Let your title be followed by a scene--by action--even though
the scene be a short one. Then, if necessary, introduce your first
leader. If when the photoplay opens the title is flashed upon the
screen, and immediately a leader is shown, there is a chance that,
having taken in the title almost at a glance, the spectator may
momentarily divert his gaze and so miss your first leader, only
turning his eyes toward the screen again when he notices that a scene
is being shown. Again, even though he may be watching closely, the
spectator is seldom quite so attentive to an explanatory insert which
is shown before the opening scene as he is to one introduced later,
when he has already become interested.
Most critics are also agreed that the use of leaders introducing the
principal characters (usually accompanied by a few feet of film in
which the character named is also pictured, perhaps in the act of
bowing to the audience, or in some pose characteristic of the part he
plays) is a mistake, when such "introducing" is done before the first
scene of the story has been shown. Undoubtedly _anything_ coming
before the first scene is really out of place--so far as its being
part of the story is concerned. Again Mr. Sargent stated a fact when
he said that "What goes before the first real scene of a story is no
more a part of that story than the design-head is a part of the
fiction story.
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