We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
CHAPTER XXXIX 191 other scene is shown in this location, tlien it is sufficient to use any wording that will show this. In the example in paragraph fourteen "Camp" is shorter and as explanatory as "Back to—" and the scene number. In the same way the various prairie scenes are not lettered because each is to be used but once. It is all prairie, and, since no scene will be returned to, it is not necessary to give it a more definite designation. The rules are all good practice, but in cutting back, where a scene is returned to repeatedly and the intent of the author is clear, it is permissible to use any form desired. No script will be re- jected because you say "Same as" instead of "Back to." 17. Returning to the subject of the breaking tension, it sometimes happens that the tension rises too high and too fast through the growing intensity of the scene. Here the tension may be reduced through the interpolation of some natural touch. In one play already cited, the suspense was held but the tension lowered by the action of a messenger boy who placed his cigarette stub on a polished table while he went in to deliver a message. It got a laugh, not so much because it was humorous as because it was human. Little touches of this sort are a better reliance than the more direct "comedy relief," which has no place in a tense situation. 18. The possibilities of the cut-back are almost without end. The pursuit of one man by another may be brought to a state of high dramatic tension if the author handles his incident well. Another effective use is cutting from a person unknowingly approaching de- struction to the person who seeks to bring about the catastrophe. The engineers daughter approaching the mill with her father's lunch, not knowing that his fireman has suddenly become insane and is waiting to brain her wnth a spanner, having tied his chief to a saw log, is dramatic because the position of the girl seems so utterly without hope. Each step or cut-back brings her closer to her inevitable fate, and we cannot see how.she can escape it. Of course, before the ten- sion becomes too strong, there must be something invented that will avert disaster. 19. The triple cut-back in which three sequences of action are handled simultaneously is worked precisely the same, the author going from one to another of the groups of action as the circumstances sug- gest, but avoiding as a rule a straight one, two, three and repeat. The situation in the last paragraph can be worked to triple action if the lunatic is not the fireman but has escaped from a nearby asylum. Now the three factors are the lunatic, the girl and the searching party, and the question that arises is whether the girl or the guards will first come upon the lunatic. 20. Cutting back is generally regarded as a dramatic device, but it possesses equal value as a comedy aid and there is no reason why it should not be freely employed where there is a situation that warrants it. Here contrast rather than suspense is sought, though both may be hpd. Cutting-back scenes will also aid comedy in giving briefer action.