the bust and the close-up.
This is a very close view of the boy's hands, but it cannot be called
a bust because of the fact that it is an action scene. The close-up
compares with the bust in much the same way that any painting with
supposedly human, moving figures compares with those pictures which
come under the "still life" classification.

This illustration of the use of the bust and the close-up is taken
from an actual script, prepared by one of the Vitagraph Company's
staff writers. It will be noticed that the "description" of the scene
following the bust scene is "44--Back to wide-angle of room," instead
of "44--Back to 42," which it would have been had this Vitagraph
writer followed the same rules of technique as were used by the writer
of the script from which the example on page 159 was taken. The
Vitagraph writer follows the same rule in writing the description of
close-up scenes, also. Either form is correct, and it is optional
which you use. There are certain technical terms as well as methods of
writing for which there are no hard and fast rules, and this accounts
for the fact that some writers will say "leader" when others use the
term "sub-title," and so on.[18]

[Footnote 18: Compare the Vitagraph-made working scenario in Chapter
XX with the one-reel scenario reproduced in Chapter V.]

Shortly before one of the present writers was appointed scenario
editor for the Edison Company, Mr. Bannister Merwin, who for several
years was one of Edison's chief contributing writers, gave up his work
in this country and went to England to live. He is now active in the
British film world and also a director--or "producer," as Mr. Merwin
still calls it--for one of the largest English motion picture
manufacturers. The present writer found that Mr. Merwin's work had
left a considerable impression upon the methods of work of the various
Edison directors, and, indeed, he has always been regarded as one of
the leading authorities on photoplay technique. The three paragraphs
which follow are taken from a letter written by Mr. Merwin to Mr. Epes
Winthrop Sargent, and published in _The Moving Picture World_. Several
important points in connection with the scenario are briefly but
interestingly discussed. In connection with what we have just been
discussing--the close-up--it may be said that, as Mr. Merwin himself
says, all writers make use of the close-up at certain points of
different scenes; but what this author-director s