In fiction, continuity is consistency of the characteristics of persons, objects, places and events seen by the reader or viewer. The term is taken from the mathematical sense of something being smooth and without break. In some forms of media, such as comic books, continuity has also come to mean a set of contiguous events, sometimes said to be "set in the same universe". The Three Graces, here in a painting by Sandro Botticelli, were the goddesses of charm, beauty, nature, human creativity and fertility in Greek mythology. ... In mathematics, a continuous function is one in which arbitrarily small changes in the input produce arbitrarily small changes in the output. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ...

Continuity is particularly a concern in the production of film and television due to the difficulty of rectifying an error in continuity after shooting has completed, although it also applies to other art forms, including novels, comics and animation, though usually on a much broader scale. Most productions have a script supervisor (formerly "script girl") on hand whose job is solely to pay attention to and attempt to maintain continuity across the chaotic and typically non-linear production shoot. This takes the form of a large amount of paperwork, photographs, and attention to and memory of large quantities of detail. It usually regards factors both within the scene and often even technical details including meticulous records of camera positioning and equipment settings. All of this is done so that ideally all related shots can match, despite perhaps parts being shot thousands of miles and several months apart. It is a less conspicuous job, though, because if done perfectly, no one will ever notice. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ... A novel is an extended work of written, narrative, prose fiction, usually in story form; the writer of a novel is a novelist. ... See comedian Stand up comedian List of Comedians List of British comedians comics comic book comic strip underground comics alternative comics web comic sprite comics manga graphic novel List of comic characters This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same... Animation is the technique in which each frame of a film or movie is produced individually, whether generated as a computer graphic, or by photographing a drawn image, or by repeatedly making small changes to a model unit (see claymation and stop motion), and then photographing the result with a...

Continuity errors

Many continuity errors are subtle, such as changes in the level of drink in a character's glass or the length of a cigarette, others can be more noticeable, such as changes in the clothing of a character. Such errors in continuity break the illusion of watching actual events. Care towards continuity must be taken because films are rarely filmed in the order they are presented in: that is, a crew may film a scene from the end of a movie first, followed by one from the middle, and so on. The shooting schedule is often dictated by location permit issues. A character may return to Times Square in New York City several times throughout a movie, but as it is extraordinarily expensive to close off Times Square, those scenes will likely be filmed all at once in order to reduce permit costs. Weather, the ambience of natural light, cast and crew availability, or any number of other circumstances can also influence a shooting schedule. There are two main types of continuity errors. Times Square Times Square is also the name of a station on the Detroit People Mover. ... Midtown Manhattan, looking north from the Empire State Building, 2005 New York City (officially named the City of New York and abbreviated NYC) is the most populous city in the United States, and is at the center of international finance, politics, communications, music, fashion, and culture. ...

Editing Errors

What became known as the now popular 'Hollywood' style of editing was developed by early European and American directors, in particular D.W. Griffith in his films such as The Birth of a Nation and Intolerance. The classical style ensures temporal and spatial continuity from scene to scene. This style has remained the most popular and effective method of editing films since its creation as it ensures a clear order and understanding of the film. An example of an editing error can be seen in the film It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World(1963), where a scene of people climbing a slope at the start is seen from below and then replayed from above. David Lewelyn Wark Griffith (January 22, 1875 - July 23, 1948) was an American film director (commonly known as D. W. Griffith) probably best known for his film The Birth of a Nation. ... The Birth of a Nation is a controversial, if highly influential and popular silent film directed by D.W. Griffith, based on the play The Clansman and the book The Leopards Spots both by Thomas Dixon. ... Intolerance is a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith in 1916. ... Its a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World is a comedy movie that followed the Hollywood trend in the 1960s of producing gigantic and epic films as a way to woo audiences into movie theaters. ...

Visual errors

Visual errors are instant discontinuities. These errors only occur in visual media such as film and television. Items of clothing change colors, shadows get longer or shorter, items within a scene change place or disappear. Film refers to the celluloid media on which movies are printed Film is a term that encompasses motion pictures as individual projects, as well as the field in general. ...

One example of a visual error occurs in the 1998 film Waking Ned Devine, when two of the films characters, Jackie and Michael, are walking through a storm towards Ned's house. The umbrella they are under is black during their conversation on the walk towards the house (filmed from slightly above and to the front); yet after cutting to a lower shot from behind Jackie approaching the house, Michael walks onscreen from the right holding an umbrella that is not black but beige, with a brown band at the rim. See also: 1997 in film, other events of 1998, 1999 in film, list of years in film. Events February 14 - Sharon Stone marries Phil Bronstein Top grossing films Saving Private Ryan, starring Tom Hanks Armageddon Theres Something About Mary, starring Ben Stiller and Cameron Diaz A Bugs Life...

In the final scene of episode 1 of the 2004 television series, Lost, a woman sees the pilot's wings badge at the edge of a puddle on the track. The camera takes her eye's point of view as she crouches to look at it; she sees as the audience does, reflected in the water of the puddle, the body of the pilot caught high in a tree - which must be ahead of her. However, she rises and turns to look at this behind her. Lost is an American drama/adventure television series set in the aftermath of a plane crash on a mysterious tropical island somewhere in the South Pacific. ...

Though visual continuity errors are logically confined to visual media, parallel mistakes can occur in text. For example, in Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales -- specifically in "The Miller's Tale" -- a door is ripped off its hinges only to be slowly closed again in the next scene. Chaucer: Illustration from Cassells History of England, circa 1902 Chanticleer the rooster from an outdoor production of Chanticleer and the Fox at Ashby_de_la_Zouch castle Geoffrey Chaucer (ca. ... Canterbury Tales Woodcut 1484 The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century (two of them in prose, the rest in verse). ... The Millers Prologue and Tale is the second of Geoffrey Chaucers The Canterbury Tales, told by a drunken miller to quite The Knights Tale. ...

Plot errors

Plot errors can occur in any media from film and television, to novels and radio dramas. They reflect a failure in the consistency of the created fictional world. For example, a character might state he was an only child, yet later mention having a sister. An example of this was the character of Sondra Huxtable on The Cosby Show, who was not mentioned when the show first began (Cliff Huxtable said they had 4 children instead of 5), but who suddenly appeared at Thanksgiving dinner during season 1. Or, conversly, a character might have a brother on a television series, but that brother eventually disappears and is never mentioned again. This happened most famously on Happy Days when Chuck Cunningham (brother of Richie and Joanie) disappeared after the 2nd season of the series. This has become known as "Chuck Cunningham syndrome". For dramatic purposes, sometimes a character on a show may have a friend who appears solely to illustrate a controversial issue to the audience. This plot device occurs often in what critics and television viewers alike have termed as very special episodes. The Cosby Show, starring Bill Cosby, is an American sitcom that was first broadcast in 1984. ... The First Thanksgiving, after the painting by Jean Louis Gerome Ferris (1863-1930) Thanksgiving is a holiday celebrated in much of North America, generally observed as an expression of gratitude, usually to God. ... Dinner is a term with several meanings. ... Happy Days is a popular United States television sitcom that originally aired between 1974 and 1984 on the ABC television network. ... Chuck Cunningham syndrome is a jargon used by TV critics; it refers to a TV series in which a main character or a character otherwise important to the shows plot is dropped with little or no explanation. ... A very special episode is an episode of a television sitcom or drama which deals with a serious social issue (often controversial), usually meant to inspire viewers to talk to family or friends about the topic discussed in the show. ...

Continuity can become very complicated in fictional worlds that are vastly different from our reality, such as those found in science fiction or fantasy. Many universes, such as those in Star Wars or Star Trek, may be so well-known and detailed that it is difficult to create new stories that fit in the established timeline. Discrepancies in past continuity are sometimes made deliberately; this is known as retconning. For the missile defense program, see Strategic Defense Initiative. ... The Enterprise boldly going where no man had gone before. ... Retroactive continuity – commonly contracted to the portmanteau word retcon – refers to adding new information to historical material, or deliberately changing previously established facts in a work of serial fiction. ...

Preservation

Usually film shoots have one person dedicated exclusively to minding continuity. This continuity person will take detailed notes of timelines, placement of objects within scenes, wardrobes, and biographical references. The use of a Polaroid camera was standard but has since been replaced by the advent of digital cameras. Apart from this the continuity person is responsible for marking-up the script as each shot is taken, to ensure that each story element is in fact filmed. A Polaroid camera is a type of camera with self-developing film usually called an instant camera. The invention of modern instant cameras is generally credited to American scientist Edwin Land, who unveiled the first commercial instant camera, the Land Camera, in 1947, 10 years after founding the Polaroid Corporation. ... A SiPix digital camera next to a matchbox to show scale. ...

Television programs like 24, in which actors have to appear as if it is the same day for 24 consecutive episodes, have raised public recognition of continuity. However, traditional films have frequently had much same sort of the issues to deal with; film shoots may last several months and as scenes are frequently shot out of story sequence, footage shot weeks apart may be edited together as part of the same day's action in the completed film. In some ways 24 presents a simpler situation as costumes and hairstyles generally should not change very frequently; in many feature films a range of different hairstyles and costumes must be created, changed, and then recreated exactly, as various scenes are shot. A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ... 24 is a current U.S. television action/drama series, produced by the Fox Network and syndicated worldwide. ...

When continuity mistakes have already been made often explanations are proposed to smooth over discrepancies.

Other times the error is resolved by denying the existence of one of the offending tales. Deciding which stories officially make up a universe results in a canon. Discarding all existing continuity and starting from scratch is known as rebooting. A less extreme literary technique that erases one episode is called the reset button. Often when a fan does not agree with one of the events in a story (such as the death of a favorite character), he or she decides to simply ignore that the effect ever happened. This is known as Krypto-revisionism. In the context of fiction, the canon of a fictional universe comprises those novels, stories, films, etc. ... Reboot, in series fiction, means to discard all previous continuity in the series and start anew. ... The Reset Button effect is a plot device employed in a number of science-fiction television series, comic books, and generally any episodic story. ... Krypto-revisionism is a concept created and named by writers Steven Grant and Mark Evanier, and describes the rejection by the audience of a storyline, concept, plot, or idea in an ongoing series. ...

External link

• http://www.moviemistakes.com/
• Continuity Corner