FADE IN:  When the screen is dark, and a picture comes up gradually until it is clear, this is called a fade in.

FADE OUT:  When the opposite from the fade in occurs, the scene dying away until the screen is blank, this opposite term is used.  These two terms are employed in the photoplay manuscript for the purpose of indicating that some character is thinking of, or telling another about, something that has already happened, or that is prophetically expected to happen.  The character is seen thinking, or talking, then there comes a fade out, and then a fade in, and the scene that comes up is what he tells of or is thinking about.  This again fades out, and the fade in brings back the original scene with the character thinking or talking; but each of the three scenes used has its own consecutive scene-number in the manuscript.  The fade out may also be used to end a scene, or be used at the close of the photoplay.

FEATURE:  See Reel.

FILM:  The strip of translucent material, resembling celluloid, upon which the scene is recorded; a series of pictures one inch wide and three-fourths of an inch in height, taken at the rate of approximately sixteen a second, and sixteen pictures to one foot of film.  These small pictures are technically termed “frames.”

FOOTAGE:  The amount of film consumed in the making of an individual scene, insert, or the entire picture.

FRAME:  See Film.

IDEA:  An incident, or a situation, that suggests a plot; in other words, the plot “germ.”

INSERT:  Anything introduced into the film to aid in telling the story or to explain a point of the plot.  “Leaders” are also inserts; but, as generally used, inserts refers to letters, telegrams, newspaper paragraphs or personals, or any matter other than cut-ins, or dialogue, inserted into the film during the progress of a scene, thus becoming practically a part of that scene.

INTERPOSE:  A term used to indicate the process by which a scene merges into the next, one dying as the other comes up, so that there is no blank screen between them, as in the case of the fade out and fade in.  As in the dissolving views of a stereopticon, the scenes merge one into the other.  This device is used for the same purpose as the fade out and fade in, but, being more difficult to accomplish, from the camera standpoint, is used only rarely.

LEADER:  A sub-title used before a scene to assist the spectator in getting a clear idea of what the picture is to portray.

LOCATION:  When the setting for an action is out of doors, and takes advantage of some natural environment, such as the front of a house, a barn, or a lane, or a lake, it is called a “location.”  So, while any environment for action is broadly a “setting,” one usually refers to an interior setting as a “set” and an exterior setting as a “location.”

MULTIPLE REEL:  See Reel.

NEGATIVE:  The original emulsated film used in the camera when the actions of the participants in the photoplay are recorded.