Script this, supervise that…what it’s really like being the Script Supervisor

Script this, supervise that…what it’s really like being the Script Supervisor
(All of the responsibilities, none of the glory)

In this episode, we take a closer look at what it feels like to be a script supervisor, and how our work on set also helps out in post. Plus, master script supervisor Mary Cybulski shares a revealing BTS story from the film “Life of Pi.” But first, we have an informative interview with the incomparable Dawn Gilliam.

Dawn’s multi-decade Script Supervising career began with Boyz n The Hood and includes groundbreaking and Academy Award-Winning and nominated films such as Black Panther, Fences, Star Wars: Episode IX and literally dozens of films and TV shows you’ve no doubt seen. She has served as President of ITASE Local 871 union for script supervisors, is responsible for getting IMDB to create a new category for Script Supervisors, and has taught the craft of script supervising through her popular online course: The Art of Continuity since 1995. 

 https://www.theartofcontinuity.com
check out her new business venture https://www.datemymakeup.com

Hosted, Created & Produced by Caryn Ruby
Produced and Edited by Eden Woolworth
Sound Mixer Adam Carl
Original Music by Edith Mudge

Logo design by Sharon Watt
Episode artwork by Ana Ziegler Loes

Transcript

Sharon Watt (00:01)

They’re the unsung heroes on film and TV

Various (00:06)

Script Script Script Supervisor, script, script, script supervisors... the unsung hero...I kinda like that.

Caryn Ruby (00:19)

“Script Supervisors, Unsung Heroes of Film and TV” was created from interviews of over a dozen script supervisors from across the US. Episodes were written and produced by Caryn Ruby and Eden Woolworth. edited by Eden Woolworth and contains original music by Edith Mudge.

Mary Cybulski (00:40)

It's not just taking notes and paying attention.

Dawn Gilliam (00:43)

script cowboy.

Barry Caldwell (00:44)

It's like trying to be in a bar fight and expect everything to go as planned. It's you have to roll with the punches, literally

Dawn Gilliam (00:49)

Script girl.

Sharon Watt (00:51)

You're just trying to be everywhere and see everything.

Dawn Gilliam (00:53)

Script goddess.

Roe Moore (00:55)

There are some jobs that are like butter, and you're just like, ah, this is my cup of tea. And this was so great. There are some jobs that are just nightmares.

Caryn Ruby (01:05)

This episode, I talked to the incomparable Dawn Gillam. Dawn's multi-decade script supervising career began with Boys N the Hood and includes groundbreaking and Academy Award-Winning and nominated films such as “Black Panther,” “Fences,” “Star Wars Episode IX,” and literally dozens of films and TV shows you've no doubt seen. She has served as the president of local 8 71, the union for script supervisors, is personally responsible for getting IMDB to create a new category for script supervisors, and has taught the craft of script supervising through her popular online course, The Art Of Continuity since 1995. Then, today's topic dives into what it's like to be a script supervisor and how our work on set helps in post. 

Yay. Oh my God. I am so excited to be here with you, Dawn, Just for the listeners - if anyone is not in the script supervising community, then maybe you don't know what a legend <laugh> Dawn Gillam is, but in the script supervising community, there are a few names that come up all the time as THE people,

Dawn Gilliam (02:25)

I don't understand how I became a legend. That's that's the one that I'm always

Caryn Ruby (02:28)

Like, well, you just sort of hear... Like word on the street.

Dawn Gilliam (02:33)

Interesting.

Caryn Ruby (02:34)

Yeah. So like, I mean, no big deal, like living legend whatevs, you know, but that's why like when you interacted with me, on, the Instagram, I was like, oh my God, it's Dawn!!

Caryn Ruby (02:44)

Oh my God. I'm so excited. <laugh> so what I really wanna hear the story of - that, I don't think has been told - is how you got us out of the miscellaneous crew and elevated us to our own script and continuity department on IMDB, because that's something that people had been talking about for a really long time and you made it happen and I want you to get the credit, and I want to hear how that went down.

Dawn Gilliam (03:13)

I appreciate that. I'm actually very, very proud of the fact that I was able to get to script supervisors out of miscellaneous crew into our own category. And so the story goes like this. When I was the president of local 871, I was on the set of “Fences” and I was working with Denzel and Denzel Washington was acting in and directing and he was on IMDB pro. And I told him that, yeah, we're in miscellaneous crew and he just couldn't believe it. He was like, what? This is ridiculous. He goes, you should, you know, try to get that changed, since you president. I was like, okay. And so that was my first motivation. And then I went to the man that seems to know everything for me was, uh, JJ Abrams. And I told him, and so he sent me to the executive producer that we've all worked together before.

Dawn Gilliam (04:08)

And then he started to do a little deep dive. And so when I was finally able to contact someone at IMDB, I did it on official letterhead and the whole business. And so then a month went by and I didn't hear anything. So I reached out to him again and then he passed me on to someone else in IMDB, Jennifer. And so once I started talking to Jennifer and sent the letter and everything else like that, she goes, I think that it's time that you guys have your own thing. She goes, I'm gonna start championing behind this. And then for the next three years, I'm just keeping in contact with her. And then when I was on Star Wars and I was in London, she was setting up a phone call with their IT guy. And I was able to talk to the IT guy and started to understand their technical problems and everything. They can't just like create a category like that. It's a thing. So then they gave me a list. It was about 2,800 people's credit that if they had the script in the credit and they needed to know who was what. Some said, assistant script supervisor, but a lot of 'em would say assistant to the director, assistant, second AD, script. I, I don't know what the whole thing, why they had script. So I painstakingly went through it and cataloged it to say where these people really belonged.

Caryn Ruby (05:31)

Oh, wow. Cuz they didn't know, they're not film people.

Dawn Gilliam (05:34)

They didn't know. And I didn't know what some of these positions were. It was like, they looked like they were made up. But then there was a few that were like script cowboy, <laugh> script goddess, script girl. And there was one more that, to me that looked like that that's old school. Like that's probably what they did back in the fifties or whatever it took me about almost like a day and a half or something to go through all of those and catalog them and stuff like that. And then around 2019, and I think it was in October or November, they said they they're migrating our things. So I just think that it's just a really good accomplishment for script supervisors. We just have to go out there and do it. You know, we just have to stop, not necessarily complaining or fussing about something. You have to take the bull by the horns, find the root problem and then go solve it. And that's just kind of what I did.

Caryn Ruby (06:28)

Well, if I can take a moment on behalf of the entire community to thank you for that, because it is huge. It really, really is a big deal that we have our own category, that it's script and continuity department because we are a department head. It is a department and living in miscellaneous crew just felt awful. And I'm just really grateful for that because I know it makes a difference for me and for everybody. So thank you.

Dawn Gilliam (06:52)

You're welcome.

Caryn Ruby (06:54)

So you were talking about how you find people and you offer to have them join your class. Is that how you started your script supervisor training program, "The art of continuity?"

Dawn Gilliam (07:04)

I started probably the third or fourth year that I was a script supervisor. I had people come to me because I was doing the big things that were going on, cuz that's how the industry works. "Boys N The Hood" became critically acclaimed. And so then once you're associated with a film that's like that, then they expect that you are like that. Like oh, she, worked on that, so she must be good. They do all kinds of assumptions. So that was what really catapulted my career. And I was able to land, you know, really good projects. John was doing one film a year. So I did his first three. And in between time I still worked on freebies. I still worked on the set as an actor, you know, I was just filling in the days or whatever, you know? And so I think it was about the third year that someone came to me and was like, teach me.

Dawn Gilliam (07:54)

And I think my first class had about nine people in it and it was in person. And so I don't know, I just knew how to just kind of, sort of do it and how to break it down. I'm very analytical. And so I basically gave class once a year because I've always been a working script supervisor. And so I would find a lull or people would just contact me all at the same time. People who don't know each other, they'd say, oh Dawn you doing class. Hey Dawn. You're doing class? Oh, okay, well I'm gonna give a class now. And so then I was doing that for a while. And then I think in 2010 I started traveling. I've been on the road for probably the last eight to 10 years, not counting COVID and once I started traveling and people like, well, I wanna be taught, how can you know, you teach me?

Dawn Gilliam (08:34)

And I was like, oh, child <laugh>. And then one young lady that I met, shout out to Anne. She said, you need to go online. And so then I just kind of went online and then it's just been building from there. Now I'm trying to turn around and figure out how to take me out of it. My workbook is now 230, some odd pages. And so I'm, I'm trying to make it for a textbook mm-hmm <affirmative> yeah, I don't have the easiest class. I, I really don't. I, I tell people straight up, you know, I demand a lot, lot of homework, you know, and

Caryn Ruby (09:04)

Well, it's not an easy job. And so...

Dawn Gilliam (09:07)

It's not an easy job. And it's a lot of, it's just a lot for a while, 75% of my students were script supervisors that are out there they've either were self-taught or they just felt like they wanted more training. And then I do have some people that are brand new. They have never been on set. I call this a basic, but it's advanced because I'm pretty much teaching you how I do it. And for the Art of Continuity, I believe that it's an art form of how we do the lined pages and how we do our paperwork. It's presentation of the paperwork. That's important to me. I change my paperwork up almost per job. One because I believe in visually appealing forms, that's the art of continuity. That is my way of doing my craft. So I take a lot of pride in what my lined scripts look like and what my paperwork looks like. And that's what I teach, people like it. And I've seen my students who haven't done nothing get in the door because of the way their paperwork looks.

Caryn Ruby (10:05)

Ooh, well that's a selling point. Okay. Well let's quickly talk about your new business venture, Date My Makeup. Where did that come from? What's the story with that?

Dawn Gilliam (10:15)

Well, Date My Makeup, I actually created about 12 years ago, I was watching an Oprah Winfrey show and some lady was on there and then she said makeup expired. And I was like, Hmm. And so then the next time I was putting on my mascara, I visually saw this label go and be put on the wand of the mascara and I was like date your makeup label. So I went forward, I got a trademark, I did a product shooting, all that kind of stuff. And so I never really understood how to do business. I'm more of a creative so I can create all kinds of stuff. But as far as executing it and all that kind of stuff, I hadn't learned that as yet. And so then I was in Panama. I slipped on Suicide Squad 2, slipped on some gravel. And so I was in the hotel a lot. And so the hair girl, she and I were talking about side businesses and everything. And I said, okay, well we'll just encourage each other. You know? And then a week later I hurt myself and I'm in the hotel. And so I'm already in that mode of like working for business stuff. And then just out of the blue, it says, date your makeup. And it says, make it an app. And I was like, Ding, ding, ding <laugh>

Dawn Gilliam (11:28)

<laugh>. And then March 2020, March 1st, really I started working on Date My Makeup, the app. And so I just been working on it ever since. And so Date My Makeup is an expiration tracker app to let you know when your makeup and your skincare products expire. That's my new business. So yes, come over to Instagram, follow me and be a part of it.

Caryn Ruby (11:50)

Definitely we'll put all the links, wherever the links are gonna go when it launches. Well, gosh, Dawn, this has been so much fun. I am so grateful for all of your advice today in this podcast and beyond before that and after. You're so generous with your time, with your knowledge with everything, and you're just really here for the community and I so, so appreciate that. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for doing this.

Dawn Gilliam (12:19)

Well, thank you. I, I appreciate that you're asking and yeah, I'm gonna just try to keep spreading the message that this craft is more important than we are showing people and that we have to just change our mindset, that the glass is half full.

Caryn Ruby (12:34)

Definitely 100%. 

The extraordinary script supervisors on this season include Dawn Gillam who scripted “Black Panther,” “Boyz N the Hood,” “Fences,” “Star Wars Episode IX.” and she also got IMDB to create a new category for script supervisors. Margery Kimbrough has scripted Academy Award nominees and Emmy and Golden Globe winners such as “Harriet,” “Fear the Walking Dead” and “The Good Lord Bird.” Known as the author of the quintessential book "Beyond Continuity: Script Supervision For The Modern Filmmaker," Mary Cybulski has scripted multiple Academy Award and Golden Globe winning films, including “Life of Pi” and “Michael Clayton.” Randi Feldman has taught the craft of script supervising for over 20 years. Her professional credits include the Oscar-Nominated”Mighty Joe Young” and Sundance winner, “Guinevere.” Barry Caldwell scripted on “Beautiful Boy,” “Ugly Betty,” “Key and Peele,” “Queen of the South” and the cult classic “Cabin Fever,” Sharon Watt scripted culture-shifting and award-winning shows “Pose,” “When They See Us,” “Mr. Robot,” “The Americans” and “Boardwalk Empire.” Hannah Driscoll script supervises the Emmy-Nominated series “Pen 15” as well as big budget commercials for well-known brands. Script supervisor on Emmy-Nominated “Dolly Parton's Heartstrings,” “The Originals,” “Ozark,” and “Zombieland 2 Double Tap” Toni Crey. Self-described internet prankster, Nick Robinson, script supervisors commercials starring A-list talent and films that premiere at top tier festivals. In addition to "Script Soup," her book on script supervising, Beatrice Bellino creates experimental films and has scripted Emmy-Award winners “Friday Night Lights,” “Revolution,” and “Fear the Walking Dead.” Shadia Sepehrnia scripted, Lena Waithe's Tribecca Award-Winning series "Girls Room" and also writes and directs. Administrator of Los Angeles Script Supervisors Network Robert Goodwin's credits include the Emmy Award-Winning “Dark/Web” and “Love is Not Love” which snagged over 100 festival wins. And finally multi-talented Roe Mooore scripts everything from films and commercials to live TV, teaches script supervising and is a member of the DGA, Local 871 and Producer's Guild.

Caryn Ruby (14:49)

If you've been on set, you know how frenetic it can be, but what does it feel like when you're the script supervisor? In this episode we hear from Barry Caldwell, Roe Moore, Nick Robinson, Robert Goodwin, Shadia Sepehrnia, Margery Kimbrough, Beatrice Bellino, Sharon Watt, Hannah Driscoll, and Randi Feldman, as well as a revealing story behind the scenes of the film “Life of Pi” from master script supervisor, Mary Cybulski. We'll dig further into all the hats we wear and why what we're doing is so dang important on set and beyond.

Barry Caldwell (15:24)

I tell people that if there's a perfect plan in place and they've done all their prep and everything goes according to plan and there are no hiccups and everything goes smoothly, our job is still almost impossible. I've never experienced a perfect day. I'm sure you haven't either. So it's, it's like trying to be in a bar fight and expect everything to go as planned. It's you have to roll with the punches, literally. And the more experience you have, clearly the better. I think back to my first couple jobs and the things that went wrong, and it's funny how unprepared I was. But they were student films, you know, they couldn't afford somebody with 10 years experience, so they got me. And they learned, I learned, and that's how we build careers. Or, I'll experience something now, and I'll think back to how I would've handled that in the 90s. And that's when you see your growth - not your note taking and the specifics - it's when there's, something's gone horribly wrong or something really weird and unique has happened to throw you off. It's - how do you handle this? How do you handle a screamer? How do you handle an actor who just refuses to talk to you? How do you handle somebody's agent who won't shut up while they're rolling. That all comes with experience.

Nick Robinson (16:30)

There's infinite things to look for. That's been something I've held onto this entire time where it's just like, there's so much to look for. There's so much that can change. We can pay attention to people, directions, hair, this, this, this, and I always get asked about something that I would've never thought to look for, never notice. You know, I'm focusing on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and I get asked about, oh, in this scene that we shot three weeks earlier, could we see this or not? And it's like, oh, I'd never even realize that was there. There's always infinite things to look for.

Rob Goodwin (17:07)

It is a balancing act. It feels like one of those performances where you're spinning plates, trying to not let any hit the ground. It's a lot of work for one person, especially with how much technology has improved production's ability to move and work quickly. It's definitely made our job much more of a challenge than in the past where things were a lot slower moving.

Roe Moore (17:34)

If you were to do a, like, hook up my brain and you could do a physical picture of what's happening in my brain when I'm on set, you will see probably in a quad split - one of it is me playing what comes before, comes after, whether we shot it or not. You'll see me taking in the information of what it is, taking in what's written on the script. And then me at least standing there to take conversations from the director.

Sharon Watt (17:55)

It's really quite crazy when you think about the situations where script supervisors have found themselves watching multiple cameras. I mean like two is like normal now, and then there's some shows where three is normal and then you have days, especially in television too, when you're trying to push through seven, eight pages a day, then the answer to get it done, the only answer is to throw more cameras at it, especially on these network shows like long running shows where it's just like, as long as it's captured somewhere, they can sort of mold a story together. A lot of these shows are very successful at doing that. I'm sure, you know, this phrase it's known as a “hose down,” you just like bring in more cameras and you just like hose it, hose it down. You keep the cameras running. Some people like that. I personally don't.

Sharon Watt (18:41)

I, I try to run away from jobs like that because just being a media logger is not why I, I got into this. So, um, if that's all I'm doing because of the pace of work, the level of detail is not gonna be super high. The main thing is to get these nine pages in the can. And it doesn't matter if this camera's on the wrong side of the access, and so-and-so wasn't supposed to be on camera. They’re supposed to be off camera, but now this camera's like sort of grabbing his coverage too. It's just, you're just kind of, sort of like, you know, chasing your own tail the entire day, because you're just trying to be everywhere and see everything. And then at a certain point, it's just that all you're doing is taking notes. And that is not actually the main thing that a script supervisor does.

Beatrice Bellino (19:25)

And on top of it, it's like standard 13 to 14 hour days, a lot of locations. So you're driving. I think the union finally bumped up the turnaround on the contract, on the standard agreement a little bit, but It’s just really hard where you don't have an opportunity to rest. And then on top of it, script supervisors have their hour wrap and prep. And if we're not alternating episodes, if it's a show, you've got your weekends that you're get a head start on the next episode. And I think all of that really wears you down.

Caryn Ruby (19:53)

One thing that a lot of people don't understand about our job is how much we are tracking the story. Sure, a lot of it relates to continuity, right? Someone can't show up in a scene with a bruise before the fight happens, but we're also safeguarding the story for the director.

Mary Cybulski (20:10)

If a certain prop is really important to a story arc. And if it wasn't seen really well, we could notice that and say to the director, do you wanna feature the, you know, box of chocolates or whatever it is? Do you wanna grab an insert? Do you wanna feature it? Cuz if we understand that that's a plot point, we understand that the audience has to recognize that that plot point is in the frame. Like there was a point in “Life of Pi” where it was so subtle. The story is the family's on a ship and there's a shipwreck and it goes down. And in the middle of the night, the kid he's in the state room with his brother and his parents and hears something going on and wakes up and we shot that scene like a pan through the bunk beds. You just see all the family sleeping kind of in close up and then you go on Pi and

Mary Cybulski (20:57)

he wakes up and he leaves. In the script, it mentions that the mother turns over. And I noticed that when we were riding this pan through, the mother turned over, but the camera didn't see it. Normally it wouldn't matter. It just wouldn't matter, something like that. But because I understood that at the end of the movie, the mother is the orangutan and she's in the boat and nobody else in the room is in the boat. In retrospect, it's important that she's not sound asleep. Her sleep is disturbed as well, because that's how it explains that she's in the boat. Right? Super subtle. Nobody in the fever of that production day is remembering that because nobody has the script in front of them. Nobody has the breakdown in front of them and I broke it down. I recognize maybe not even on the first readthrough, maybe on the third read through that, that mother turning around is in the script so that, you know, her sleep is also disturbed. So as soon as I said that to Ang, he of course recognized it and it's changed. So that she's in that long pan, but it's things like that. It's like, he's got a million things to think about. He knows it's important, but it's like number 15 on his consciousness.

Caryn Ruby (22:07)

Right. And she could have turned over, but it would've been possibly after the camera passed.

Mary Cybulski (22:11)

It was it wasn't on camera. That's what she was doing when we were setting it up.

Caryn Ruby (22:15)

Yeah. Right. And so unless you're paying that much attention, which is what script supervisors are doing. I mean, the actor thinks they did it. You know, she did it.

Mary Cybulski (22:22)

Yeah, Tabu knew what she was doing. She knew it was important, but it's not even just paying attention. It's understanding if something in the moment seems like nothing actually is important in the big structure of the thing. And that's why it's not just taking notes and paying attention.

Caryn Ruby (22:38)

But our notes are crucial. We track camera angles and lenses and mark which takes the director prefers, they're the official record of everything that happened on set and allow the editors to quickly put together a rough cut.

Rob Goodwin (22:53)

A director might not be able to get into the editing bay to see things for weeks or even a month after they've shot. And they need that reminder of like, yeah, which take did I like, why did this not work? Why did this work well? And our notes are the thing that records all of that information. We aren't just organizing and, and keeping track of things, we're also putting the director's mind on paper so that it can be referred back to and be looked at by other people. And I think that's where our job is often overlooked by a lot of green and new producers and directors and stuff, is continuity is only important during production. But our job is just as important after production.

Shadia Sepehrnia (23:38)

That's the most crucial thing is for the editor like circling takes and knowing what's happening. What does the director want? What kind of performance was this? A lot, some directors will tell me, like write a specific word for like the performance, a tone or something that they wanna keep. That's something for the editors to know too.

Rob Goodwin (23:55)

I think the most important thing that they don't seem to really grasp is how important we are to the editorial process. I've been on a lot of low budget shoots and with new directors and stuff who just kind of have the mindset that if everybody's doing their job, then continuity's going to be fine. Which could be the case. There've definitely been jobs where I've had to do very little in terms of paying attention to continuity because the departments are really on it, and the actors really know all their blocking and their movements and, and what they're doing consistently. But at the end of the day, our job is only half continuity. The other half of our job is being that liaison between post and production.

Caryn Ruby (24:39)

Roe makes a good case for including script supervisor as an awarded position. I don't disagree.

Roe Moore (24:45)

I would love it if we got our own card. I would love it if we had our own like specific award, I would. Why, because I do wanna earn an award for the accomplishments that we achieve because there are some jobs that are like butter and you're just like, ah, this is my cup of tea. And this was so great. There are some jobs that are just nightmares. And I think we deserve a reward for that outside of a paycheck, because what we do is a lot harder than 90% of the people's jobs on set. So to not be acknowledged for our hard work that allows that film to cross that finish line, it's a little rough and maybe that's partially why now I'm going after directing. Cause I'm like, I want a statue. <laugh> You know.

Caryn Ruby (25:26)

That's it for this episode! Special thanks to all the script supervisors who were featured, and to you, our listener. I hope you had fun and maybe even learned something. “Script Supervisors: Unsung heroes of film & TV” was created and produced by Caryn Ruby in consultation with the Los Angeles Script Supervisors Network. Episodes were edited and produced by Eden Woolworth with original music composed by Edith Mudge. Please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and give us a rating or leave a comment. And if you know anyone who makes movies without a script supervisor, let them know about us. We are the script supervisor podcast on Instagram.