Continuity (fiction)

Last updated

In fiction, continuity is the consistency of the characteristics of people, plot, objects, and places seen by the audience over some period of time. It is relevant to many genres and forms of storytelling, especially if it is long-running.

Contents

Continuity is particularly a concern in the process of film and television production due to the difficulty in rectifying errors after filming ends. Continuity can also apply to other art forms, such as novels, comics, and video games, though usually on a smaller scale; it also applies to fiction used by persons, corporations, and governments in the public eye.

Most film and TV productions have a script supervisor on hand whose job is to pay attention to and attempt to maintain continuity across the chaotic and typically non-linear production schedule. It is an inconspicuous job because if done well, none may ever notice. The script supervisor gathers numerous paperwork, photographs, and other documentation which note a large quantity of detail for maintaining the continuity of the production; Some of the gathered documents can be sometimes assembled into the story bible. The gathered information and photographs usually regard factors both within the scene and the technical details of the production, including meticulous records of camera positioning and equipment settings. Film-based Polaroid cameras were once standard but have since been replaced by digital cameras; all of this is, ideally, all related shots can match, due to filming being split up over months in different sets and locations.

In comic books, continuity has also come to mean a set of contiguous events, sometimes said to be "set in the same universe."

Continuity errors

A continuity error in Charlie Chaplin's 1914 comedy short The Property Man. In the first frame, Chaplin's character is seen carrying a trunk through a door, holding his hat behind him. In the immediately subsequent shot from the other side of the door, he is wearing the hat. Continuity error in The Property Man.jpg
A continuity error in Charlie Chaplin's 1914 comedy short The Property Man . In the first frame, Chaplin's character is seen carrying a trunk through a door, holding his hat behind him. In the immediately subsequent shot from the other side of the door, he is wearing the hat.

Many continuity errors are subtle, such as minor changes between shots (like the level of drink in a glass or the length of a cigarette); these minor errors often remain due to relative indifference to the final cut. While minor errors are often unnoticed by the average viewer, other errors may be more noticeable, such as sudden drastic changes in the appearance of a character. Productions will aim to prevent such errors in continuity because they can affect the audience's suspension of disbelief.

In cinema, special attention must be paid to continuity because scenes are rarely shot in the order in which they appear in the final film. The shooting schedule is often dictated by location permit issues and other logistics. For example, a character may return to Times Square in New York City several times throughout a movie, but as it is extraordinarily expensive to close off Times Square, those scenes will likely be filmed all at once to reduce permit costs. Weather, the ambiance of natural light, cast and crew availability, or any number of other circumstances can also influence a shooting schedule.

Measures against continuity errors in the film

Film production companies use various techniques to prevent continuity errors. The first would be to film all the shots for a particular scene together and all shots of consecutive scenes together (if the scenes take place together, with no break between them in the film's timeline). This allows actors to remain in costume, in character, and in the same location (and with the same weather, if shooting on location).

The second major technique is for costume designers, production designers, prop masters, and make-up artists to take instant photographs of actors and sets at the beginning and end of each day's shooting (once made possible by Polaroid cameras, now done with digital cameras and cell phones as well). This allows the various workers to check each day's clothing, set, props, and make-up against a previous day's.

The third is to avoid shooting on location entirely but instead film everything on a studio set. This allows weather and lighting to be controlled (as the shooting is indoors), and for all clothing and sets to be stored in one place to be hauled out the next day from a secure location.

The advent of advanced CGI has helped alleviate the challenge of preventing continuity errors from reaching the final cut, as it is easier to "airbrush" the errant drink glass or cigarette than it once was, albeit still not necessarily trivial.

Editing errors

Editing errors can occur when a character in a scene references a scene or incident that has not occurred yet, or of which they should not yet be aware.[ citation needed ]

An example of an editing error can be seen in the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), where a scene of people climbing a slope at the start is seen from below and then replayed from above.

Visual errors

Visual errors are instant discontinuities occurring in visual media such as film and television. Items of clothing change colors, shadows get longer or shorter, items within a scene change place or disappear, etc.

One of the earliest examples of a visual error appears in Charlie Chaplin's 1914 movie The Property Man . [1] Here, in a supposedly smooth step from one room to another, the Tramp loses his hat in one room, but it is instantly back on his head as he enters the next room. Rather "loose" plots and a lack of continuity editing made most early films rife with such errors.

Another example occurs in the 1998 film Waking Ned , when two of the film's characters, Jackie and Michael, are walking through a storm towards Ned's house. The umbrella they are under is black during their conversation as they walk towards the house (filmed from slightly above and to the front). However, after cutting to a lower shot (filmed from behind Jackie), Michael walks onscreen from the right holding an umbrella that is not black but beige, with a brown band at the rim.

Another glaring example of poor continuity occurs in the Disney film Pete’s Dragon (filmed in 1976). During the song "Brazzle Dazzle Day" when Lampie (Mickey Rooney), Pete (Sean Marshall), and Nora (Helen Reddy) climb the stairs to the top of the lighthouse, Pete's shirt beneath his overalls is orange. But after descending to the bottom again and coming out of the lighthouse door, his shirt is now grey.

Plot errors

A plot error, or a plot hole as it is commonly known, reflects a failure in the consistency of the created fictional world. A character might state he was an only child, yet later mention a sibling. In the TV show Cheers , Frasier Crane's wife Lilith mentions Frasier's parents are both dead, and, in another episode, Frasier himself claims his father to have been a scientist. When the character was spun off into Frasier , his father, a retired policeman named Martin, became a central character. Eventually, in an episode featuring Cheers star Ted Danson, the inconsistency was given the retroactive explanation that Frasier was embarrassed about his father's lowbrow attitudes and thus claimed his death. This is a frequent occurrence in sitcoms, where networks may agree to continue a show, but only if a certain character is emphasized, leading other minor characters to be written out of the show with no further mention of the character's existence, while the emphasized character (usually a breakout character, as in the case of Frasier Crane) develops a more complete back story that ignores previous, more simplified backstories.

Homeric nod

A Homeric nod (sometimes heard as 'Even Homer nods') is a term for a continuity error that has its origins in Homeric epic. The proverbial phrase for it was coined by the Roman poet Horace in his Ars Poetica : [2] "et idem indignor quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus" ("and yet I also become annoyed whenever the great Homer nods off").

There are numerous continuity errors in Homer that can be described as "nods", as for example:

In modern Homeric scholarship, many of Homer's "nods" are explicable as the consequences of the poem being retold and improvised by generations of oral poets. In the second case cited above, it is likely that two different versions are being conflated: one version with an embassy of three people, another with just two people. Alexander Pope was inclined to give Homeric nods the benefit of the doubt, saying in his Essay on Criticism that "Those oft are Stratagems which Errors seem, Nor is it Homer Nods, but We that Dream."

Aging discrepancies

The practice of accelerating the age of a television character (usually a child or teenager) in conflict with the timeline of a series and/or the real-world progression of time is popularly known as Soap Opera Rapid Aging Syndrome, or SORAS. [5] Children unseen on screen for a time might reappear portrayed by an actor several years older than the original. [6] Usually coinciding with a recast, this rapid aging is typically done to open up the character to a wider range of storylines, and to attract younger viewers. [5] A recent example of this occurring is in the BBC's Merlin series, in which Mordred is initially played by a young child in Season 4, yet suddenly grows up into his late teens in time for the start of Season 5, with the rest of the characters aging by only three years.

The reverse can also happen. On the television program Lost , the character of 10-year-old Walt Lloyd was played by 12-year-old actor Malcolm David Kelley. The first few seasons took place over the course of just a few months, but by that point, Lloyd looked much older than 10. In his remaining few appearances, special effects were used to make him look younger, or the scene took place years later.

Dealing with errors

When continuity mistakes have been made, explanations are often proposed by either writers or fans to smooth over discrepancies. Fans sometimes make up explanations for such errors that may or may not be integrated into canon; this has come to be colloquially known as fanwanking (a term originally coined by the author Craig Hinton to describe excessive use of continuity). [7] Often when fans do not agree with one of the events in a story (such as the death of a favorite character), they will choose to ignore the event in question so that their enjoyment of the franchise is not diminished. When the holder of the intellectual property discards all existing continuity and starts from scratch, it is known as rebooting. Fans call a less extreme literary technique that erases one episode the reset button. See also fanon.

A conflict with previously-established facts is sometimes deliberate; this is a retcon , as it is a retroactive change in continuity. Retcons sometimes clarify ambiguities or correct perceived errors. This is not to be confused with the continuance of a reality (continuality).

Ageless characters

Some fiction ignores continuity to allow characters to slow or stop the aging process, despite real-world markers like major social or technological changes. In comics this is sometimes referred to as a "floating timeline", where the fiction takes place in a "continuous present". [8] Roz Kaveney suggests that comic books use this technique to satisfy "the commercial need to keep certain characters going forever". [9] This is also due to the fact that the authors have no need to accommodate the aging of their characters, which is also typical of most animated television shows. [10] Kevin Wanner compares the use of a sliding timescale in comics to the way ageless figures in myths are depicted interacting with the contemporary world of the storyteller. [11] When certain stories in comics, especially origin stories, are rewritten, they often retain key events but are updated to a contemporary time, such as with the comic book character Tony Stark, who invents his Iron Man armor in a different war depending on when the story is told. [12]

Related Research Articles

A film crew is a group of people, hired by a production company, for the purpose of producing a film or motion picture. The crew is distinguished from the cast, as the cast are understood to be the actors who appear in front of the camera or provide voices for characters in the film. The crew is also separate from the producers, as the producers are the ones who own a portion of either the film studio or the film's intellectual property rights. A film crew is divided into different departments, each of which specializes in a specific aspect of the production. Film crew positions have evolved over the years, spurred by technological change, but many traditional jobs date from the early 20th century and are common across jurisdictions and filmmaking cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Retroactive continuity</span> Revision of existing facts in succeeding works of fiction

Retroactive continuity, or retcon for short, is a literary device in which facts in the world of a fictional work which have been established through the narrative itself are adjusted, ignored, supplemented, or contradicted by a subsequently published work which recontextualizes or breaks continuity with the former.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Storyboard</span> Form of ordering graphics in media

A storyboard is a graphic organizer that consists of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence. The storyboarding process, in the form it is known today, was developed at Walt Disney Productions during the early 1930s, after several years of similar processes being in use at Walt Disney and other animation studios.

A screenplay, or script, is a written work by screenwriters for a film, television show, or video game. A screenplay written for television is also known as a teleplay. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. A screenplay is a form of narration in which the movements, actions, expressions and dialogue of the characters are described in a certain format. Visual or cinematographic cues may be given, as well as scene descriptions and scene changes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reset button technique</span> Plot device that resets continuity in works of fiction

The reset button technique is a plot device that interrupts continuity in works of fiction. Simply put, the reset button device returns all characters and situations to the statusquo they held before a major change was introduced. It is typically used in the middle of a program to negate some portion of what came before. Often used in science fiction television series, animated series, soap operas, and comic books, the device accommodates dramatic changes to characters and the fictional universe that might otherwise invalidate the premise of the show's continuity. For example, writers may use the reset button technique to allow the audience to better experience the death of the lead character, which traditionally would not be possible without effectively ending the work or significantly altering its course.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Film transition</span> Technique by which scenes or shots of a film are combined

A film transition is a technique used in the post-production process of film editing and video editing by which scenes or shots are combined. Most commonly this is through a normal cut to the next shot. Most films will also include selective use of other transitions, usually to convey a tone or mood, suggest the passage of time, or separate parts of the story. These other transitions may include dissolves, L cuts, fades, match cuts, and wipes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crossover (fiction)</span> Film and video terminology

A crossover is the placement of two or more otherwise discrete fictional characters, settings, or universes into the context of a single story. They can arise from legal agreements between the relevant copyright holders, common corporate ownership or unofficial efforts by fans.

A take is a single continuous recorded performance. The term is used in film and music to denote and track the stages of production.

Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screenwriting, casting, pre-production, shooting, sound recording, post-production, and screening the finished product before an audience, which may result in a film release and exhibition. The process is nonlinear, as the director typically shoots the script out of sequence, repeats shots as needed, and puts them together through editing later. Filmmaking occurs in a variety of economic, social, and political contexts around the world, and uses a variety of technologies and cinematic techniques to make theatrical films, episodic films for television and streaming platforms, music videos, and promotional and educations films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Principal photography</span> Phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place

Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">180-degree rule</span> Principle in filmmaking

In filmmaking, the 180-degree rule is a basic guideline regarding the on-screen spatial relationship between a character and another character or object within a scene. The rule states that the camera should be kept on one side of an imaginary axis between two characters, so that the first character is always frame right of the second character. Moving the camera over the axis is called jumping the line or crossing the line; breaking the 180-degree rule by shooting on all sides is known as shooting in the round.

This article contains a list of cinematic techniques that are divided into categories and briefly described.

A scene is a dramatic part of a story, at a specific time and place, between specific characters. The term is used in both filmmaking and theatre, with some distinctions between the two.

A script supervisor is a member of a film crew who oversees the continuity of the motion picture including wardrobe, props, set dressing, hair, makeup and the actions of the actors during a scene. The notes recorded by the script supervisor during the shooting of a scene are used to help the editor cut the scene. They are also responsible for keeping track of the film production unit's daily progress. The script supervisor credit is typically in the closing credits of a motion picture. Script supervisors are a department head and play a crucial role in the shooting of a film. It is the script supervisor's job to monitor the camera shots, seeking to maintain coherence between the scenes.

The Buffyverse canon consists of materials that are thought to be genuine and those events, characters, settings, etc., that are considered to have inarguable existence within the fictional universe established by the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The Buffyverse is expanded through other additional materials such as comics, novels, pilots, promos and video games which do not necessarily take place in exactly the same fictional continuity as the Buffy episodes and Angel episodes. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate and other prolific sci-fi and fantasy franchises have similarly gathered complex fictional continuities through hundreds of stories told in different formats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiple-camera setup</span> Method of film making and video production

The multiple-camera setup, multiple-camera mode of production, multi-camera or simply multicam is a method of filmmaking and video production. Several cameras—either film or professional video cameras—are employed on the set and simultaneously record or broadcast a scene. It is often contrasted with a single-camera setup, which uses one camera.

A traditional production board, stripboard, or production strip is a filmmaking term for a cardboard or wooden chart displaying color-coded strips of paper, each containing information about a scene in the film's shooting script. The strips can then be rearranged and laid out sequentially to represent the order one wants to film in, providing a schedule that can be used to plan the production. This is done because most films are shot "out of sequence," meaning that they do not necessarily begin with the first scene and end with the last. For logistical purposes, scenes are often grouped by talent or location and are arranged to accommodate the schedules of cast and crew. A production board is not to be confused with a stripboard used for electronics prototyping.

In filmmaking, a pick-up is a small, relatively minor shot filmed or recorded after the fact to augment footage already shot. When entire scenes are redone, it is referred to as a re-shoot or additional photography.

Shot-for-shot is a way to describe a visual work that is transferred almost completely identically from the original work without much interpretation.

This glossary of motion picture terms is a list of definitions of terms and concepts related to motion pictures, filmmaking, cinematography, and the film industry in general.

References

  1. "Charlie Chaplin : Films".
  2. Lines 358-359.
  3. Book V Lines 576-579
  4. Book XIII Lines 643-659
  5. 1 2 Clayton-Millar, Kim (April 24, 2006). "Soaps' rising stars". Tonight. Independent News & Media. Retrieved December 17, 2009.
  6. Bird, S. Elizabeth (2003). The Audience in Everyday Life: Living in a Media World. New York: Routledge. p. 135. ISBN   0-415-94259-4 . Retrieved December 12, 2009.
  7. Parkin, Lance (2007). AHistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who universe (2nd ed.). Des Moines, Iowa: Mad Norwegian Press. p. 13. ISBN   978-0-9759446-6-0.
  8. Jeffery, Scott (2016), Jeffery, Scott (ed.), "The Rhizome of Comic Book Culture", The Posthuman Body in Superhero Comics: Human, Superhuman, Transhuman, Post/Human, Palgrave Studies in Comics and Graphic Novels, New York: Palgrave Macmillan US, pp. 37–67, doi:10.1057/978-1-137-54950-1_3, ISBN   978-1-137-54950-1
  9. Kaveney, Roz (2008). Superheroes!: Capes and Crusaders in Comics and Films. Bloomsbury Academic. p. 22. ISBN   9781845115692.
  10. Goertz, Allie; Prescott, Julia; Oakley, Bill; Weinstein, Josh (2018-09-18). 100 Things The Simpsons Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die (in Arabic). Triumph Books. ISBN   978-1-64125-109-9.
  11. Wanner, Kevin J. (2018). "Authority Apart from Truth: Superhero Comic Book Stories as Myths". In Urban, Hugh; Johnson, Greg (eds.). Irreverence and the Sacred: Critical Studies in the History of Religions. Oxford University Press. p. 84.
  12. Méon, J. M. (2018). "Sons and Grandsons of Origins: Narrative Memory in Marvel Superhero Comics". In Ahmed, Maaheen; Crucifix, Benoît (eds.). Comics Memory: Archives and Styles. Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 203–204. ISBN   978-3319917450.

Further reading