Visual Continuity
© 1998-2009 by James Brown
Visual continuity is something that still photographers don't spend much time thinking about but is essential to video and motion picture projects.
There are many dimensions to continuity. In longer productions that extend over a period of days, clothing is important. That is, actors must be wearing the same clothing in shots that are edited in sequence. If the clothing is "sweaty" in one shot, it must be "sweaty" in another shot--even with several days between shooting the shots.
Where action is repeated (match-action shots), the action must be repeated in exactly the same way, with the same hand, etc. In news organizations, we don't ask subjects to repeat what they just did. That would be a violation of ethical standards. However, one can look for things that have a naturally repeating cycle or that happen over a long enough time period to do matched action. For example, milking a cow takes a while and has repeating action. Thus, you can change camera angles and viewpoints and those shots will edit together beautifully as matched action.
In the projects you are shooting, we are more concerned with screen direction. A simple way to keep correct screen direction (screen continuity) is to imagine the action is traveling on a path. It may be an actual path, road, etc., or it may be an imaginary path. When you begin filming, you will likely be on one side of the path or the other. You will always have consistent screen direction if you NEVER cross the path as you move from one camera location to another.
A common technique is to let the action cleanly enter or exit the frame but this won’t make visual sense unless you pay attention to screen direction. If the action is moving from left to right in the frame, we say the action is entering screen-left and leaving screen-right. This "direction" must be maintained in shots that are edited together. Otherwise the viewer will become confused. If the car is moving screen left to right in one shot and screen right to left in the next shot, the viewer with expect the cars to crash together.
Another way to think of continuity is to always stay on one side of a person's nose. That will maintain continuity in the editing process. Suppose you are photographing a person doing some activity. Any shot you make on one side of the person's face will edit together without a problem.
Obviously, we may want to cross the path for one reason or another. We may have better composition opportunities on the other side of the path for a particular shot. (The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.) How then, do we legitimately cross the path?
The trick is to include a neutral camera angle shot between the shots on opposite sides of the path. Neutral angle shots are head-on. Since the brains of your viewing audience can only remember one shot behind, a neutral shot allows the screen direction to change - become neutral.
You may also SHOW the change of screen direction in one shot. For example, runners may enter the frame from screen-right and turn a corner leaving the frame from screen-right. The next shot can then have the action enter from screen-left.
A cut-away shot to some other situation that is related to the main action may also be used. A cut-in (detail of the main action that is neutral in direction) may also be used.
Remember that we said a good way to condense time is to use a sequence rather than a longer shot. A sequence consisting of wide shot, medium shot and tight shot that can be logically edited together to compress time.