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Script Supervising and Film Continuity, Third Edition |
Author: Pat P Miller
Published: 1998-12 |
List price: $43.95
Our price: $29.01
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As of: November 21st, 2008 02:04:00 AM
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Customer comments on this selection.
 P. Miller and Script Supervising
This book is the BIBLE of the Script Supervisors book to purchase. If you are looking for a Internet class to take on Script Supervising you can use this book in the class! Internet classes are available at Riverside Community College and also Saddleback College for those interested in learning Script Supervising taught on your own home PC or laptop and classes run 8 or 16 weeks depending on what semester you sign up.
New to Script/Continuity Supervising
I'm new to Script supervising and I've learned a wealth of information. I highly recommend this book.
 Necessary resource, if unglamorous treatment
Miller's book provides the necessary foundational data one will need before getting into script supervising. Her writing doesn't exactly scintillate with humor like some of the new "guerilla filmmaking" books out there today -- she tends to write like a 1950s schoolteacher, precise and methodical -- but in an admittedly esoteric specialization of the industry where there are only a few books on the topic available, you really don't have a lot of options and you'll need this book. It's NOT sufficient for giving one the complete training needed to actually work as a script supervisor, however. Whoever wrote that you can learn what you need to know "on set" is just asking for trouble -- it's like thinking you can read a book on piloting an airplane and just get behind the yoke and learn "what you need to know" in the air. On a "real" film set (not some zero-budget digicam or student project that no one will ever see) mistakes are EXPENSIVE. Mistakes by a poorly trained s.s. can cost thousands of dollars (not including the cost of therapy when the director and editor go bonkers trying to cut the film from the scripty's notes.) Trying to learn on a "real" set could make it the first and the last real movie set you'll ever work on. I value Miller's book but it must be combined with a good course of study with a real-life teacher who can answer your questions. A course that includes on-the-job training and followup and information on how to research and obtain real jobs doing script supervising is critical -- obviously no book can contain all this. I found Jim Kelly Durgin's course to be helpful in this regard, and there may be others out there too if you look for them. BTW, I don't feel that the 3rd edition of the Miller book is substantially different or better than the 2nd, so if you need to save some money, you'll do just fine with the 2nd edition. I agree that she is old-fashioned (she doesn't deal _at all_ with the new continuity software on the market, a huge omission) but, again, there aren't that many books about this subject readily available.
 A Basic Starting Point..
Hi everyone:
I am based in Toronto, Canada and have been script supervising feature films and television series internationally for 12 years now (read my imdb profile if you're interested in my "street cred"). During that time I have had the pleasure of training dozens of working script supervisors in the classroom as well as on set.
I would like to say that I do recommend this book to all my students as a basic starting point - especially for those who never went to film school - mainly because nothing exists out there that is as clearly written and includes much of the basics (thus, the necessity of my Script Supervision 101 and more advanced seminars, and other in-depth courses available in different cities out there). As another user commented, most of what can be learned about script happens either on a film set or in the editing room, not by reading a book.
Further, the limitations of this particular book are that she deals mainly with the old Hollywood studio system and does not account for the present-day realities of technological advances, the more recent varieties of on-set politics and settiquette, and alternative/maverick directing and coverage styles. If this book is all you know about script, you're going to get fairly frustrated fairly quickly.
The complexities of the job do require a certain knowledge base, and learning as much as you can from a working pro before stepping out onto a film set will save you months or years of trial and error down the line.
However, that being said, do give this book a read and augment your learning with great books on the art of coverage and directing (for example, Daniel Arijon's classic "The Grammar of the Film Language" can be very useful to the new script supervisor) - then get out there and shadow a script supervisor directly, or edit a few films for yourself or take an intensive course then jump right into the fire.
I wish you all well in your burgeoning careers!
ciao :)
daniela
mondocinema@ca.inter.net
Comments on other Reviewer's comments
I just want to toss my hat in here about the Pat Miller's book on script continuity.
This book was recommended to me last summer when I was on a film shoot. I was cautioned that the book was very old but it was basically the "Bible" for script supervisors. Hey it was published 1998, written maybe 2 years earlier so given it's 2005, that's almost 8 or 9 years ago. I was told to read the book and to use what I wanted from it. The script supervisor who recommended the book was also nice enough to give me her forms that she uses on set.
The problem with reviews by Larry D. Madill Jr. and "a reader" about courses by Jim Kelly Durgin and Mark Thomas is that (1) I don't live in LA (2) I need to come up to speed reasonably fast for 2 small films I am working on (3) if Durgin or Thomas are such 'experts' why haven't they written books on the topic (4) script supervision is something that you learn on the job and not from a course (although a course is sure better than a book and a book better than nothing at all).
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