Contents

M10 Continuity log

A show remembers what its episodes established, and the writers' room reads it. After an episode is approved, its continuity is recorded: the facts it put on screen, the lasting changes it made, the gags it used, and the threads and arcs it moved. The bible's books follow, so the next outline is checked against them.

Read with docs/design/m5-writers-room.md (the outline and its bible checks) and schemas/v1/continuity.schema.json. The show's memory (m10-show-memory.md) reads each episode's log into the notebook every writer reads.

Recording an episode

record_continuity {episode, facts, stateChanges?, rationale} proposes one change set:

• bible/continuity/<slug>.continuity.json (Continuity, id cont.<slug>):

  • the model's facts and state changes, each with evidence (scene, and the cue or shot it was shown in);
  • what code knows from the outline: every gag its beats served (gagsUsed) and every thread they moved (threadsTouched: raise is opened, develop is advanced, resolve is resolved), with evidence at the episode scene whose heading matches the outline scene that lands the beat (the second scene with a heading is the second one in the episode too, so a return to the engine room is not taken for the first visit). A gag served by several beats is evidenced where it plays: the scene with the most of them, the later on a tie, so a gag set up in the first scene and paid off in the third is the third's.

• The bible's books, in the same change set:

  • each gag used gets lastUsed set to this episode, and timesUsed counts this episode once;
  • each arc beat landed gets done and its episode;
  • each thread raised gets introducedIn and status open, developed gets developing, resolved gets resolved and resolvedIn.

  Recording the same episode again changes nothing twice.

The episode must exist (directed), and its outline gives the bible moves. An episode without an outline records only the facts and changes.

Checks on Continuity documents: evidence names a scene, cue or shot the episode has, and subjects name documents and bible entries the show has. (implementation) Evidence the episode no longer has is a warning, … has changed since this was recorded, not an error: an episode is re-directed or re-cut after its log is written, and an error there refused every re-cut (the eighth watch-it's log cited a shot, and re-directing renumbered them). record_continuity itself refuses evidence that points at nothing, so a log is right when it is written.

The writers' room reads it

write_outline's answer gives what earlier episodes established, next to the theme's rules. (implementation) Since the show's memory (m10-show-memory.md), that is memory for the outline's cast: the facts and lasting changes memory has remembered, and, for an episode memory has not remembered yet, its continuity log's own (the twelve latest facts were all it gave before). The model keeps the new episode consistent with them, and the person judges it beside the proposal. The bible checks the outline already runs (a thread raised twice, an arc beat out of order, a retired gag) now see each recorded episode.

Later

• Facts proposed from the screenplay and the episode by the model, for the person to confirm.
• Contradiction search: the facts that mention the same subjects as a new outline's scenes, offered as a checklist.