Low-budget filmmaking tip #124
Continuity’s even more important: Dinner scenes are really, really challenging because you have to make sure chicken legs don’t magically heal from one scene to the next. Pay close attention to who is eating what — or just plan to shoot around the plates.
An alternate trick is to only film from approximately the level of the table, so you never see the food except in the master shot.
You can show the actual eating in cutaways.
Low-budget filmmaking tip #122
Continuity’s still important! If you’re using a revolver in your movie, make sure the bullet counts are accurate. Nothing makes you look more dorky than a character talking about how she only has one bullet left when the viewer can plainly see five.
(thanks, Brian!)
Low-budget filmmaking tip #121
Continuity’s important. For each “movie” day, make a quick sketch of what each character’s wearing and make sure you double-check that sketch against what you’re shooting. This is not something you can easily fix in post.
Then again, there’s a lot to be said for doin’ it “Gilligan’s Island” style.
That’s an old TV show, for those of you who are relatively new.
If you can’t sketch, at least do a quickie set of photos, but keep in mind that in a sketch, you can call attention to details that might be missed in a photograph.