spectator is seldom quite so attentive to an explanatory insert which
is shown before the opening scene as he is to one introduced later,
when he has already become interested.

Most critics are also agreed that the use of leaders introducing the
principal characters (usually accompanied by a few feet of film in
which the character named is also pictured, perhaps in the act of
bowing to the audience, or in some pose characteristic of the part he
plays) is a mistake, when such "introducing" is done before the first
scene of the story has been shown. Undoubtedly _anything_ coming
before the first scene is really out of place--so far as its being
part of the story is concerned. Again Mr. Sargent stated a fact when
he said that "What goes before the first real scene of a story is no
more a part of that story than the design-head is a part of the
fiction story. No magazine editor expects the author to be his own
artist and supply an illustrated title. Start your story with the
first scene of action, and let the director supply the preliminary
scenes [close-ups of the principals] and leaders to suit himself."

As a matter of fact, though, the very best reason for not introducing
from three to six or eight characters before the opening scene is that
by the time the story has advanced a little many of the spectators
have forgotten "who is who," whereas they have a much better
opportunity to fix a character's name and occupation--so to speak--in
their minds if that character is briefly but properly introduced at
the point of his first entrance into the action of the play. Only the
fact that we were already familiar with the faces of the contemporary
historical characters shown in such features as Ambassador Gerard's
"My Four Years in Germany" made it possible for us to keep track,
during the first few scenes in which each one appeared, of the persons
shown. No one could possibly have memorized the "panoramic" leader
giving the cast, with its thirty or more names of characters and
players.

_4. Four Special Functions of Leaders_

Properly used, leaders can accomplish four results very
satisfactorily: (a) Mark the passage of time; (b) clear up a point of
the action which could not otherwise be made to "register;" (c)
"break" a scene; and (d) prepare the mind of the spectator to enter
into the scene in the right spirit.

_(a) Marking the passage of time._ In the amateur script previously
discussed, we found the need for t