The shooting script for Sally Potter’s Orlando

This shooting script for Sally Potter’s centuries-spanning fantasia Orlando (1992), based on the 1928 novel by Virginia Woolf, belonged to script supervisor Penny Eyles. It renders visible the huge amount of work that goes into creating something that, by its nature, should be entirely invisible: film continuity. In Eyles’s own words, “If they’re starting to notice the continuity, or even think about the continuity, the film is not working.”

Eyles has variously compared the role of the script supervisor to both a plumber and an accountant. A plumber in that “the pipes will fit together and the water will flow when the film is cut together”, and an accountant due to the script supervisor’s detailed daily record-keeping of what has been shot and how, and the amount of screen time it represents.

The script supervisor – a role once known as ‘continuity girl’, reflecting the fact it is almost exclusively a female-dominated profession – has a comprehensive knowledge of film language and technique and acts as a bridge between studio floor or location, the production office and the editing room, providing support and advice to the director to ensure that the footage shot will seamlessly cut together.

Orlando was Eyles’s first film with Sally Potter; they have subsequently worked on a number of other features together, including The Tango Lesson (1997), The Man Who Cried (2000), Yes (2004) and Ginger and Rosa (2012). Eyles has had similarly longstanding collaborations with other filmmakers, including Ken Loach, Terry Gilliam and Stephen Frears, demonstrating the value a director places upon a trusted script supervisor.

A closer look at some of the pages of her Orlando script illustrates some facets of Eyles’s work on this film, with a huge amount of detail captured through notes, sketches and Polaroid photographs. These document what slate numbers scenes were taken under (crucial for the editor sorting through the rushes), as well as notes on different takes, lenses, the action within scenes and their actual running times.

Her script also records details of props, makeup and costuming, such as the many rings worn by Quentin Crisp as Queen Elizabeth I, and Orlando’s (Tilda Swinton) changing eye colour across the course of the film. The sheer volume and scope of information recorded demonstrates the range of departments with which the script supervisor interacts, as well as the comprehensive nature of her work and her crucial – if often unsung – importance in ensuring a smooth and seamless final product.

Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.