Script Supervision, Continuity, and Data Wrangling on Set

I was script supervisor for 5 days total for this term/module, which as usual, I found beneficial and a good experience every time (as it something that you get better at doing the more you do it). Doing the rushes for the first day, I wasn't able to use a software which would check and verify the files. But for the remaining days, I was able to use Davinci's clone tool which I learned about when researching 'checksum' programs and verification. For a program that is free, it was very convenient (and also reassuring) to use when doing the rushes.

Keeping an eye on continuity was difficult. A technique that I found of use was to absolutely film master shots on my phone - if I didn't have access to the monitor, I would just film the action, and that would do fine as a backup. If I managed to do rushes whilst at lunch, I would get up the same master shot (the one the director would deem as their favourite) and film my laptop screen for a closer video reference if needed/if we were recording parts of that scene after lunch.

What I found especially difficult, other than the fact that I annoyingly couldn't control the weather, was keeping track of action continuity. i.e. In some scenes I would find that one character would have their hands behind their back for most part of a certain section of dialogue, and then in a few takes they would have it in front (I discovered this while doing the edit, but thankfully, it didn't prove to be too much of an issue). I found myself focusing on wardrobe continuity a lot, which of course is important, but keeping track of different things at the same time truly is quite the task. I did okay, though. I definitely feel that I did better this time around compared to the last. What I found really helpful also was that I would transcribe my written notes from each shoot day onto a pages document, while also going through all of the shots and taking more in-depth notes. I would also take stills of each shoot day, to show to the director/crew, but to also keep for my notes as it was much easier to skim through a folder of images rather than a series of videos.

A collection of stills

Randomly picked stills from across the four days

In observing this footage early on, I was able to keep record of any potential issues I had to look out for on the next day. (This also made my job as editor so much easier!)

Example of bits of my transcripted notes from each of the days

Another thing that I did on set was mark up a script as we shot (to which I already had a marked up script that I did before hand, but the two ended up looking very different in comparison!)