The Meaning Of Continuity in shooting a movie

Articles In This Section:

· The Meaning Of Continuity in shooting a movie

· Basic Elements Of The Sequence in shooting a movie

· The Long Shot in the movie

· The Medium Shot in a movie

· The Closeup in shooting a movie

· Action -Not Posing in shooting a movie

· Audience Reaction from the movie

· Not By The Numbers in a movie

· Summary of pictorial continuity

Most people who have pressed the button of either a still or movie camera appreciate the fact that a motion picture is only a series of still pictures in which the change between the frames is so slight that the illusion of motion is gained.

But a good motion picture is more than just a series of animated snapshots. It hangs together, it tells a story smoothly, coherently, logically. The know-how of this is contained in the technique of pictorial continuity.

Pictorial continuity is a rather fancy term, but we like it, because it states so precisely what we're out to describe. The dictionary explains "continuity" as an "uninterrupted, close union of separate parts." Pictorial continuity, therefore, in a fully rounded definition, would be the proper development and connection of motion-picture sequences to create a smoothly joined, coherent motion-picture story.