Chapter X

. It takes the form of the speech of one of the characters,

being written in quotation marks. This device of throwing on the screen the supposed words of a certain character at the moment of

## action enables the photoplaywright to tell all that is necessary much

better than he could by a long statement of what is going on--a point that is well worth remembering. Directors are now using the explanatory cut-in leader as much as possible, to the exclusion of the ordinary one which merely states facts. This does not mean that they are trying to substitute "dialogue" leaders, but that wherever the newer form can be used to advantage it is less objected to by the audience than is the bald statement-sub-title--doubtless because it is in line with the illusion of reality in using the player's words, and is not merely an insertion by the director or the author, as other inserts evidently are.

For the reason that all leaders more or less interrupt the action of a scene, some directors prefer decidedly not to use cut-ins more than is necessary, their argument being that for a few seconds following the right-in-the-middle-of-the-scene leader, the mind of the spectator is engaged with the import of what he has just read on the screen, and the action immediately following the leader is at least partially overlooked.

Yet a cut-in leader is usually one that suddenly discloses an important point of the plot. It may be that one of the characters, when the scene is about half through, unexpectedly makes a statement which amounts to a confession of some crime. We read on the screen, "Judge, she said that to save me. That is my revolver!" No sooner has the cut-in been shown, and the action resumed, than the eyes of every spectator are fastened upon the face of the character in the scene who should, by all logical reasoning, be most affected by that confession. If a scene is important enough to require a cut-in leader, it is reasonable to suppose that it has the full attention of the spectator after the first few seconds of action. This being so, it would seem that the spectator is far less likely to miss a point of the action _immediately following a cut-in_ than he is to miss what occurs at the beginning of a scene, following an ordinary between-the-scenes leader. It is a fact that a few directors drag the

## action of a scene for the first few seconds following an ordinary

leader for the purpose of again centering the attention of the beholder on the action itself, before developing--_in_ action--another point of the plot.

We have already referred to "panoramic" leaders giving long casts of characters, the leader moving upwards on the screen instead of sidewise as in panoramic _scenes_. Today, the panoramic sub-title, as well as the panoramic letter or other insert, is quite common, especially in feature pictures. Those directors who, notwithstanding all, still favor the use of introductory matter before the first scene, frequently resort to long panoramic sub-titles as a means of making the spectator familiar with the theme of the story before starting to tell it, just as Kipling has so frequently introduced an introductory paragraph of the same nature in his short fiction. To our way of thinking, a thematic sub-title of this kind, used before the opening scene, is far less out of place than the ordinary introductory titles merely having to do with the characters, because it really does help prepare the spectator for the _kind_ of story he is about to view.

Then, again, it may be added that the present-day length of leaders greatly modifies what we say--as a sound guiding principle--in Section 7 of