Script Supervisor Vs. DP

[Andy_Alderslade]

Hi,

 

Mr. M:

 

I think the difference between you and I is that I'm progressively less likely to have any creative input the higher up the chain I go, so frankly I'd rather shoot DVCAM doccos!

 

Phil

 

Common' Phil, go and make a feature, on DVCAM if you like.

 

Andy

[Phil Rhodes]

And the point of that would be...?

[Stephen Williams]

Hi,

 

You know what, I can go out and shoot a day on an industrial or corporate, get work for my gear, do professional, creative work, get paid well, and go home with a smile on my face.

 

Phil,

 

There is alot of truth in that! I shot a industrial film on HDV last month, it was well paid and I was at home by 6.30 three days running!

 

Stephen

[Guest TJ Williams]

HEY looks like its time to set up shots with some continuity problems. maybe get an actor up in the wrong clothing, or jump the line, or reverse and action with the dialog ie dialog lift the coffe cup then in the CU lift the cup then dialog.... and see if the script supervisor can do their own job!!!!!

 

A big problem when the script supervisor is trying to direct is that the continuity can suck. Hell why not just go on break and let the sound person light the thing????

TJ

[Joe Cooper]

Well, considering that the majority of my 30 features were directed by first-timers, I can say that giving directors a film school education IS part of my job if I want the movie to turn out well. That and I (obviously) love teaching. But it just depends on the attitude of the director and how open-minded they are -- an ignorant AND arrogant first-timer is the worst combination and I try and spot them during the job interview so I don't take the job and regret it.

 

I am the same way in regard to avoiding certain types. Don't get me wrong, I have a natural tendency to teach, but when I sense that a particular first time director doesn't really watch movies, or isn't really a visual director, I'd just rather do what I feel is right in terms of the cinematography and let them direct actors.

 

The other issue is, there isn't really a lot of time during a shooting day to be teaching a first timer about the science and art of motion pictures...

 

My biggest problem with script supervisors is a lack of imagination when it comes to screen direction -- they can't get beyond the left and right thing.

 

BINGO!

 

I had a few "discussions" with our former script sup about "crossing the line," and informed this person that she was being waaayy to literal about the "line." Then of course, it gets into the "let's just shoot it both ways" bullsh!t. I was shooting coverage on 2 actors in a room, and our script sup ran out and swore I had the eyeline wrong and produced some diagram that for the life of me, just made no sense, so I told her so. It's one thing to be sitting there drawing little diagrams at the monitor, and quite another to be standing there in the room with the actors and the camera.

 

The other aspect of this conflict is the fact that we are both editors, she being an editor of mainly documentary stuff...

 

I'm just glad this film is getting close to being over, because I feel that my "vision" has been tainted by our script sup and the fact that the director, for whatever reason, just took her word over mine that a shot would or wouldn't work.

 

I would also sometimes shoot with loose focus hand held and of course our script sup would continually make comments about it. I've found that in my neck of the woods, a small city, people tend to not understand certain stylistic approaches to shooting scenes.

 

If I hear one more time, while framing a BCU, that they want more headroom, I'm gonna lose it.

 

HEY looks like its time to set up shots with some continuity problems. maybe get an actor up in the wrong clothing, or jump the line, or reverse and action with the dialog ie dialog lift the coffe cup then in the CU lift the cup then dialog.... and see if the script supervisor can do their own job!!!!!

 

 

HAHAHA. I like that. The funny thing is, our illustrious opinionated script sup DID overlook a wardrobe chage and we shot maybe 500' of film with the wrong wardrobe on an actress!

 

Maybe if the script sup was paying 100% attention to continuity, instead of worrying about my cinematography, we might not have wasted $150. worth of film and 40 minutes of our day.

[Max Jacoby]

The funny thing is, our illustrious opinionated script sup DID overlook a wardrobe chage and we shot maybe 500' of film with the wrong wardrobe on an actress!

It's the wardrobe's job to deal with the wardrobe continuity really. Although the script supervisor should obvioulsy have checked up on it.

[Michael Collier]

Thats true max, it would be wardrobes mistake, but she is a 'last line' type of person. Any mistake that makes it through her watch would make it her fault. Like in TV, if a camera op forgets to move his shot, technically its his fault for not looking at the rundown. But its the directors fault for not looking at his monitors and seeing the problem and fixing it before its too late.

 

Sounds like this script sup has ambitions beyond their current job? Seems a shame though. If you want to DP, then you should be making friends with the DP, not giving them a reason to hate you. When I make the move to california, I plan on spending more money buying beer for DPs (assuming I start by loading or some other camera dept. job) than I will on myself. The idea is to be the guy everyone wants to work with. be the 40% that arent arseholes like one put it. (and that 50-60% of film world being jerks, I think that mirrors the percent in the general population. Maybe just ego and pressure to impress makes it more pronounced.)

[Joe Cooper]

Sounds like this script sup has ambitions beyond their current job? Seems a shame though. If you want to DP, then you should be making friends with the DP, not giving them a reason to hate you.

 

Yeah, really. I have NO intention of recommending her or getting her on any film jobs ever again.

 

She's an example of a crew member who has experience shooting, editing, and directing, who just can't help herself when it comes to commenting on stuff other than continuity.

 

I find this to be very UN-professional.

 

I have worked in just about every crew position there is, and I'm real careful about telling any crew how to do their job, especially the keys.

[Mark Allen]

Just adding that as a hired director on a project once a script supervisor started making comments to the producers about how was planning my shots - that I wasn't getting enough coverage. The producer/investors came to me and said "I know, it's your movie here, but maybe we should add a little coverage for this."

 

Eventhough I thought it was totally unnecessary as it wouldn't relate to the story I said, "That's a great idea actually. It'll cost us a few extra hours to do that - so we'll go into overtime. But it soundslike that's okay with you? Can we do that? Can we afford the extra money?" Never heard another suggestion from the the script sup.

 

I'm sure there are some great script supervisors, but my luck has been mixed. The best one I ever had was right out of school and it was her first job in the industry. She was great and the most professional.

 

 

Just to add another anecdote, last month I had a teleprompter operator riding the dolly. I called cut and the telepromter said to the talent "you need to read it a little faster so we can get through more of the material." The DP gave me this horrified look which almost made the indescression worth it. I thought he was going to kick her off the dolly right there. But I keep things light on sets always. As we reset I casually said "in the future, please don't talk to the talent as I might have a different goal for them than you."

[Joe Cooper]

Have you tried bitch slapping her and telling her she doesnt know anything.

 

HAHA

 

I think the situation will in effect do that for me, since I quit. I heard the crew hates her, and she had a meltdown on set a few days into the final group of days they shot scenes without me.

 

That director traded an artist for a secretary so really, he needs to be bitch slapped too.

Edited October 23, 2006 by Joe Cooper

[kay taylor]

I have returned to film production as script continuity supervisor, watching continuity in camera angle, eye-line, context, text, subtext, props, blocking, wardrobe, make-up, temporal elements, geography, progression, weather, lighting, et al; I provide a record of filming or taping in detailed notes and sometimes digital photos. The great pleasure of collaboration motivates my interaction with all departments. Passion for the process and the art of it all keeps me coming back for more. The athleticism involved in production requiring arduous hours, interaction with independent characters, and often extreme conditions? is all part of the art and science in assisting a vision from the written script to the visceral experience onscreen. I do however require room to execute my duties within the parameters of a script supervisor and expect others to know their craft and parameters and to respect that essential historical and thus well worn formula, for the parts of the machine of production to progress smoothly and effectively. There must also be respect for women from the gentlemen, in language and behavior, on the set. John Sayles, in his book ?Thinking in Pictures, The Making of the Movie Matewan,? has 2 pgs. on "The Politics of the Set, " and it is a most intelligent, concise description of the importance of relationships in respect to the machine of moviemaking. A must read for crew and producers. It begins? ?You hear a lot of metaphors comparing a film crew to a small army. I never wanted to be in the army and I?m not at all interested in running one. The chain of command on a movie set is important as long as it relates to function, the efficient progress of what you?re all trying to do together, and the rest is bullshit,? and ends with, ?Nobody I?ve known who was in the army was very impressed with its efficiency in doing anything but making people miserable.?

 

Essentially there are two schools of coverage in moving images with of course deviations therein. Those two schools are the Bazanian School and the Eisensteinian School. It is the role of the director, production designer, and director of photography to determine what their style and approach will be. As a script supervisor and filmmaker I lean toward the Bazanian School, which is about the democratic eye, composition in depth, wide angles, choreography, allowing the actors to play out the scene as a Gestalt. Ideograms have their place but for the dramatic narrative, Bazin rules, in my book. Look at any of Greg Toland's work. Covering everything and the freakin? doorknob is for sissies. This is the key to continuity...production design and the choice of coverage, it all goes from there. A seasoned storyboard artist makes their weight in gold for the director and DP. Preparation is crucial. Bring script on early. Let her, or him...provide breakdowns to inform scheduling. Light baby...light. That is time of day or night and how that plays is subliminal, the subliminal mind is what a script supervisor/continuity coordinator oversees. A good one will have an editor's sense of timing and coverage, a cinematographer's eye, a producer's insistence on production values and getting it right on set, not fixing it in post, and a sensitivity toward the actors and when they need you and when they don?t. Then you want someone who has the detail and record keeping skills of an archivist; dates, times, cross-referencing camera rolls, sound/disc rolls, correct slates, notes detailing why or how something worked or didn't will save you hours and hours in post. I am there for the editor, but I am also there for the actor, director, assistant director, producer, cinematographer, art dept., grip & lighting, wardrobe, make-up, et al, and not necessarily in that order. Remember...design your coverage for the content and import and within the context of the locations and production. Context is all. A script supervisor has it made in the shade when all departments know their roles. It is a fictive world you are creating...what is the time and space of the dramatic story; one day, 40 days, or eons? Remember continuity and filmmaking is collaborative. If you can get past the egos for the big picture, you belong; otherwise sell cars. Of course begin with a good script. Then hire a good script supervisor, good actors, cinematographer, et al. Finally, shoot film not DV, it will save you time and money and when formats change, you will have something that lasts...and feed the crew it is good business you don't starve a horse and ride it.

 

There are so many more nuances and situations. I have seen a movie about a war, shot mostly in close-ups, saving huge amounts of money on big scenes with hundreds of extras, cranes, et al, and still making the story work. It is about budget and context, which defines you, restricts you and brings the balance. Low budget does not have to sacrifice great storytelling. The 180 degree rule should not inhibit brilliance in cinematic and editorial choices; framing, landscape, light, progression, and geography. Give the audience credit and show the whole freakin' circumference, human figures interacting within and against space, time, light, and shadow, and absolute darkness... allow room to breathe humanity; movement within the structure of drama. This requires, creating a location, a space, for the actors to be in. Do not restrict this. Sacrifice elements if need be. However, know what you are doing. Continuity of style, directing, and acting will transcend time and space. Metaphor allows mirroring of action, crossing the line on movement, or in a breath that is held, brings emphasis. Disorient the viewer, if you must, to achieve your didacticism. Brechtian opposition engages the eye and the intellect. Democracy is dead. Cinema is propaganda, it can move thought, belief, and stasis. There is a quickening afoot in our universe, it is necessary, and filmmakers must rise to this occasion, it is brief and fleeting this window we live in. Monopolizing the view is the duty of the artists of our century, as it is only since the mid 19th century, that we have had this tool, the seventh art. The great Russian filmmaker, Eisenstein understood this, there are others; Dziga Vertov, Oliver Stone, David Lean, Jean Renoir, Scorcese, the Dogma school, the structuralists, the surrealists, Cocteau, Fellini... What is the story, and in what context are you telling it? That is both the beginning and the end of what determines how one lays it down. When art interfaces with humanity, myth making both reflects and influences culture and history.

Kay Taylor, script continuity supervisor/continuity coordinator and archivist. script180@earthlink.net

 

"You shouldn't be looking at this as a continuity. Film frames are hieroglyphs, even when they look like actuality. You should think of the individual frame, always, as a glyph, and then you'll understand what cinema is about." - Harry Smith

www.harrysmitharchives.com/

 

"Godard also explodes the ?necessity? of the ?180-degree rule? in À Bout de souffle when he places the camera on the opposite side of the road for one of the shots in the sequence portraying a police pursuit, and thus transforms a normal cinematic convention of continuity into poetic montage, as a shot of Jean-Paul Belmondo's auto speeding to the right of the frame cuts to a shot of the motorcycle cops speeding to the left of the frame, giving cheeky visual expression to the tête-à-tête conflict about to erupt. Furthermore, sidewalk tracking-shots were set up on a rigged wheelchair as a cheap alternative to a conventional dolly; their inclusion in the film comes replete with passers-by staring into the lens, lending a documentary realism to a picture that, after all, aspires to record life (although Godard would later repeat in many interviews his realization that À Bout de souffle was more akin to a fairy tale)". http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/dir.../03/godard.html

 

"I'm full of fears and I do my best to avoid difficulties and any kind of complications. I like everything around me to be clear as crystal and completely calm. I don't want clouds overhead. I get a feeling of inner peace from a well-organised desk. When I take a bath, I put everything neatly back in place. You wouldn't even know I'd been in the bathroom."

- Alfred Hitchcock

 

"Psycho has a very interesting construction and that game with the audience was fascinating. I was directing the viewers. You might say I was playing them, like an organ." - Alfred Hitchcock

 

"You know that the public always likes to be one jump ahead of the story; they like to feel they know what's coming next. So you deliberately play upon this fact to control their thoughts. You turn the viewer in one direction and then in another; you keep him as far as possible from what's actually going to happen." - Alfred Hitchcock

 

"I do not believe that we are in Plato's cave. We are, for inestimable eternity, suspended between the body of a giant and the object of his regard. I am therefore not seated but suspended under a beam of light. This light is alive." - Jean-Louis Schefer

 

"When Hitchcock's camera flies through the arch, all this is left behind. Not just the space of theatre, but the laws of natural perception, too. In cinema, as in theatre, the spectator's relation to the frame defining the spectacle may be constant and fixed, but the proportions of the actors in relation to that frame vary without any regular measure and the implied point of view from which they are observed shifts from moment to moment in a way that is, in principle, completely unpredictable and out of the spectator's control. At any moment, for example, I may find myself thrown into impossibly intimate proximity with a face, enduring a situation more intimate than any natural interaction would allow, then hurled just as uncontrollably back into detached distance, or perhaps, instead, somehow find my world reversed, somehow find myself staring back at things from within the face I had just been staring into."

 

"Nothing tells me in advance where I will be, in relation to what, as a film unfolds. I can never determine the next thing I will see in relation to my current point of view on the action. The decision is literally out of my hands. Worse than that - but also better than that - I cannot know with any surety from whose or what point of view I monitor the action as it unfolds. I am, in effect, no longer in command of my own perception, which has been cut off from the possibility of any effective reaction and is no longer conditioned by the context of my intentions and responses, no longer regulated by the continuous self-possession of my own point of view as my body interacts with the world. Cinema is above all a controlled crisis of proxemics."

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/00/6/psycho.html

Cutting The Flow: Thinking Psycho by Bill Schaffer

 

?Whale's interest in the possibilities of cinema combined such qualities of the theatre with Brechtian cinematic techniques such as his breaking of the ?30 degree rule? of continuity editing, thus calling attention to the cuts and camera placement at the same repeated angles. (15) The best-remembered example of this is Karloff's first appearance in Frankenstein. His entrance anticipated by offscreen sound (used very inventively by Whale, as early as 1931), the creature backs in through a doorway, creating suspense as we await our first look at him. Cutting along roughly the same axis to closer and tighter shots, deliberately not changing the angle by the conventional 30 degrees, Whale forces us to notice two cuts. He does likewise with the Invisible Man and with the entrance of the abusive husband (Colin Clive) as he visits the wife who has fled him in One More River. Even one such cut along an unchanging axis in The Road Back gives a first hint that the girlfriend of one of the WWI veterans is not as steadfast as he expects. Of course not every such use of editing is for a monster or a villain; cutting in extremely tightly on Helen Morgan as she delivers her heartbreaking rendition of ?Bill? in Show Boat highlights both a woman's performance and her pain."

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/dir...s/05/whale.html

Historiography, Homophobia and Authorship: The Case of James Whale

by David Lugowski

 

?What is saved in the cinema when it achieves art is a spontaneous continuity with all mankind. It is not an art of the princes or the bourgeoisie. It is popular and vagrant. In the sky of the cinema people learn what they might have been and discover what belongs to them apart from their single lives.?

John Berger quotes (English Painter, b.1926)

 

I

[Leo Anthony Vale]

Essentially there are two schools of coverage in moving images with of course deviations therein. Those two schools are the Bazanian School and the Eisensteinian School.

 

A strawman academic dichotomy.

[Joe Cooper]

OK...

 

It gets better. The script sup in question is editing the film.

Edited November 2, 2006 by Joe Cooper

[Bill Schaffer]

I enjoy seeing my academic musings on film quoted by creative people (i wrote the rave on Hitchcock and proxemics). Thanks!

[Matt Stevens]

Well, considering that the majority of my 30 features were directed by first-timers, I can say that giving directors a film school education IS part of my job if I want the movie to turn out well. That and I (obviously) love teaching. But it just depends on the attitude of the director and how open-minded they are -- an ignorant AND arrogant first-timer is the worst combination and I try and spot them during the job interview so I don't take the job and regret it.

 

Occasionally I do get burned by working with a director who can't think visually to save his life -- it's not so much an issue of experience because many first-timers can have an inherent visual imagination and sense of aesthetics, just that some people don't think in terms of images, and why they want to be movie directors is a mystery (well, I guess it's the potential of glamour, fame, getting laid, etc. but they'll never get any good at directing.)

 

My biggest problem with script supervisors is a lack of imagination when it comes to screen direction -- they can't get beyond the left and right thing. I actually look for opportunities to creatively cross the line and get away with it because it can be so limiting to just keep everything on one axis. I like reverse 180 degree symmetrical shots ala Kubrick or Kurosawa, but this can cause some script supervisors to get bent out of shape ("it will never cut!!!") no matter how many examples you cite from film history (which some are ignorant of) where it did "cut". It's very important for a DP to understand screen direction so they that know how to break it intentionally.

 

My general rule is that as long as the spatial relationships are clear, the main thing to worry about is the eyelines when intercutting close-ups. But in wider shots, I don't think it matters if you jump to different perspectives where people change positions in the frame or relative to each other. You just have to understand how the scene will be cut.

 

Thank you for stating this! Well said.

 

For my feature I've created an initial shot list (for the NYC section, which will be about a 10 day shoot) and have been running into 'opinions' involving my coverage being non-traditional. Certain people seem to want cookie cutter Wide, Mid and Close setups for everything. "Wait, if you do a slow dolly in, we need to have close-ups and mid shots because no way can you just do that scene in one shot." What? Really?

 

So then why do we need a director? Why not just have the DP direct with absolutely no visual style at all? We'll just sit the camera on a tripod and shoot wides, mids and close-ups and that's it.

 

Our budget is low so there is the issue of setup times and that means I really need to pull a John Carpenter on Halloween and know what shots I need and what shots I do not. We're not shooting an episode of Seinfeld or Friends where everything is the same standard setup.

 

Frankly speaking, I know exactly what I need, how I want the camera to move and when and for what reason! My biggest fight may be getting what I want so that my film is MY film and not Joe Generic's. We are still a few months away from principle photography so I have time to educate them and that is exactly what I will have to do via showing them scenes from various films so they can understand why a scene doesn't need the same tired Wide Mid Close setup.

 

If something is planned as a long steadicam shot, then dammit, we shoot it as a long steadicam shot. We don't do the steadicam and then spend half a day breaking it up into little pieces just because one producer is completely panicked over not having enough coverage.

[David Mullen ASC]

Just stick to your plans. I mean, you'll want a little flexibility in post for editing, but that doesn't mean a lot of coverage, just some options to trim a scene if necessary.