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A production department

Script supervision

Script supervision: who is in it and what each of them does

The script supervisor keeps the official record of every take and the continuity of everything in front of the camera. It is usually a department of one, and it is the set's direct line into the cutting room.

On the floor the 1st AD runs the day and the script supervisor keeps the record of it: the lined script, the take-by-take notes and the daily report that says what was shot, what was covered and which takes the director circled. That paperwork travels overnight to the cutting room, where the assistants put it into the footage as metadata, and it is how an editor finds a take months later. It is a small department with a long reach, and it has no single way in.

  1. Script supervisor

  2. Script supervisor's assistant or traineeEntry-level job

  3. First assistant editor: where the notes go

  4. Editor

Drawn from MFJF's own Foundations courses Edit Assistant (the cutting room; the shoot and the reports; the map and the ladder), How to Become an Editor (from rushes to picture lock), Director's Assistant (what the script supervisor keeps) and Floor Runner and Set PA (the floor and video village). The words are My First Job In Film's. © My First Job In Film 2026.

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