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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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
Such errors occur as early as Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, where in the Miller's Tale a door is ripped off its hinges only to be slowly closed again in the next scene.
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. 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.
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 retconRetroactive continuity commonly contracted to the portmanteau word retcon refers to the act of changing previously established details of a fictional setting, often without providing an explanation for the changes within the context of that setting. Origining.