Match Action
The second most important thing to watch for is match action. This is where you make notes of how the actor walked, stood, used a prop, exited/entered, and other ways they moved their body. I suggest getting a short hand of symbols you can write in your notes/sides for this. I use a multi colored pen for this exact reason.
Whenever an actor stands, I’ll make an arrow pointing up. If an actor turns, I’ll make a circular arrow going either clockwise or counter clockwise. If they exit, I’ll write down “XOCR” for crossed out camera right. These are all symbols and abbreviations that I have in my legend, which I have in my shared Google Drive folder that the editors can access any time.
Feel free to use my shorthand (attached as a downloadable PDF) to get you started. You’ll also probably start making up your own shorthand/symbols too, which I encourage you to do. Add them to the legend, and send your editor a copy.
My multicolored pens are also vital to making sense of these symbols. I dedicate specific colors to certain takes. For example:
BLUE: take one
GREEN: take two
RED: take three
PINK: take four
LIGHT BLUE: take five
PURPLE: take six
LIGHT GREEN: take seven
BLACK: take eight and beyond
After a few takes of the same action, I start to circle my match action notes with the correct take color instead of writing them again and again. It’s faster, and keeps you available to watch for other moments that are different than the last.
The multi-colored pens brand I use are HERE. My legend is available HERE.
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3 Comments
I loved the advice about different colours for each take, as keeping track of which take each matching note belongs to is something I’ve struggled with on set when using a mechanical pencil. Only now I’m wondering, I learned from a script supervising book that you should “clean up” the script for the editor by erasing your shorthand notes after completing a scene. Since using different colour ink is that something you do with whiteout or would you say that cleaning up the script might be an unecessary or even counterproductive thing to do?
Yes that is tricky when using ink! I usually use my daily small sides for my multi colored pen notes per take, then transfer only the hero notes to the final script/lined script pages so it looks neat at wrap. Also, I keep all my sides throughout the shoot to I can reference my daily notes if needed on a later shooting date.
Thank you kindly! I’m definietly gonna try this method on my next job! 🙂