Clocks and Continuity

Time is one of those pesky things when it comes to continuity and filmmaking.

You do take after take. And if you dare have a clock in the shot, you better be careful! You don't want the clock saying it's 7:30 when it's supposed to be the middle of the night.

And it's not just the small independent filmmakers that have difficulty telling time.

According to MovieMistakes.com, the movie The Fugitive had a slight clock problem. When Harrison Ford is being chased by Tommy Lee Jones in the St. Patrick’s Day parade, apparently there are three different clock shots, all of which show completely different times.

For reasons like that, we wanted to avoid all clocks when we shot our feature, Dear J. And we thought we did pretty good. Until one day...

We realized too late that one of the camera set-ups in the Institute's rec room included a clock in the background. Fortunately, it's only in one or two shots and the time on the clock... Well, it could be the correct time.

Then again, maybe there are more clock shots... and we've just never noticed them.