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.
LEADERS AND INSERTED MATTER 49 CHAPTER VII. LEADERS AND INSERTED MATTER The importance of careful work—leaders vs. letters—-tele- grams—--newspaper headlines^—the pictorial insert—need for variety—"leaderless" script. One of the most marked signs of the novice is the awkward handling of leaders and inserts. It has been repeatedly stated that the ideal script is one that is entirely free from leader, and this is quite true. Leader in- terrupts the action and for a moment halts the interest in the picture while the brain assimilates the information just conveyed. In the theater the curtain falls and interrupts the action. When it rises again there are a few minutes in which the effort is wholly directed to "getting the audience back." The leader is the drop curtain of the photoplay and, whether it is used as a curtain or not, there is a certain check in the interest, a momentary lapse of attention. Therefore the ideal script is one in which no leader is needed to explain the story. But it is well to remember that there is a vast difference be- tween the script that needs no leaders and the script that merely lacks them. Better a leader before each scene and an under- standable story, than the leaderless script and a meaningless and therefore uninteresting jumble of confused action. The real leaderless script would be one in which the action all passed within a few hours, escaping the need of time leaders, and in which the story was so simple as not to need printed explanation. Do not, at the start, try for the leaderless script. Try, instead, to use as few leaders as possible and to have these as clear and as concise as you can get them. Another statement, wholly correct but sadly misapplied, is that a letter is less apt to be resented than a leader. This is very true. A thirty word letter is less apt to be resented by an audience than a fifteen word leader, because a letter seems a part of the action and not an intrusion, but this should not be taken to mean that every time you need to explain something a character should sit down and drop a line to someone else. You can escape a leader with a letter now and then, but do not try to do so habitually. Use the letter or other insert only where it is clearly indicated and the leader where you must.