ministry videos, but you would do well to avoid them for the vast majority of your ministry video productions. Don’t be seduced!

#7: Overused Fonts- You can smell this miscue coming. Like the aforementioned overuse of special effects, beginning editors too often fall into “fontmania.” Not only does misuse of onscreen text distract viewers from your message and your story, it is a sure sign of a production without a purpose, or at least an editor without a purpose. Use one or two different, easy-to-read fonts for your well-designed, onscreen text. Maintain consistency in color, size, screen placement, drop shadows, and motion. Sans serif fonts such as Eras Bold, Impact, and Franklin Gothic are much easier to read on-screen than serif fonts such as Times Roman, FreeStyle Script, and Bodini MT.

#8: Wrong Tempo- The pacing of a video must fit the purpose. A memorial tribute video is going to have a very different pace than a youth ministry summer camp highlight video. The wise video editor determines then controls the pace of the video from start to finish. This doesn’t mean the pace never changes. Changing pace throughout a video program serves to renew the viewers attention, refreshing their interest. The video editor has several primary tools for controlling the pace of any video production, including:

• Music tempo, style, and volume, and also it’s absence.
• Duration of scenes and individual shots.
• Transitions from scene to scene.

Faster-paced programs may have little or no visual transition between different scenes. Slower-paced productions often incorporate a slow fade-to-black or cross-dissolve between scenes and segments with accompanying change in music.

The pause is the editors “invisible tool.” A pause is nothing. No thing. Yet it can prove to be a powerful tool for communicating when properly used. There is no way to teach the “magic of the pause” in an article such as this. Not unlike most of life, the learning arrives through the doing. You might want to pause and think about that.

#9: No Speed Changes Overlooking the power of changing the speed of a clip is a common Misstep among beginning editors. Just because our raw footage is all real time doesn’t mean it has to stay that way. We’ve all been powerfully moved by a video editor’s artful combination of music, close-up imagery, and slow motion. On the flip side we’ve all laughed out lout at the comedic effect of high-speed video. Granted, the editor may not have control over how close-up an image appears (although the ability to zoom-in on high definition footage without noticeable loss of quality has overcome even this limitation), but the speed at which a video clip is played is under the editor’s control.

#10: Unnecessary Commentary- Video is a powerful medium because of its ability to combine images, music, and sound. Although text and the spoken word can be part of a video, those elements do not play to video’s strengths. Good editors assume viewers are smart—they honor the audience’s ability to interpret scenes, expressions, and sounds without spoon feeding information through the unnecessary use of titles and commentary (“Here we are at the swimming pool!”). Honor your viewers and give them the satisfaction of discovering the nuances of your program. But make sure the nuances are present.

1. Headhunting–placing every subject in the center of your frame.

2. Motorzooming–overuse of on-screen zooms.

3. Rooting–staying in one spot instead of looking for interesting angles.

4. Firehosing–panning all over the scene.

5. Upstanding–shooting everything from standing eye-level.

6. Snapshooting–taping only two or three seconds per shot.

7. Backlighting–too much light falling on the background instead of on the subject.