Lord Cornwallis: 

     Am now within forty miles of Charlottesville.  Thomas
     Jefferson and the entire Virginia Assembly will be my
     prisoners today.

     Tarleton.

As we know, a letter will sometimes be written by a character in one scene, but the spectators will not learn its exact contents—­though they may know just about what he is writing—­until a scene or two later, when the letter is delivered to and read by the one to whom it is addressed.  On the other hand, we sometimes see an actor write a letter, immediately after which, as he reads it over, it is flashed on the screen.  Then, later, we see it delivered, but although the one receiving it is seen to read it, it is not flashed upon the screen again, because the beholder has so recently been shown what it contains.  But it sometimes happens that more than one letter enters into the development of the plot at a certain point, and hence there may be some slight confusion caused by the spectator’s not knowing which of two letters the player is supposed to be reading.  It is to avoid this confusion that directors generally flash a few feet of the letter a second time, simply to identify it.  Thus, if the letter that Tom wrote to Nelly in Scene 6 is delivered to her together with one from her friend Kate in Scene 8, you may write: 

     Postman hands Nelly two letters.  She registers delight upon
     noticing handwriting on one envelope.  Opens it immediately
     and reads: 

On screen.  Flash two or three feet of Tom’s letter, same as in 6.

Back to scene.

Few spectators will object to the introduction of letters, telegrams, newspaper items, and the like—­provided there are not too many such inserts—­because these seem to fit into the picture as a part of the action, and are not, like leaders, plainly artificial interpolations by the author.  It need hardly be pointed out, however, that letters and other written messages must not be introduced except for logical reasons.  More than one case has been known in which the scenario submitted to an editor specified that one character was to write and hand to another a note which the second character was to read—­the note, of course, was to be shown on the screen—­when the contents were simply the words which, on the regular stage, the first actor would speak to the other!  Of course, no director would allow such a thing to take place in his picture.  In a situation where the story could actually be advanced by showing the beholder what a certain player was supposed to be saying to another, it would be only necessary to introduce a cut-in leader, as previously described.

We have spoken of substituting a newspaper item for a letter.  Wherever this can be done, it is well to do it; the newspaper item, being printed, is at least readable.  One or two of the studios use letters in which the handwriting is so poor that before all the spectators have read the contents of the letter it has disappeared and the scene has been resumed.