Continuity

Continuity is a massive part of making a film successful. Lots of effort and time is spent by many people to assure the films flows logically, with the intention of suspending the audience's disbelief for the length of the film. If the continuity of a film is good, you will not even notice any effort has been put in.

Different continuity techniques include:

- Using the camera. The camera shots must be selected and edited together in a logical order, to keep the audience included. For example, if a film jumps around between very long shots and extreme close ups a lot, it can be confusing to the audience and have a jarring effect.

- Editing techniques. A narrative flow needs to be established in a film, and most of this work takes place in the editing room. Without a seamless flow between shots and between scenes, the audience does not feel intergrated with the films action, story and characters.

- The 180 degrees rule. We all know what this means!

- The 30 degrees rule. This rule is intended to avoid odd 'jumps' between shots. Basically, if a shot is within a 30 degree angle of another, they should not be edited together one after another. It seems odd and jumpy, and sometimes unintentional.

- Eyeline matching. Keeping the eyelines of the characters the same between shots creates the illusion that they are standing still and makes the scenes more believable. Otherwise it may seem as if their height is changing, or, if in a two person conversation, it can seem as if they are looking in different directions each shot.

- Keeping lighting and sound at a controlled, even level. Problems can occur easily as different shots will have different sound levels or lighting levels, and can look and sound strange once edited together.


These techniques are going to be very vital for our film making process. They are not suggestions, but rules that you need to follow in order to make a film which seems professional and believable to the audience. Without these rules, it looks very amatuer. Saying that, it is not unacceptable to break the rules once in a while, as long as it is for an intended purpose or audience response.

Either way, you must get to grips with the rules before breaking them, and only break them for a reason!