Chapter 9 — Exercises

Continuity is learned in the wrists, not the head. You can understand the 180-degree line perfectly and still cross it the first time you shoot alone, because on the day you are thinking about light and framing and the battery, not geography. These exercises build the reflex — so that finding the line, overlapping the action, and snapping a reference photo become things your hands do without being told. Do them with any camera; a phone is perfect for every one.

Exercises are graded by effort and depth:

• ⭐ Warm-up — a few minutes; locks in a concept.
• ⭐⭐ Core — the real practice; do as many as you can.
• ⭐⭐⭐ Stretch — deeper or more ambitious; the biggest gains live here.

Model solutions and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered items are in Answers to Selected Exercises at the back of the book. Attempt each one before you read its answer — a cut you got wrong teaches more than an answer you only read.

A. Seeing continuity (Eye & Ear Training)

No camera — just your attention. These sharpen the eye the shooting exercises depend on.

1. ⭐ Find the line. Watch any two-person dialogue scene (a sitcom is ideal). Freeze on a wide shot and mentally draw the 180-degree line through the two people. Now watch the whole scene and confirm: does person A stay on the same side of the frame throughout? Note one shot where you were sure who was talking to whom, and connect that certainty to screen direction. (Answer provided.)

2. ⭐ Track the cup. Pick a scene with people eating or drinking. Choose one consumable — a glass, a mug, a plate — and follow it across every cut for sixty seconds. Does its level match shot to shot? In most professional scenes it will. Write down what you tracked and whether it held. (Answer provided.)

3. ⭐⭐ Count the cameras. Watch a talking-head interview (a documentary or news package). Decide whether it was shot with one camera or two, and give your evidence — angle changes at cuts, whether trims are hidden with B-roll, whether you ever see a jump. This trains you to read coverage backward from the edit.

4. ⭐⭐ Cut on action, spotted. Find three cuts in anything you watch where the cut lands in the middle of a movement (a door opening, someone sitting, a hand reaching). Describe one in a sentence: what was moving, and how the motion carried across the cut. You are learning to see the seam professionals hide.

5. ⭐⭐⭐ Catch a jump cut and judge it. Find one deliberate jump cut (a vlog is the easiest hunting ground) and one that feels accidental or awkward (student films, hasty edits). Write two sentences: what makes the first one read as style and the second as a mistake? Your answer should name intent and consistency. (Model answer provided.)

B. Reading Described Shots (Read the Sequence)

6. ⭐ Name the match. Re-read FIGURE 9.3 and FIGURE 9.4 (the walk-in, wide and matching medium). List every element the two shots deliberately keep consistent so they'll cut together. You should find at least five. (Answer provided.)

7. ⭐⭐ Break it on paper. Take FIGURE 9.4 (the matching medium) and rewrite THE MOVE and THE EFFECT as if you had shot it from the other side of the line. What now happens when you cut the wide to this medium? Name the error precisely. (Answer provided.)

8. ⭐⭐ Diagnose the field. In FIGURE 9.3, THE CUT says the wide "runs the FULL entrance … it does not stop at the door." Explain, in your own words, why stopping at the door would wreck the edit even though the shot would look fine on its own.

9. ⭐⭐⭐ Write your own matched pair. Choose a simple action (someone pouring coffee, unlocking a phone, opening a laptop). Write two Described Shots — a wide and a matching closer size — using the seven fields, engineered so they will cut cleanly. Make the overlap, screen direction, and eyeline continuity explicit in the fields. This is the exact planning a shot list encodes; you're doing it long-hand. (Model answer provided.)

C. Shooting continuity (Shoot This)

The heart of the chapter. Make things; then try to cut them.

10. ⭐ The reference-photo habit. Set up any small scene on a table (a mug, a book, a pair of glasses). Take a continuity reference photo. Now deliberately nudge two objects and reset them from memory, then check the photo. How close did you get? This tiny drill is the whole discipline of §9.5. (Answer provided.)

11. ⭐⭐ The seamless walk-in. Do the 🎬 On Set assignment from §9.3 if you haven't: someone walks through a doorway toward a far spot, shot wide, medium, and a close insert of the hand on the door — every take running the full action, every take from the same side of the line. Cut wide-to-medium on the step. Did the motion carry? (Model self-critique provided.)

12. ⭐⭐ Matching action, five details. Shoot a person sitting down at a table, twice — a wide and a medium — and deliberately match all five matching-action habits (pace, specifics, start/end marks, overlap, screen direction). Then shoot it a third time getting one of them wrong on purpose. Cut both pairs. Which broken habit produced the ugliest cut?

13. ⭐⭐ Obey the 30-degree rule. Shoot three sizes of the same subject (wide, medium, close) — but for the first pass, cheat by staying in one spot and only zooming; for the second pass, physically move 30–45° around the subject for each size. Cut both passes. Describe the difference at the cuts. Keep the good pass. (Answer provided.)

14. ⭐⭐⭐ The crossed-line demonstration. Shoot a subject walking left-to-right, wide, from one side of the line. Then deliberately cross to the far side and shoot the matching medium. Cut them together and watch the reversal — this is the error, made on purpose so you'll recognize it forever. Then fix it three ways: (a) reshoot the medium from the correct side; (b) insert a neutral head-on shot between them; (c) insert a cutaway. Which fix felt best, and why? (Model answer provided.)

15. ⭐⭐⭐ The two-camera interview (or its fake). Shoot someone answering a question. If you have two cameras (or a phone plus any second camera), set them 30° apart and roll both. If you have one, shoot the answer once, then reposition 30° and have them repeat it. In the edit, cut out the middle of the answer by cutting to the other angle. No jump. Note how the two-angle setup made the trim invisible. (Answer provided.)

D. Cutting continuity (Cut This)

Use any editor (DaVinci Resolve is the book's reference from Ch. 26; anything works).

16. ⭐⭐ Cut on the action. Take your Exercise 11 footage. Find the single best frame to cut wide-to-medium on the movement. Then deliberately place a cut one second before the movement and one second after it. Compare all three. Which is invisible, and why? (Answer provided.)

17. ⭐⭐ Hide the jump. Take a single continuous talking-head clip (film yourself talking for 30 seconds). Trim ten seconds out of the middle — you now have a jump cut. Hide it two ways: (a) with a cutaway/insert laid over the join; (b) by embracing it as a visible, rhythmic jump. Which suits the material? (Answer provided.)

18. ⭐⭐⭐ Rescue a mismatch. Deliberately shoot a two-size pair with a detail mismatch (jacket zipped in one, open in the other). Now try to cut them together anyway using edit-side tricks only — cut away before the offending frame, choose the matching moment, cover with B-roll. Document what you could and couldn't hide. This teaches you exactly why detail continuity is cheaper on set. (Model answer provided.)

19. ⭐⭐ The invisible assembly. Assemble your walk-in coverage (Ex. 11) into a clean 8–10 second sequence: establishing wide → cut on action to medium → insert of the hand. Aim for cuts nobody would notice. Show it to someone and ask if they saw any edits. Their surprise is your grade.

E. Diagnosis and settings (Fix the Shot & Settings Drill)

20. ⭐ Fix the shoot. A described clip: a person is filmed walking down a hallway, left-to-right in the wide. The next shot is a matching medium in which they move right-to-left. The editor can't cut them. Name the error and give the two-word fix. (Answer provided.)

21. ⭐⭐ Fix the jump. A described edit: an interview medium, locked off, with a hard cut where thirty seconds were trimmed from the middle; the subject's head snaps and the background twitches. List three distinct fixes, ranked from best to worst, and say what each one costs. (Answer provided.)

22. ⭐⭐ Fix the detail. A described scene: a wide shows a full coffee cup; the matching close-up, shot twenty minutes later, shows it nearly empty; cut together the cup drains between frames. Give the on-set fix and the two best edit-side rescues. Which stage was cheaper? (Answer provided.)

23. ⭐⭐ Write the continuity plan. You have one camera and one afternoon to shoot a person making tea and sitting down to drink it — a 20-second scene. Write the continuity plan: which side of the line, what screen direction, the order you'll shoot the sizes, what consumable you'll manage and how, and the one reference photo you must take. (Model answer provided.)

24. ⭐⭐⭐ Settings drill: the run-and-gun exchange. You're covering a real, unrepeatable handoff (someone handing someone else an object) at an event, solo, one camera, no second take. Write your plan for capturing cuttable coverage of a one-time action: where you stand relative to the line, what you shoot first, how you get "coverage" of a moment that only happens once. (Answer discusses the trade-offs of continuity when you can't reshoot.)

F. Making it your own (Recreate It & Five Ways)

25. ⭐⭐ Recreate a cut on action. Find a cut-on-action you admire in a film or ad (someone opening a door, drawing a weapon, sitting). Recreate the cut, not the content, with your own subject and object: shoot the matching action across two sizes and cut on the move. How close did you get to invisible? (Answer provided.)

26. ⭐⭐ Recreate the vlog jump cut. Film a 30-second piece to camera and edit it in the deliberate jump-cut style — every pause and stumble sliced out, head hopping, fast and tight. Then cut the same raw take smoothly using a cutaway to hide the trims. Two legitimate grammars from one performance. Which fits what you were saying?

27. ⭐⭐⭐ Five Ways: one entrance, five continuities. Shoot one person entering a room five times, changing exactly one continuity variable each time: (a) correct, matched; (b) crossed line; (c) mismatched pace (fast wide, slow medium); (d) mismatched screen direction; (e) mismatched detail (bag on the other shoulder). Cut each pair. Rank the five errors from most to least disorienting. You will never forget the order after this. (Model answer discusses the expected ranking.)

G. The book's spine (Project & Café anchor)

28. ⭐ Advance the Café Scene. Re-shoot the café walk-in (or your doorway stand-in) as a matched wide + medium per FIGURES 9.3–9.4. Log one Frame Log entry: what did keeping screen direction and overlap feel like to shoot, versus just grabbing two shots?

29. ⭐⭐ Project 1 checkpoint. Complete this chapter's Production Checkpoint: shoot a matching cutaway/insert for your talking-head — hands or a relevant detail — with matched light and screen direction and a clear action with overlap. Confirm it will lay cleanly over a trim in the main shot. (Model answer describes a strong vs. weak insert.)

30. ⭐⭐⭐ The continuity contract. Write, in one paragraph addressed to "the editor" (who is future-you), the continuity promises you kept on your last shoot and the one you broke. Then say what you'll do differently next time. Naming the broken promise is how you stop breaking it.

H. Interleaved (bringing back Parts I–II)

Continuity doesn't live alone; it rides on everything before it.

31. ⭐⭐ Frame + continuity (Ch. 6, 9). Shoot a matched wide/medium pair that also keeps good composition in both — subject on a third, correct headroom, and lead room in the direction they're moving. Does honoring lead room (Ch. 6, §6.2) help or fight screen direction? Explain the relationship. (Answer provided.)

32. ⭐⭐ Coverage + continuity (Ch. 7, 9). Take the coverage you shot for Chapter 7's café order exchange and audit it against this chapter's checklist. Find one shot that would not cut cleanly and say which rule it breaks.

33. ⭐⭐⭐ Movement + continuity (Ch. 8, 9). Shoot a moving camera (a slow arc or track, Ch. 8) that deliberately and legibly crosses the line in one continuous move — so the crossing is motivated and the viewer stays oriented. Compare it to a hard cut across the line. Explain why the move is forgiven and the cut is not. (Model answer provided.)

34. ⭐⭐⭐ The whole Part II, one scene. Shoot a 20–30 second scene of a single simple event (someone arriving, sitting, and reacting) that demonstrates one deliberate choice from each of Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9: a composed frame, a range of sizes, a motivated move, and clean continuity. Write one sentence per chapter naming the choice. This is your Part II capstone rehearsal.

When you can shoot a matched pair and cut it so a friend swears it was one continuous take — and when you can cross the line on purpose and know exactly why it works — you own this chapter. Everything ahead assumes it. Move on to Chapter 10, where we stop treating the person in the frame as a subject that moves on cue and start directing them into a real performance.