Having reached picture lock earlier today, I felt that it was fitting for me to reflect on my third role of script supervisor. Luckily, I was comfortable taking frantic notes on set knowing that I was taking notes for myself. I say frantic, but I did do my research on the role and formulated a little worksheet which I hope to adapt to reflect my experiences on set and to use in the future.
Here are some photographs of my notes!
Since we've not been taught anything about the role of a script supervisor, it was up to me to do some research - I asked around my classmates who had done it for their performance films already and took note of what they did/what they wish they did at the time, while also looking at some enlightening YouTube tutorials (my favourite being by Filmmaker Den).
Prior to the shooting, I made sure to print myself a copy of the script, the schedule, the call sheet, several copies of my logging worksheet, and also took note of some reminders of what I should be looking out for unplanned reflections on windows, lighting changes, prop placements, dialogue, coverage, movement/positions, and shadows. Although I wasn't able to remember all of this for every single take, I tried my best. A column in my worksheet I could have had was lighting set up, as that was a very important factor/influence within our shoot, especially as continuity errors were absolutely likely and inevitably going to show up since we shot across three shooting dates.
For the close-up shot that we got of Andrea, her face was lit up on the opposite side of her face in comparison to the other shots it was supposed to be shown with. As a solution, I was able to flip it without any obvious problems appearing. But, this isn't something that we can always rely on, so, although tedious, it was a good learning experience.
The only other issue that we ran into that I could have perhaps avoided, is the fact that we didn't get any usable coverage for one of Andrea's lines. I could have avoided this if I had marked up a script as we were shooting to ensure that we were getting coverage of all of the lines and to make sure that this coverage wasn't only across one shot, but at least two. I've taken note of this for future reference. My script marking-up skills are definitely out of practice, but now that I've taken an interest in the script supervisor role I know that I need to step up my game.
Overall, I think my experience as a script supervisor on this shoot was good, and I tried as much as I could with the issues that we ran into on set (and also, it was freezing cold and there's only so many things I can do with a clipboard and some paper before we've moved onto the next take).
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