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142 A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF SCREEN PLAYWR1TING
to be followed by a medium shot of the same person completing the action and continuing with his next piece of business. The sound of a typewriter heard in a long shot can be carried over a succeeding medium shot and a close-up to act as a connecting sound link. Direct cuts from person to person can be tied together by means of their lines of dialogue, provided the dialogue is written so that each line follows the other in natural sequence— hooked together, in other words— as, for instance, a series of questions and answers. And if the camera distance and angles flow in natural order, or with pleasing symmetry and rhythm— with the traditional long shot, medium shot, and close shot sequence, or with a series of staccato close-ups, or the like— continuity is a natural result.
Sequence transition. It is the job of transitions, however, to connect each individual sequence of shots with its succeeding sequence so as to achieve this all-important flow of continuity.
Strangely, although there is an abundance of raw material for the screen-play writer to work with— both visual and oral— transitions are either neglected completely, so that a break in the continuity ensues, or old, hackneyed cliches are resorted to, such as the chestnuts in the time-lapse transitions on the order of falling calendar leaves and the "you can't do this to me" protest.
It is with the transition that the writer can really create artistically and justify the film makers' belief in their medium as a truly unique art form.
We have already discussed the time-lapse transition, one of the many visual transitions available to the screen-play writer. Suppose, then, we examine the other visual transitions that can be put to use.
Direct-cut transitions. The simplest, of course, is the direct cut, as, for example, when a character is seen to leave through a door from one angle, and then, by a direct cut, is shown entering an adjoining room on the other side of the door from another angle. That is a perfect transition. But suppose the character is obliged to go through a number of doors or across a number of rooms in order to get to his destination— what then?
Direct cut for suspense. The handling of this problem would depend on a number of considerations. If, for example, it were nee