When studying theatre arts at college, Francis Ford Coppola had learned the importance of a ‘prompt book’, a copy of a play’s script which included all the technical notes that would allow the stage manager to run the show. A copy of the script would be unbound, then remounted page-by-page on loose-leaf sheets into which a window had been razored, allowing both sides to be read. The pages would then be hole-punched and ring-bound, and the script’s new wide borders allowed for scene shifts, lighting cues, actors’ entries and exits and so on to be added as the production developed.
