his use of the leader. The
introduction, between scenes 8 and 9, of a leader telling the
spectator that the events in Scene 9 were supposed to happen "Two
weeks later" than those taking place in Scene 8, would have gone a
long way toward clearing up the plot of the story. In this case, of
course, it would have been necessary to add to the statement
concerning the passage of time another statement as to what had
happened in the interval, the complete leader reading: "Two weeks
later, Mary returns home after failing to get work in the city." Or,
better still: "After two weeks of fruitless search for work in the
city, Mary returns to her old home."

Try to get away from the monotonous use of the "Next day," "The next
day," and "Two years later," style of leader. Say: "The following
afternoon," "After five years," "Later in the evening," or "Six months
have passed." Even though you find when your story is produced that
the director has seen fit to omit altogether the leader that you
"wrote in" at a certain point of the action, you have the satisfaction
of knowing that, _had_ he used one there, he could not have improved
upon the one you wrote.

_(b) Clearing up a point in the action_ is too obvious a use of the
leader to require much discussion. Some things mere actions cannot
express, and some explanations must be verbally made because pantomime
suggestion is inadequate. To take their proper place in the photoplay
all such leaders should be more than merely explanatory: they should
have genuine dramatic value--just as much as an important speech would
have in a "legitimate" dramatic production. In the pictured drama the
leader really fills in a significant part of the plot which could not
be portrayed by wordless action.

Miss Lois Weber, a well-known photoplay author who has also produced
some very fine feature photoplays, says in _The Moving Picture World_:
"Often the right words in a leader or other insert are the means of
creating an atmosphere that will heighten the effect of a scene, just
as a tearful conversation or soliloquy, at a stage death-bed will move
the audience to tears where the same scene enacted in silence would
leave it dry-eyed. Naturally, the wrong words may have the opposite
effect, but that is no argument against the leader; it only argues
that the wrong person wrote it."

_(c) "Breaking" a scene_ with a leader may be explained by an
illustration, which at the same time will serve to exemplify