ABSTRACT
A director’s recurring nightmare is to discover, when crew and cast have departed, that a vital angle or shot has been overlooked. When a lm’s story proceeds by a series of images, or when the narrative is carried by nonverbal actions, directing and keeping track of what you have covered are relatively simple. Mistakes and omissions occur more frequently when scenes involve several simultaneous actions, such as crowd or ght scenes with many people in frame whose relativity must match from shot to shot. Even complex dialogue scenes, especially those with characters moving around, can spring unpleasant surprises when shooting crosses the axis or if reaction shots get forgotten. Fatigue and last-minute changes raise the odds of error in all situations, and this is most likely to happen in low-budget lmmaking, where too few people cover too many tasks. Working fast and hand to mouth, intentions must often be modi ed, and crossing intended shots off a list can easily go awry. The checklist may be so rife with changes that the list itself becomes a hazard. However, if the script supervisor and cinematographer really understand editing, their attention or that of the editor (standing in for the script supervisor) can provide vital checks and balances as shooting progresses.
