Script continuity is concerned with making sure everything in a shot matches when the camera angle changes. They made no attempt to keep details consistent from episode to episode.
The Andy Griffith Show was shot with one camera, like a movie. Many TV shows use three cameras at once, but they didn’t do it that way on TAGS. Suppose there was a scene where Andy and Barney were talking at the courthouse. They would film the entire scene three (or more) times, once with the camera on Andy, doing it as many times as needed to get it just right; then they’d move the camera and shoot the entire scene again but this time with the camera on Barney; and then they’d shoot the whole thing one more time, with the camera positioned to film both of them at once. Then later, the editor cut and pasted all of the various bits of film together. Naturally it was very easy for mistakes to creep in. The best known example is when Barney tries to recite the preamble, and half of the time his hair is messy and the rest of the time it is neatly groomed. The job of the “script girl” was to take notes during filming so that when the camera was moved to a new angle, every person and prop visible in the shot remained the same. She might write things like “Andy’s feet are on the desk / Barney’s hat is on the table by his left hand”, and things of that nature. Then later when it came time to shoot the same scene from a different angle, they could (hopefully) make everything match up. It was especially important to make good notes when filming the scene wouldn’t be completed until hours later, or maybe even the next day. Trivial triviality: years before she played Myrt “Hubcaps” Lesch, Ellen Corby worked as a script girl on the Our Gang (Little Rascals) film series. Paul Mulik Sent from the Mayberry Courthouse _______________________________________________ WBMUTBB mailing list [email protected] http://www.wbmutbb.com/
