Suppose you have a comedy scene showing a bathtub gradually filling
with water because the faucet was left open. In the time required to
fill the bath and cause it to overflow, five or six hundred feet of
film would be used up if the scene were not changed. Instead of this
waste of film, you could, after registering the fact that the running
water was rapidly filling the bath, introduce a leader: "Ten minutes
later--the tide rises."
Such a leader prepares the spectator for the funny scene that is to
follow; and when the next scene is shown, in which the water is
overflowing the bath and turning the bathroom into a miniature lake,
the spectator realizes what has happened in the ten minutes which,
according to your leader, has elapsed since the last scene was shown.
Or, in your story, a lumberman may be injured by having a tree that he
is chopping down fall on him. To show the whole process of felling a
good-sized tree would take too long--it would consume too much
footage, and be monotonous to the spectator. Also, it is the effect
and not how it is obtained that makes a picture of this kind
successful. For these reasons the man should be shown as he starts to
chop down the tree. Then after he has made some perceptible progress
you might introduce a leader.
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