What is Film Continuity?

Film continuity is described as shots taken from different angles and composition at a single location must have the same position of characters, properties, objects, costumes and even dialogs. It is one of the biggest errors which amature or professional filmmakers often make. Film continuity is very easy to understand yet very difficult to maintain. Lets understand film continuity with some examples. Lets say a director is taking 3 shots of an action of a character having a drink in a glass. Directors takes master shot and the glass is half filled and shot is ok and director says cut. Now there are chances that the character will finish the drink and his glass gets filled once again for the next shot. But if the glass has been filled full then there is a film continuity error as the glass was half filled in the master shot. So when audience will watch the film they will get an unconscious distraction when they will notice that the glass which was half filled suddenly became full glass drink.Check out the following example of film continuity errors where bottle color has been changed.

Pic : colmomurchu.com

So Why Film Continuity Is So Important?

Film continuity is very important in filmmaking. The basic purpose of making films is connecting audience with your story. When you start telling stories in visual form/films the audience gets connected to the content and they focus on the ccontinuity of the events. Bt there is a film continuity error, audience get distracted and it takes a lot of time for them to connect back to the story which no filmmaker wants.

Other example would be change in glass position from left to right or the color of the drink, different costumes or different positions of objects in background or time continuity like evening to night or dialog continuity and so on. The bottom line is you must follow the film continuity in every form.