ABSTRACT
The scenes and shots of a narrative fi lm are rarely shot in the order in which they appear in the script or in the fi nal fi lm. Because of the expense, time, and labor involved in fi lm production, a script is divided and rearranged according to major locations, camera angles, and, fi nally, shots, and the actual shooting order is organized primarily for effi - ciency (see Chapter 5). This means that scenes, sequences, and even specifi c actions are often divided into different pieces and are shot at different times. Continuity style shooting and editing is a system that assures us that individual shots, when cut together, will give us the illusion of smooth and continuous time, movement, and space, regardless of the order those shots were taken. The continuity system has been devised in order to present a scene without any confusion about the spatial and temporal relationships of people, objects, and actions. Also, the hallmark of continuity style is to render each edit, the link from one shot to another, as seamlessly as possible. While the principles of the continuity system can, at fi rst, seem a bit like a needlessly complex jigsaw puzzle, they are, in fact, quite simple and can be mastered with relatively little shooting and editing experience.
