Andrea Manners has been a Script Supervisor in film and television for the past two years.  We met up at a coffee shop to talk about what exactly a Script Supervisor does. I learned that her job is all about the details– taking note of the actor’s hair, makeup, dialogue.  But for someone who deals with the smallest of details, she really does get the big picture.

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The Rumpus: What does a script supervisor do?  Can you walk me through your preparation for Cherry since it was your most recent project?

Andrea Manners: I read the script about three or four times and then I break it down.  I create a timeline for the script, break it down by scene, location, characters and descriptions.  I divide each script page into eighths.  In the film world, instead of saying a scene is three quarters of a page, you say it’s six eighths.

Some scripts will have a lot of description of a scene instead of dialogue so you sort of feel out a scene to see how many eighths it really is.

Rumpus: What else do you do to prepare for the film?

Manners: Next, I go over the script in detail and try to look for continuity red flags, things that don’t make sense.

Rumpus: What do you mean by continuity?

Manners: For example I track wounds and blood if someone gets hurt.  I’ll ask the director how long it should take for the person to heal.  We shoot out of order so I need to make sure makeup creates the exact same scratch, or, if it’s four days later in the script, the wound should be less visible.  I make notes to myself throughout the film to make sure it’s all consistent.

Rumpus: What’s a typical production day like?

Manners: Before we start production, I meet with other departments.  I ask the hair department to communicate their ideas for the film, and I ask the makeup department what they plan to do.  I’m basically making sure the director’s idea and vision is translated from the script’s point of view.

I’m also the liaison between the director and the editor.  The editor needs a lot of notes to make the movie since he’s not there.  I represent the editor on set, and I represent the director through my notes.  I take really detailed reports for producers, the money people that are stuck in the office all day.  The reports tell them what we did on set, how many pages we shot, how much of the movie we shot, and how much is left to go.

As soon as we start our first shot, I start taking notes.  I do it on my laptop but it’s best to describe the process the old school way: I have the script in the binder with the script page on the right and a blank page on the left, which is the backside of the other script page.  I have a stopwatch so I time the take, note the sound roll, the camera roll, the lens we used and whether or not the director says the take is good or no good.

I draw lines and squiggly lines on the script.  It’s a language I talk with the editors.  I draw a straight line through the character’s dialogue if they’re on camera, a squiggly line if they’re not on camera but you can hear them talking and a straight line with a squiggly line over it if they’re on camera but out of focus.  So pages are just a bunch of lines and squigglys and little notes about what hand the actor was holding a coffee cup in, where her hair was, what outfit she was wearing.  I’m taking all these notes all day throughout filming and at the end of the day I create a report for the producers.

Another part of my job is to make sure we’re respecting the rules of cinematography.  There is a certain amount of degrees you can change from one shot to the next shot without it being jarring for the audience.

Rumpus: So you’re working with a lot of moving parts.  Do you get the blame if the day doesn’t go well?

Manners: Yeah, sort of.  I hate to say this but people like to describe the script supervisor as the person that’s supposed to make sure everyone else is doing their job.  I like to think of myself as the person who’s making sure we’re all working together.  Instead of going up to hair and constantly asking them to put the actor’s hair back the way it was earlier, I’ll ask them in between shots to do me favor and make sure the hair is a certain way.  That way they’re helping me with my job and we’re both making each other look good.

I’m okay with taking blame for stuff and being responsible for clips that are bad because I know by the end of the scene there will be clips we can use, clips that are great, and everyone will still preserve their dignity.  It’s a better work environment.

There are many ways a script supervisor can choose to do their job but I think the key is to decide what’s truly important and then try to get others to work with you to achieve it.

Rumpus: It seems like people who are attracted to this job like to have power.  Do you like to have power?

Manners: I like it once in a while but I don’t like calling people out in front of other people.  There are many ways to make sure you get a great shot. One way is to note it out loud as soon as it happens. This ensures that the clip does not make it to the editor. I am of the school of thought that the director is the only person that can call cut, so if anything goes wrong on the first take I won’t bring it up until after the cut. At that point I will walk up to the person or department that can help correct whatever went wrong. Unfortunately, this does mean that once in a while there will be a clip with a mistake that ends up in the editor’s hands.

Rumpus: You care more about the harmony on the set than getting a perfect take.

Manners: I don’t think they are mutually exclusive. When you’re working with people for such long hours, these people sort of become your family.  Calling them out constantly for things that aren’t that big of a deal isn’t worth it.  I really feel that it is reflected in the film.  Even actors mention it once in a while; you can feel when people are stressed or tightly wound.  It doesn’t allow them to let loose.  Honestly, who wants to work in that type of environment?

Rumpus: Once shooting is complete, how do you work with the editor?

Manners: I hand in the actual script with my facing pages and edit logs, which are notes to the editor about what the director liked and disliked.  The editor takes my notes and runs.  I’m completely done at that point and on to my next project.

Rumpus: How did you get into this job?

Manners: It was super random. I was film editing industrial videos at the time, like corporate stuff and commercials, but nothing narrative. I went to visit my parents in Florida and went to yoga with their neighbors who were really nice. They asked me what I wanted to do and I said I’d studied film. They said they knew a director of photography in LA, and that I should call him for career advice.  When I called him, instead of giving me career advice, he said he had a shoot with Matthew McConaughey the following week and asked me to be his script supervisor. I didn’t know what that was. So I bought a book and did the job. I did a couple more jobs, horribly of course, but realized it was something I wanted to do.

Rumpus: Can you support yourself as a script supervisor?

Manners: For most of the workers in the industry, we’re all independent contractors so you make a chunk of money, and then you can be without work for a week or three months. It’s definitely something I’m doing because I love it, and not for the money.

I was working at this company in Silicon Valley and got like three raises in five months.  I had benefits, a 401k, 8-hour days, it was super cush.  And then I would come home and think, this is stupid. My job doesn’t make a difference to anyone.

As a script supervisor, the pay is way less, I work really long hours and have this insecurity in between jobs, but I feel like I’m doing something with my life.

Rumpus: So you live in the Bay Area.  Wouldn’t it be easier to live down in LA?

Manners: It would be. Cherry was the first job I have ever worked up here.  I live in the East Bay and I have more than 200,000 miles on my 2003 Prius. I go where the work is and the work is usually in LA. I drive down and rent a room in an apartment with a friend.

Rumpus: So why don’t you move?

Manners: Yeah, I can’t do that.  I’ve made enough concessions in my life.  I was born and raised in Costa Rica and came out here seven years ago for college.  I was going to go straight back but I met a boy and ended up staying here.  The one promise I made to myself was that if I lived in the U.S., I had to live somewhere that was almost better in some ways than living in Costa Rica.  It’s sort of hard to do.  San Francisco has so much.  It’s very different, but I like it.

Rumpus: Do you have any desire to act?

Manners: When I moved to the States I thought I wanted to be an actress, but I quickly learned that there was this whole world behind the camera that I didn’t know existed. I definitely wanted to be behind the camera.

Stephen made me audition for Cherry but I didn’t know I was auditioning.  Midway through the shoot, he asked if I had a script. And I said, ‘Of course. I’m the script supervisor.’ We sat in a car and read lines. I didn’t know he was filming me on his phone.

Rumpus: Are you in the film?

Manners: I said I didn’t want to be on camera.  That’s the moment I realized that I’m definitely a script supervisor.  Most people would take the chance to be in a movie, but the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘Who’s going to take notes on that take?’

Rumpus: Do you have any ambition to direct or write your own screenplay?

Manners: I get that question a lot. I’m not a writer and I never thought of directing. They seem too abstract. I think script supervisors have a need for organization and a lot of details. I’m really happy where I am at the moment. I feel like I get to go into an artist’s workshop, watch them do their work and analyze and notate it for other people.

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