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156 A PRACTICAL MANUAL OF SCREEN PLAYWRITING
mula that comes first to mind, and try to work out fresh versions. For there is nothing like a newly minted, originally conceived montage to enliven what could be a creaking, dull, technical device.
Opticals
Although the processing of optical effects is a purely mechanical operation, performed automatically by machines especially devised for the purpose, by technicians trained for the job, the screen-play writer should have some knowledge, not only of their use in a script, but also of the manner of their manufacture.
Technically speaking, an optical is a device for connecting shots, scenes, or sequences so as to leave a certain impression with the audience, the exact impression depending on the type of optical used.
Dissolves. The first opticals encountered in a film are normally the lap dissolves which separate the various title cards on which the film credits flashed onto the screen. This series of dissolves always ends with the name of the director on a separate title card, a courtesy which is extended because of a clause in the Screen Directors' Guild contract with the studios. A lap dissolve is a slow fusing of one shot with another, effected by gradually darkening the last frames of the first shot and blending them in with the gradually lightened opening frames of the succeeding shot. The lap dissolve was so named because one shot was said to have been overlapped onto another. The trend is to elide the word "lap" and to refer to it simply as a dissolve.
Time-lapse dissolve. The dissolve effect is also used to connect two scenes that are separated by a lapse of time. Here, the purpose is to indicate to the audience that some time has gone by between scenes, as distinct from a direct cut, which indicates that the succeeding action seen is concurrent. When the time hiatus is comparatively short— a matter of minutes or hours— the simple dissolve can be used. But when days, weeks, months, and years are involved,