Series drift is usually blamed on the model, the way a spoiled stone is blamed on the rough. Look at the record instead. The character was described from memory at every job, and memory edits as it goes: “raven-black hair tucked behind both ears” in the first frame becomes “flowing dark waves” three frames later, and the audience watches a stranger quietly take her place in the tray. The repair is clerical, not technical. Write the character down once, on a sheet you paste rather than retype — a facet sheet the rest of the work is cut to.
Five fixed lines, always in order
A working facet sheet holds five things. Age — a number, and at this bench a mature one, 30 or over. Hair — colour, length and one habitual style. Build — two or three words, no more. Face — one or two details that endure every crop. Signature — the mole, the ring, the mark that survives even a tight frame. Everything else belongs to the changing line: outfit, room, hour, light, pose. Changing lines are meant to change at every job. Sheet lines are not.
Two habits keep the sheet honest over a long series. Lines are stated plainly and positively — “raven-black hair parted in the centre, held by two slim silver barrettes” survives generation, while “beautiful hair” is reinterpreted at every attempt. And the sheet is versioned. When the character is deliberately changed — a new cut, a new signature — the new text is saved as version two with a date, so an old set can still be remade exactly as it was first cut.
Working from the sheet
Production then becomes a calm routine. Pair the sheet with changing lines that share one room and one light, and generate the set at the standard model’s 6-credit cost. Keep the best third. Spend on recuts, transfers and polish only after the cull. When a frame returns off character, the cause is almost always visible in the record: a changing line contradicted a sheet line, or a line was too vague to hold her. Both are fixed on paper, at the bench — not by hunting through settings at the tool.
What a facet sheet cannot do
It cannot hold a character who was never decided. If the lines are adjectives — lovely, striking, perfect — no system on any bench will keep her, because there is nothing fixed to keep her to. Decide her on paper first. The facet sheet is not where the imagination happens; it is where the imagination is kept, frame after frame, so that months from now a new entry in the series can still be set beside the very first one and found to be the same woman, true to the first cut.