Connecting the shots: Continuity matters

Connecting the shots: Continuity matters

Continuity is so much more than matching cups and hands. You’ll begin to see that in this topic where we take a deep dive into what it means to manage continuity on set. But first, we have an interview with absolute ICON, and hands down the perfect person for this episode, Mary Cybulski.

Mary Cybulski’s impressive credits include multiple Academy Award-winning films Life of Pi, Michael Clayton, Syriana, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Oscar-nominated Kinsey, and The Tempest, as well as cult favorites Eat Pray Love, and To Wong Foo Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar. She also wrote one of the most important and oft referred to books on script supervising, “Beyond Continuity: Script Supervision for the Modern Filmmaker.” While she’s no longer actively script supervising, Mary shares her talents on set as a still photographer and is currently working on an update to her widely recognized book.

Buy her book here! And look for the updated version to be released soon!

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 of film and TV,

Various (00:06)

Supervisor, supervisor supervisors, the unsung hero. I kinda like that.

Caryn Ruby (00:19)

Script Supervisors: Unsung Heroes of film & 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)

All hell breaks, loose, and there's no way anything can match at all.

Shadia Sepehrnia (00:44)

It's all the tiny things that they talk about. And to me, I always talk about maintaining continuity of story.

Margery Kimbrough (00:51)

They cut for performance. If it's important, I'll go in and say something. And if it's not important, I don't wanna interrupt the performance.

Mary Cybulski (00:58)

Every movie has its own style of continuity, and there's different things that are important in one movie that are not important in other movies.

Caryn Ruby (01:09)

If you're a script supervisor and haven't read her book, you've at least heard of this week's guest - Mary Cybulski. While she's no longer actively script supervising, she is working on an update to her iconic book, "Beyond Continuity Script Supervision for the Modern Filmmaker." Mary's impressive credits include multiple Academy Award-Winning films, "Life of Pi," "Michael Clayton," "Syirana," "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and Oscar-Nominated "Kinsey" and "The Tempest" as well as cult favorites, "Eat, Pray Love," and "Too Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Numar." After she shares all kinds of wisdom, the group has an enlightening conversation about continuity from our point of view. Today, we have a legend in the script supervising world. <laugh> I'm not even kidding, like everybody is so thrilled for this interview! She literally wrote the book on script supervising, it's called "Beyond Continuity Sscript Supervision for the Modern Filmmaker." This book is amazing. It is the step by step of everything about being a script supervisor from how to get a job, how to do the job, from pre-production to wrap and literally every step in between. She shows real examples from real films that she's worked on, that you guys will all recognize. So the first question I have Mary, I would love to hear about how you became a script supervisor. What was your path to choosing this crazy world that we all love so much?

Mary Cybulski (02:46)

Well, I had a very indirect path. I went to art school for about 10 years. I made experimental animation, which was very camera based, lots of re photography and stuff like that. And they weren't story movies. They were more like pictures that moved, but I went to school in Ann Arbor and was in the tradition of the Ann Arbor film festival. It was great. I mean, the film festival was really where my education came from. We had some equipment in the art school, but we really didn't have a teacher, but I worked on the film festival every year and I was a screener and I love that kind of stuff. So anyway, I came to New York with my husband. Who's also a filmmaker. We work together and did a lot of experimental animation. And we did that for a long time. We got a lot of grants and we showed our movies all over the world.

Mary Cybulski (03:25)

There's like one in the permanent collection of The Met. So.

Caryn Ruby (03:28)

That's so cool.

Mary Cybulski (03:30)

Yeah, it was a while ago though. It was before digital and I did a lot of special effects, optical effects. So that was kind of my youth. And then I started thinking I wanted to do more narrative stuff. And I started working in low budget features and I'd worked in the camera department, I was a POC, I even boomed a short and did just a lot of different things. And friend of mine was making a, a feature. And at that point I was shooting a documentary for her as a cinematographer and I didn't have enough experience to do that. And she said, ah, you know, I don't think you could be the DP, but what else do you wanna do? And I said, oh, I wanna be the script supervisor, cause I knew that that job was like kind of in the middle of all the discussions.

Mary Cybulski (04:11)

And that seemed really interesting to me. So, uh, I did that with her. That was "True Love." Nancy Savoca's "True Love," which is a movie I still love and have on my resume. And then I just kept doing that. I really liked it. I did it for 25 years and I would say 10 of my first 12 movies, my husband cut. He was a picture editor and he cut them, And I got real instant feedback from him because we'd would work on the same movies. I, I would say to him. So this weird, thing happened on set today. I'm not sure if it, if I did the right thing, here's what the situation was... I did this... I thought about that and he would get the footage the next day and we would have a good conversation about what were the options, you know, what were the repercussions of the choices and all that kind of stuff.

Mary Cybulski (04:54)

So I had a kind of souped up education that way. It was really, really great. So that's kind of the overview of developing a way to work, but then every job I would just change the forms a little bit, you know, depending on what the movie was because every movie has its own concerns. You know, just like it has its own language or its own rhythm. It has like its own style of continuity and, and there's different things that are important in one movie that are not important in another movie. So I would just always, all my forms from movie to movie are always different. I did a movie a long time ago for American Playhouse that we shot in the mountains of Montana. And the weather was so changeable there that after the first couple days, I thought to myself, I need to a column for weather, because that's really gonna be important when the editor looks through all these shots, he's gonna look, was it raining in that shot? You know, what was going on? There was one setup on that movie that in the same setup, in the weather column, I had sunny, rain, and snow.

Caryn Ruby (05:54)

Oh my gosh.

Mary Cybulski (05:55)

Yeah, yeah. In the same setup. So, so that's a situation like I've never ever on any other movie done that, but for that movie, it was helpful.

Caryn Ruby (06:02)

Right. Because in the edit room, it would be weird to have a scene where you're showing one side and it's sunny behind them. And then you show the other side of the conversation and it's like raining. It's crazy.

Mary Cybulski (06:14)

Yeah. And, and, and there could be a point where the editor's going, like, I guess we could make this scene happen in the sun. So what do I have from all my setups that could pass for sunny? You know? And then they could look, they can sort through the takes that way.

Caryn Ruby (06:29)

Yeah.

Mary Cybulski (06:30)

And the longer I did it, you know, the more refined I got and the more I like them and, you know, it's all very flexible. It's, that's the thing. And people think about script supervisors as being like enforcers of the rules or, you know, we're, we're all like inflexible.

Caryn Ruby (06:43)

Militant?

Mary Cybulski (06:43)

Militant. Yeah. And it's, it's just not the case. You know, it just isn't, you know, that's a, that's, somebody's bad idea of us. It's not really what we do.

Caryn Ruby (06:50)

Exactly. So in the matching, as far as within the same scene, different setups and matching the movements and keeping track of, especially when you have multiple people in one scene for me, I find that a challenge, right? To create all these marks of who's turning and what line and when they take a bite and how much drinking they have going on and all that sort of stuff. I wonder if there's any kind of advice that you could offer, cuz for me, that seems challenging. And I know for a lot of people, it is as well.

Mary Cybulski (07:21)

Oh, it's impossible. You can't do it. <laugh> no, no you can't. You can't do that. You know, and anyone who tells you, they can is, is not being honest.

Caryn Ruby (07:29)

Thank you.

Mary Cybulski (07:30)

When there's just like all hell breaks loose, and there's no way anything can match at all. Like I did this movie with, um, Michel Gondry called "Be Kind Rewind" where every take was ad libbed. There was no blocking. There was no, there wasn't even a script really. There was like some treatment, but there wasn't a script. We had two cameras with a thousand foot loads. And they could be pointed anywhere at any time and yeah, it was very like frenetic energy and people were running around and making stuff up and then making other stuff up. It was just like, like that. So at that point, what I would try to do is kind of remember the big chunks of themes of what they said and kind of what area they were in maybe, and then try to get an idea of what Michel liked and keep track of that stuff.

Mary Cybulski (08:15)

And just not worry about the stuff that he didn't like. People moved around like so much. Then I would try to get escape hatch shots, which is like maybe Delroy and Jack were having a really hilarious fight over in the corner of the record shop and they walked across and continued over there and they were sometimes here and sometimes there, the only thing you could do is make sure there were shots that didn't include either of them that Michel would actually wanna use and get some of those during the same time. So there were two other characters, you know, just get them off at a different corner, looking right, looking left, looking up, looking down or, or something that was interesting. Maybe they were arguing about like a cassette tape. Something like that, like who knows what the cut's gonna be. You know, it, it's not gonna be decided for months ahead of time and there's no real, um, sense to it. No plan to it.

Caryn Ruby (09:05)

It is clear that you love filmmaking and you love script supervising. And now that you're not doing it anymore, what do you miss about it?

Mary Cybulski (09:14)

I really miss carrying the movie in my head. Yeah. Cause that, that's really fun. Especially if you're on a good project with good filmmakers and you understand what they're up to. You carry the plan in your head and then you fill it in with the media that you collect as you go and you get to be in the conversations about, should we do this? Should we do that? What's the importance of that. You know, almost nobody gets to do that on a movie set, really keep the movie in mind, see the actors, see the performances up close, like be in the director's head to know really what they're trying to grab and sometimes even help them grab it. It's great. Yeah.

Caryn Ruby (09:50)

Yeah. I do know cuz I checked your IMDB, you've been doing a lot of on set photography. Does that help being there?

Mary Cybulski (09:59)

<laugh> oh yeah, yeah. I mean

Caryn Ruby (10:00)

It's not the same by any means.

Mary Cybulski (10:02)

Oh no, it's completely different. <affirmative> I mean, it's kind of the same, but it's completely different. <laugh> cause you know, I had worked as script supervisor for so long and I really felt like it was time for change and I'm not really a meticulous person by nature. The thing I was good at as a Script supervisor when I was good at it, was that big picture stuff. Like really understanding what the director was after and really helping them get there and not bugging them with a bunch of things that they didn't care about, you know, but of course you have to be very meticulous in that job. So I was kind of crushing my whole personality towards that more careful side. And it was really, really fun, but I was like, I think I just have to like balance this out a little bit.

Mary Cybulski (10:42)

But then the thing that I really love about it now is that I don't have to worry about all the stuff that we did before and all the stuff that's coming up, you know, because you're always just running through your head, what could go wrong? What could go wrong? How do I set things up so that if it does go wrong, I'm right there with something that could help, is the DP gonna get caught here? Is this actor gonna work themselves in a hole there? How about that prop is, you know, so just to be in the moment and look for something beautiful and fun and lovely, you know, that that's a really great balance to all of that decades of worry know. So

Caryn Ruby (11:15)

Yeah. And I think within that, you answered my next question, which was what don't you miss?

Mary Cybulski (11:21)

<laugh> no, the thing I really don't miss is every once in a while you get somebody who didn't really know what my job was or how it worked and they would go, we're just gonna do whatever we want. And, and Mary will tell us how to match. And it just doesn't work. You know, it just doesn't work. It's like the thing about like working with Michel Gondry and "Be Kind Rewind" where everybody was everywhere, he understood what that was. And he, first of all, designed a very loose feeling movie. So a lot of playfulness and sloppiness could be part of it and would be fine. It was not a costume drama. It was looked like a documentary, you know, which was very scrappy and good. And then he also was very open to all these escape hatch things. He really loved it when I had an idea like that, cuz he knew it would only take a second and he might really be able to use it later. So you can be that wild, but you have to kind of know what the repercussions are and work with that style. And then he's happy with it. I'm happy with it. We'll have a good time. But if you have somebody who just goes, oh, that's something that continuity worries about, I don't have to worry about that. And it's impossible. And I've had a couple of those and it just it's just makes you hate everything.

Caryn Ruby (12:28)

<laugh> Yeah. So when the book is available, there will be a link right here below <laugh> <laugh> and until then you're gonna have a link to the first version, which is still incredibly important. And so just full of everything you need to know if you are just starting out and you don't know how to get started, read Mary's book, it will get you right on your way.

Mary Cybulski (12:54)

Thank you.

Caryn Ruby (12:55)

Yeah. And so with that, I am going to thank you so very much for taking the time to talk with me. This was so fun, interesting, informative, helpful. All of the adjectives. I really, truly, truly appreciate you taking the time to talk to me on this podcast today, Mary.

Mary Cybulski (13:13)

It's really fun. Thanks.

Caryn Ruby (13:16)

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 (15:28)

If you only know one thing about script supervisors, it's probably that we have something to do with continuity. Maybe you've even heard the term continuity supervisor, but what exactly is continuity in film production? And why is it important? I think this quote from Mary Cybulski's book "Beyond Continuity Script Supervision for the Modern Filmmaker" explains it really well. "Good continuity gives the illusion of natural action unfolding as we watch the story. Bad continuity reminds us that what we are watching is constructed, not real. It takes us out of the story and destroys the easy flow of our pretend world. Good continuity is not perfect continuity. It is continuity that is good enough to keep us engaged in the story." Looking at filmmaking through the lens of continuity is a unique perspective that script supervisors bring to set and it goes so much deeper than watching cups and hands. We'll discuss all of it, including how some actors' actions, support continuity and advice for when things don't match. Plus, a few outrageous horror stories that could only be told by a script supervisor. Today we talk connecting the shots with Mary Cybulski Shadia Sepehrnia, Toni Crey, Roe Moore, Margery Kimbrough, and Randi Feldman. So let's get into it.

Mary Cybulski (16:55)

The basic principle of continuity is that it only matters when there's a cut. If there's no cut, it's continuous by nature. You know, it just is. The only time you really have to worry about continuity is when you have one picture slammed up against another picture and whatever is in common on both sides of that cut should passively look the same. Enough alike not to be distracting anyway.

Shadia Sepehrnia (17:18)

Everyone says this, which always makes me mad. They're like, oh wow, so you talk about the left hand and the cup, and if it stays there and oh, if the shirt's unzipped. I'm like, oh, come on. That's wardrobe. That's not me. Like it's all the tiny things that they talk about. And to me, I always talk about maintaining continuity of story. How do we get from one scene to the next? Continuity of performance of an actor, how they react to something versus when you reverse - did they have the right reaction? I didn't realize some of these things until I started working with directors that were really amazing because they would look in a script and they would come to me and say, "wait, what's the beat in the story? How are they supposed to be feeling?"

Toni Crey (17:55)

Is there consistency in the way that person is reacting to the other one, even though that shot was taken two hours ago, will there be a match in the eye line and in the tone of the actor's performance that will perfectly match and be seamless, even though it was shot out of order. And so many things are shot out of order that you almost are building a reference point at each place in the script. You know, this is a timeline and this occurs at this point in time. And then this occurs at this point in time, those two have to speak to each other

Mary Cybulski (18:28)

Matching props and that kind of stuff. I hate it. And it becomes much more like babysitting, which I just hate, I just hate. If I can get away with a bad match, I will, I will be so happy, but if I can't get away with it, then it just can't happen. But not for me, for the flow. But I do like the logic of it. I do like the kind of progressive continuity that what happens between the scenes needs to make sense for the whole story to hang together. And that's really different than matching drinks to words and stuff like that. To me, that kind of continuity that logic and that kind of world building, I really do love. I really do love that part.

Randi Feldman (19:05)

There's three very important people holding up the continuity film and it's the script supervisor, the DP and the director, and every other department as well is completely involved in the continuity for their department.

Caryn Ruby (19:20)

As a script supervisor, I love being a part of the team of department heads, working together. Knowing what's important and what can slide is a skill that is necessary and takes a lot of practice - because it's impossible to simultaneously track everything at once! The script, to be sure all the right lines are said, plus everything in frame: props, wardrobe, actors' actions, and their hair, watch for the boom, take all the notes, and often while multiple cameras are rolling at the same time! Are you overwhelmed yet? <laugh> Welcome to the club. We all have a story of when we missed something big. Here's Mary's:

Mary Cybulski (20:00)

Aida Tuturro. That was her first movie. And she was in a scene with a guy who was playing her father and in the scene, they were having an argument. We shot it as two over the shoulders, sitting at a kitchen table. And when it was Aida's closeup, she leaned into it and yelled at him and yelled at him and yelled at him, as she should, that's her character. And then when the camera came behind her, she was not that aggressive. In fact, she didn't lean forward. She leaned back a lot. And we only had two setups. She had never been on camera before. I had never script supervised before, you know, totally understandable. They couldn't use that scene cuz every time they cut back and forth, she'd go ping, ping, ping, ping, ping. And it just was ridiculous. So that's a real lesson for people starting out is to look at the big picture like that. And I was probably tracking every word she said, or she had a coffee cup or whatever, but I just missed that whole dynamic, the whole heart of the scene. But that's really common, I think first mistake. And it was a disaster.

Caryn Ruby (21:03)

Yep. My disaster story's on another episode. So you're filming and you realize something doesn't match. *gasp* What do you do? Here's some sage advice from Marjorie and Mary.

Margery Kimbrough (21:14)

Even if I spot a continuity error, I say to the director, is this gonna be a cutting point for you? Because the actor isn't matching. And if it's important, I'll go in and say something. And if it's not important, I don't wanna interrupt the performance cause they cut for performance. Do they care that her hair is tucked in and here in take one and not tucked in and all the other takes? No, if she's doing a good job. Her hair tucked behind her ear. Isn't gonna be a thing.

Mary Cybulski (21:41)

If you have eight people at the table and nobody's minding their own continuity, there's nothing a script supervisor can do about it. I'm sorry. It's not possible. So the actors should know that for sure. And the director has to know that. And you know, everybody has to know that, everybody has to know that that's how that works. It's not a magical thing. And even if you go back and you check the tape and you go this here and this here and this, then you're painting by numbers and it just feels bad. You wanna have something that's lively and organic and playful and you have to have respect for it and, and use it as part of your craft. Everybody's craft.

Caryn Ruby (22:17)

One of the best parts about being on set is watching the actors perform live. Roe shares a tricky situation with an actor and how it spoiled her forever. Then Mary - who's worked with countless Oscar winners, including Helen Mirren, Julia Roberts, George Clooney, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, talks about how she's witnessed actors, enhanced their performances with perfectly timed actions.

Roe Moore (22:41)

So it's not necessarily those tricky continuities where you're watching, how many items are they touching and where it order, blah, blah, blah. The trickiest one was watching an actor, literally get up with one coffee cup in the right hand. They'd talk, they'd walk, keep in the right hand, it's still in frame. They'd turn, and all of a sudden the coffee cup would be in the left hand. And it took me three takes cuz I didn't, I wasn't confident. I was like, I know it was in the right hand. I know it was. How did it get to the left hand? Like is it just floating? Like, and every time that actor turned, she switched hands.

Caryn Ruby (23:11)

At least she did it the same way each time.

Roe Moore (23:12)

She did, but it like threw me for such a loop that I was like, should I even bother saying just for ease sake, can you keep it in your right hand? And I was this close - this close being my thumb and finger are very close, cuz we're on a podcast. <laugh> um, but I was this close to going to her and being like, Hey, can you just keep it in the right hand? Cuz I'm not sure why it's going into the left hand. Cause we were going in for coverage. And we actually were going in for a profile. And I wanted her to remember to switch the cup. Since I had to figure that out with her back to camera. Luckily she was lovely, she was like, no, I know I switch it because I have to grab this thing in the next scene. She grabs something that is in the right hand. We hadn't established that yet. But she was thinking so far ahead as an actor, even in her own continuity, I was like professionalism to a new high! You are my standard for actors now because you thought that far ahead.

Mary Cybulski (24:05)

Really, really good actors have figured out how to make it part of their performance and make it meaningful. Really good ones use their actions like they use their dialogue. You know, it's like their performance is not their dialogue, but their performance kind of hangs on their dialogue, like a spine. And their continuity does the same thing. Like when they are sitting at a table and they're having a conversation at some point, their character gets really uncomfortable and they feel like they wanna move or do something. And so they take a drink out of their drink and that's something that is meaningful. It's not just like, oh this is the word I take my drink on - that way lies disaster. Then it becomes all like paint by numbers. Really good ones, it means something when they take a drink. So they don't have to think about it really. They just, that drink releases the pressure that they build up until that certain point. And then the drink makes them able to flip into what the next speed of their performance is.

Caryn Ruby (25:01)

And finally here's some more helpful advice on how to be strategic about what to watch for while on set and cutting the film in your head.

Roe Moore (25:10)

My highest thing for anybody who wants to get in this industry, watch TV, watch movies, watch it with an analytical mindset because you'll find out very rarely do they use that master after they've established - it's for geography purposes or they decide to pop out for a second here a second there. And that's where like as a script supervisor, we have to be able to look at it not just as, okay, is this going to technically cut correctly no matter what aspect of the scene they pick, we have to go, okay, how is this really gonna flow? And that's where you and the director have to be in the same mindset.

Mary Cybulski (25:44)

If there's a cutting plan, the director knows how they're gonna cut the scene. That's really, really helpful because, if you can cut in your head and you know, kind of what the director's thinking or if you know what the coverage is and you know what the dynamics of the scene are so you can kind of understand what the director might wanna do. Then it really gives you a hierarchy of what's important and what's not important.

Caryn Ruby (26:09)

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.