A bit of history and a look to the future

This episode we hear some fun and fascinating anecdotes about the history of our craft and some ideas about how we can make the future better for the next generation of script supervisors.

But first, we talk to HANNAH DRISCOLL in another in-person interview from before the pandemic. Hannah has been a full time Los Angeles based Script Supervisor since 2015 and has worked on everything from the Emmy-Award Nominated series Pen 15 and Adam Ruins Everything to big-budget commercials for well-known national brands. She has an online course, Script Supervising 101, for beginning script supervisors, and for fun she hosts a podcast called John Wick Deep Dives where she overanalyzes John Wick scenes with film industry professionals.

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.

Hannah Driscoll (00:36)

I, I remember just running. I had, we had to run.

Robert Goodwin (00:39)

You should just be lucky you're even here

Caryn Ruby (00:41)

<cough> Sexism. Oh, excuse me.

Hannah Driscoll (00:43)

It's pretty rare to get everything to work out.

Dawn Gilliam (00:45)

It's humanly impossible. So that means that this is a two person job. We need to push to expand our department.

Hannah Driscoll (00:54)

I can still do this job regardless of where I am and what technology I have access to.

Caryn Ruby (00:58)

I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore.

Caryn Ruby (01:04)

In this episode, I talked to Hannah Driscoll in an interview that was recorded before the pandemic. Hannah has been a full-time Los Angeles-based script supervisor since 2015. In that time, she has worked on all types of projects from the Emmy award nominated series, "Pen 15" and "Adam Ruins Everything" to big budget commercials for well-known national brands. She has an online course "Script Supervising 101" that's available for beginning script supervisors. And for fun, she hosts a podcast called "John Wick Deep Dives" where she overanalyzes John Wick scenes with film industry professionals. One of the topics we discuss is how excited we were that IMDB had created a new category called "Script and Continuity" that moved us out of the "miscellaneous crew" section. A change we later learned was made possible by Dawn Gilliam. You can hear the story of how she did it in my interview with her on episode two. After the interview, we'll hear some fun and fascinating anecdotes from the group about the history of our craft and some thoughts on what we can do differently to make the future better for the next generation of script supervisors.

Caryn Ruby (02:15)

Hi.

Hannah Driscoll (02:14)

Hi, <laugh>

Caryn Ruby (02:15)

So here we are with Hannah Driscoll and we are talking script supervising. So the first thing I would like to do is talk about how you got into script supervising, because most people didn't set out to be a script supervisor and then became one.

Hannah Driscoll (02:33)

Yeah.

Caryn Ruby (02:34)

So let's hear your story.

Hannah Driscoll (02:34)

<laugh> I guess you could say I did the same thing. I was in school for screenwriting and I needed on set experience to do all the requirements for class. So I decided to choose a job that had the title script in it, because I figured, "Hey, I'm studying writing screenplays. I might as well do something with the same title." And I thought it was gonna be easy. Cause I'm like, oh, all I gotta do show up, manage the script, and that's it. And quickly realized it was not like that. So I, uh, deep dove into how to do this job and loved it to the point where I constantly was working on everyone's projects in school. And I decided that this could be a good day job for a writing career. So that's what I decided to do. But obviously life takes a bunch of turns and there's the recession, and then the writer's strike and the actor's strike...And so I took five years off to do another type of writing. And then in 2015, I came back to film and I took Randi Feldman's classes, got her certification, jump started back into it. And then five years later, here I am.

Caryn Ruby (03:35)

Mm-hmm. So did you find after taking Randi's class that you were like, "Wow, I thought I knew stuff even then. And I still didn't even know."

Hannah Driscoll (03:41)

Yeah. Oh yeah.

Hannah Driscoll (03:44)

He class is very in depth, and you know, what's funny is I take her classes now, uh, through the union and I find that even the most seasoned script supervisors that are in those classes, I feel like they're learning stuff too. She really, really loves cinema. You can tell, like she loves the camera lens choice. She loves the framing. She likes the location. I mean, she just loves making movies. And I think that's initially what sparked everything back into me to really get back into it cuz I knew all the film techniques, but she really prepares you for what's happening on set, which no other class or book or anything has ever done for me.

Caryn Ruby (04:18)

Yeah. And also she prepared me, thanks to you for recommending me to take her class. Because I too was like, "Oh, I know all these things. I've been making videos for years." Like I didn't even go to film school. How dare I think that! What am I thinking? <laugh>

Hannah Driscoll (04:33)

That's great.

Caryn Ruby (04:34)

I didn't really know how to line, like I didn't know to use a ruler. Okay.

Hannah Driscoll (04:39)

Okay.

Caryn Ruby (04:39)

Like, I remember the first couple films that I did on pen and paper, I was up till three in the morning, writing and erasing, writing and eracsng, making my lines better making... I was like "this, I can't do this anymore. I can't do this anymore!"

Hannah Driscoll (04:52)

Oh my gosh. Sounds way stressful.

Caryn Ruby (04:53)

It as BAD.

Hannah Driscoll (04:58)

Oh yeah. But I mean you got through it.

Caryn Ruby (05:00)

I did.

Hannah Driscoll (05:01)

<laugh> but yeah, digital's for you.

Caryn Ruby (05:03)

<laugh>

Caryn Ruby (05:09)

Are you ScriptE? <software>

Hannah Driscoll (05:10)

I use ScriptE.

Caryn Ruby (05:11)

Like I remember when I was in Randi's class and they had someone come in the first day and talk about Skarratt and then the next day they had someone talk about ScriptE and I was like, "oh I know, I'm gonna be a scriptyE person. ScriptE looks amazing! So much better." And then I ended up falling into Skarratt.

Hannah Driscoll (05:26)

<laugh> Well, it's much more affordable.

Caryn Ruby (05:28)

I love the idea that while you're in ScriptE, you can put notes on the script.

Hannah Driscoll (05:32)

Yeah. I edit everything right away. I guess. I didn't realize Skarratt doesn't do that.

Caryn Ruby (05:37)

You can edit the dialogue, but you have to go to a different screen and it's a little wonky. It's not like super easy. And in ScriptE you can put those text boxes all over and type, whatever you want.

Hannah Driscoll (05:48)

Yeah.

Caryn Ruby (05:49)

And make your own notes and all that.

Hannah Driscoll (05:51)

Mm-hmm <affirmative>,

Caryn Ruby (05:51)

that's a no on Skarratt. You can't make those little texty boxes all over the place.

Hannah Driscoll (05:55)

Interesting. You know, to be quite honest, we're never gonna find anything perfect. You know...

Caryn Ruby (05:59)

I want something perfect. <laugh>

Hannah Driscoll (06:01)

<laugh> Don't we all.

Caryn Ruby (06:06)

You like the handwritten?

Hannah Driscoll (06:07)

I love handwritten. Yeah.

Caryn Ruby (06:09)

Oh my God. My writing is so messy.

Hannah Driscoll (06:11)

I think I like the idea that I was handwritten, but now I think if I had to go back to it, I mean, I did have my software totally fail on the first season of Pen15, and I was handwritten for 24 hours without my stuff. It was a really nice wake up call to realize that I can still do this job regardless of where I am and what technology I have access to.

Caryn Ruby (06:30)

For sure. Yeah. And sometimes people think that a script supervisor is the software. It's like, oh, we'll just give a PA the software.

Hannah Driscoll (06:37)

Mm-hmm <affirmative>.

Caryn Ruby (06:37)

...and it's like, no, that's not the job.

Hannah Driscoll (06:39)

Exactly. It's managing the script continuity regardless of the tools you bring. And think about with any tool that's on set. My boyfriend's a gaffer and there's honestly times where stuff doesn't work out. Lights don't work, electricity is difficult, there's a short somewhere... People are running around, somebody plugs in a heater and everything goes crazy. So you have to really work on the fly and that's our job too. You can do, you know, like wireless receivers. I've done that before. I've run literally behind a camera and just managed the continuity right along with the camera, a director, the DP, and I'm just there managing it.

Caryn Ruby (07:11)

That seems overwhelming to me.

Hannah Driscoll (07:12)

It's a little overwhelming. Yeah. So fastest I've ever had to run was full speed over a freeway interpass like a bridge. Cause somebody was running, they were stealing something. And I remember they said, "okay, we're gonna start with them stealing." And I remember just running. I had, we had to run and there was no monitor - It was a very low budget - and we just did it. Loved it. Every minute of it. Do you ever find that you start to kind of like talk and text and do a lot of stuff in abbreviations now?

Caryn Ruby (07:46)

Totally.

Hannah Driscoll (07:47)

Doesn't take that long to just type a whole thing out, but my emails are still abbreviated and I have to go back and I have to fill out all the abbreviations, but I know what I mean. <laugh>

Caryn Ruby (07:55)

Other people maybe sometimes don't.

Hannah Driscoll (07:57)

Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. Yeah. I created a whole legend for this director that I worked with a couple years ago 'cause he wasn't understanding my abbreviations and I'm like, "you know what? I should have a legend that I just give in my normal packet every time I get hired." So I just adapted that and I had no idea how many abbreviations I use until I listed them out. It was so many. Crazy!

Caryn Ruby (08:17)

So you mentioned Pen 15?

Hannah Driscoll (08:19)

Yes.

Caryn Ruby (08:19)

Which is Emmy-nominated, WGA nominated, critics choice nominated... All kinds of nominations!

Hannah Driscoll (08:28)

Isn't that great?

Caryn Ruby (08:29)

Yeah, congratulations!

Hannah Driscoll (08:29)

Thank you. <laugh>.

Caryn Ruby (08:31)

And one day soon script supervisors will also get nominations.

Hannah Driscoll (08:35)

Like, you know, IMDB changed. I didn't even realize it until a couple of months afterwards, my friend texted me and she was like, "have you been on IMDB lately?" And I'm like, "no. Why, why would I go on there?" <laugh> and I looked at it and I'm like, "oh, I don't have miscellaneous crew anymore."

Caryn Ruby (08:50)

Yeah.

Hannah Driscoll (08:51)

Huge. Very huge. Oh my gosh. Great step forward. I mean, they still need to change a couple of titles for other departments, but I am very hopeful that they will learn that and that they will keep updating and making the right decisions.

Caryn Ruby (09:04)

Yeah. Because we are not a miscellaneous crew.

Hannah Driscoll (09:06)

No!

Caryn Ruby (09:06)

We're a department head, it's like a huge fricking job!

Hannah Driscoll (09:09)

Exactly. And we are a department head, number one. And I, I do feel like when shows or movies forget that, they're hurting themselves so much.

Caryn Ruby (09:19)

Yeah, it's amazing that a lot of productions don't have script supervisors.

Hannah Driscoll (09:23)

Mm-hmm <affirmative> that was another reason why I had to take some time off was because of the whole recession. People weren't treating us like an integral part of crew. So I wasn't getting any calls to get work because people were like, "oh, that's kind of a luxury job and all that." And I'm just like luxury. Wow. Wow. Yeah. <laugh>

Caryn Ruby (09:41)

So, what makes your day on set? Like what is something that happens that you're just like, "yes! <Laugh> now it's a good day!"

Hannah Driscoll (09:47)

It's whenever you get that perfect take, like, it's pretty rare to get everything, to work out: focus, dialogue, framing, match continuity...There's no better high of getting that, especially when it is a huge scene or you're doing in-camera effects or doing actual effects on set. It's just getting that perfect take. Also, on another note, it's whenever I'm on a show and somebody knows like my coffee order and they just order it. That's really nice too. <laugh>.

Caryn Ruby (10:16)

that is nice.

Hannah Driscoll (10:16)

Yeah. It's so nice.

Caryn Ruby (10:19)

This has been so amazing and so much fun.

Hannah Driscoll (10:23)

Agreed.

Caryn Ruby (10:24)

And how can people find you?

Hannah Driscoll (10:26)

<laugh> um, I'm on Instagram as scripty Hannah and all of my contact information is on there. So yeah. Thank you so much for doing this. And I really think that it's cool that you wanna interview this job position. A lot of people always wanna interview the above line people and I think it's very cool of you to want to interview people who are, I feel like the heart and soul of this community and are really helping each department thrive and you are really getting a chance to give us a voice. And I really appreciate that.

Caryn Ruby (10:54)

Oh, thank you so much.

New Speaker (10:56)

Yeah, <laugh> definitely

Caryn Ruby (11:01)

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 (13:13)

This episode is a little bit of history and a look to the future. Since so many people don't really know what we do, it's probably likely that they don't know how this incredibly important department head position became so underrecognized, *cough sexism* excuse me, something in my throat. I asked Margery Kimbrough, Barry Caldwell, Robert Goodwin, Beatrice Bellino, Sharon Watt, Dawn Gillam, Mary Cybulski and Roe Moore to share some stories about the history of this craft and their ideas for the future. It's interesting to learn how it got started

Margery Kimbrough (13:53)

In the silent movies they didn't write scripts, they wrote scenarios, and then the actors would improvise. The directors would give them verbal direction or "say this now" or write..and they would improvise. And they had somebody, they had a woman, a stenographer come and take down all the instructions from the director and all the things that the actors said so that if they wanted to, they could make dialogue cards from them. So when they needed to do continuity - which was especially important when they started doing talkies - it fell to that person.

Barry Caldwell (14:31)

Directors worked for one studio only back then. And um, these guys all had their own full-time office on the lot, same as the executives, they had a staff and they had a secretary and when they were shooting, they'd just bring one of their secretaries to set, and she would take notes, and the craft evolved from there. And so, because it was secretarial in nature, and secretaries were all women - you know until 20, 30 years ago - most script supervisors were females.

Robert Goodwin (14:56)

If you look at the history of the pay disparity of department heads and how script supervisors are much lower than other department heads, a large part of it is because it was almost exclusively women - who people thought they could take advantage of. And for a long time, the rhetorics of, you know, "you should just be lucky you're even here," you know, kind of has worked. Now, this isn't a job that is just filled with former secretaries that you can take advantage of. It's filled with people who care about what they're doing, who wanna do it well and deserve to be paid for doing it well.

Caryn Ruby (15:31)

Exactly. Rob is such a huge champion of the craft. So besides paying us appropriately, what else does the community think needs to change?

Beatrice Bellino (15:44)

I think it would be nice if at times we did have the option to have a team. I mean, there have been shows where if they go to four or five cameras, there'll be two of us instead of dumping it on one person, which I think is really great. But could you imagine if you had like a PA or an intern a few days a week that wanted to learn and could help you? Or, you know, whatever "I need batteries, could you..." whatever.... to have a, an extra hand sometimes I think would be great

Sharon Watt (16:12)

In England. There is an assistant script supervisor position, and I wish that that's something that could be sort of translated to the American style of working. I mean, from what I gather, it's not there on every project, it's there when you have big projects - but I, you definitely know that the script supervisors who start off as assistant script supervisors - and that's how they learn their craft, and that's how they sort of get their experience before becoming script supervisors. You know, and when I say assistant script supervisor, it's a real title. That's how they're credited in the end crawl. And then they have a different pay grade. So it's, it's a real job title that has a different pay grade, which of course is like a little bit less because it's an assistant job before you become the main script supervisor. And, um, I would love it if that was something that could be implemented here.

Dawn Gilliam (17:02)

I think that we need to push to expand our department. It is way overdue. And I think in order to do that, we really have to learn how to be department heads and we need to change our mindset. We can't think that we're the only ones, "oh, we're just a department of one." We should stop saying that. If you're working on a free project, see if you can bring on another script supervisor so that you can get that person trained, or you guys can be working side by side so that you can learn how to have another script supervisor and being able to delegate the duty. It would help get the idea of having two script supervisors on the set.

Sharon Watt (17:45)

I mean, we used to have, when you wanted to become a script supervisor, you would mentor with a more experienced script supervisor and you would shadow them on set and you would sort of observe them at work in the field. But now that's a very sort of like rare thing

Robert Goodwin (18:00)

In the past where things were a lot slower moving, and rehearsals and stuff were way more important because when you're shooting on real film and you're spending 25-50 cents a foot - or whatever it was, you know, with inflation and all that, who knows what that would cost now - the importance of each take being as usable as possible, allowed for the script supervisor to do a lot more before they ever roll film. So they could focus on more specific things when they were rolling. For so much of how things are shot now with digital cards and the ability to move quickly, you have a lot of shooting the rehearsals and you have a lot of, "let's just try this. Let's just see how this goes." The mindset is now, "let's not miss anything that we will want to use" instead of "let's make sure we're going to get everything we want to use".

Robert Goodwin (18:55)

And that subtle change of making sure that they don't miss anything, puts a lot more pressure on us. And I think the one thing I've heard a lot of script supervisors say that I absolutely agree with is that we should split our job into continuity watching and note taking. Where one person is specifically watching the monitors and watching the set and seeing that things are happening continuously and that's their focus. And the other focus is making sure that, you know, the dialogue is done as scripted and are taking the notes. Because having to do both, having to be on book and making sure all the lines are right and writing notes are things that you can't be doing while looking at the monitor. So having somebody taking half that responsibility will just benefit everyone.

Dawn Gilliam (19:49)

We've gotta get real. It is humanly impossible to be looking at three cameras and one camera zooms in to a closeup without cuttin', and I go down to write "close up" or any kind of note being in computer or by your hand. And then the actor goes, "Dawn - line!" Humanly impossible. It's humanly impossible. So if I miss it, then now I'm embarrassed. But I was doing what needed to be done for the editor. That means that this is a two person job. If you are in a TV series with an ensemble cast, you need another script supervisor, some are doing it now. Some have woke up that you need a dedicated script supervisor who is looking at the props, the continuity, the lines, and can throw the line. And the other script supervisor can be there with the director and catching all them camera angles, especially since they choose to not cut the dang camera in between takes.

Caryn Ruby (20:51)

Thank you. It really makes sense to split up the job, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus on the best way to divide the duties. Another thing we talked about was how everyone seems to have their own system for note taking and there's no real standardized way to do it. Some people work by hand and others use software like Peter Skarratt's system sometimes just called Skarratt or ScriptE, which is the word script and the letter E at the end, not to be confused with the nickname scripty with a Y, which we get into in another episode, Mary explains sort of how we got here and what the differences are.

Mary Cybulski (21:30)

Nobody really talks to each other about what they use for applications, but everybody has just like picked up little things here and there. I thought that people who use ScriptE would just use it for everything or Peter Skarratt and they use it for everything, but it's really not like that at all. People really are putting together their own systems for what works for them, even though they're designed so you can do everything on them. People don't use 'em like that. But I think the way to just start figuring out what you wanna do, you know, how you wanna do things is to think about that in, in two different camps of data bank and annotative. Data banks, that's like, you know how, if you have Final Draft, if you select that this is a character and you start typing something, it goes, you know, it centers in the middle of the page and then you return it and it goes to dialogue? There's all those kind of like presets. Those presets are kind of like information boxes that you put information in and then the application can sort based on that, that's what a data bank is. So if you have something like that, that's a data bank. That's what makes Peter Skarratt able to break down the script. And then there's another kind of application that people are using, which is kind of annotative that kind of sits on top of the page that are really great for making notes and transferring notes to new drafts. It's more like writing and you have a much more flexibility with that. So there's a lot of things like a lot of editors really like the handwritten notes, because they're very expressive and it's not just like a, a sheet of data, but there's like stars and there's triple underlines and there's capitals. And there's stuff that make them really know what's important. It has a lot of personality, you know, there's more like annotative stuff. If you even knew that that was like the main difference you just, you can shop smarter I think.

Roe Moore (23:11)

I think if we could streamline it, bring a unification to what the job looks like. That way, even production knows what to expect. Cause like there's everybody coming out of the woodwork. I have my own forms. Barry has his own forms. We have ScriptE, we have Skarratt, we have all these other apps.

Dawn Gilliam (23:30)

We just have to work on our mindset of having more people in the department and having more of a comradery, and that my system is not better than your system, but it's more like you wanna be able to work under a lot of people's systems. In order for script supervisors to rise, we have got to start looking at the paperwork and how people do stuff and how they approach their prep and that type of a thing. And to get a little bit more seasoned in what they're doing and like, know how it is. We have got to create a course or a class or something that when you go from the non-union sector to the union sector, that we can bring you up to speed because we are moving fast over here.

Roe Moore (24:16)

We deserve unification. We deserve streamlining. We deserve to have better trained script supervisors out there in these roles on these projects, where it matters. Where a decision maker, like an A-lister can turn and say, I never wanna work with that person again. Like let's not have that happen. And I mean, people have to have their first film outta the way and sometimes that's rough. We all have that moment, but we have to be able to get to a level where we're all saying, this is our standard. Nobody can work below this and nobody can be skilled below this.

Caryn Ruby (24:51)

I can't wait to see all these changes come to fruition. 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.