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 says in addition may be taken as another warning against the over-use of this effective technical device: 

“My present notion of the best construction for long feature stories follows somewhat the lines of the stage play.  The line of climactic development should be a series of ascending waves.  After each crisis or climax there should be a slight lull.  And the first few hundred feet, like the first ten minutes of a play, should be devoted to getting your audience acquainted with your characters and their relationships.  To place a very important action in the first few hundred feet before the audience knows who the characters are or what they are to one another tends to create confusion.  People will later say, ‘Oh, was he the one who did that?’ Of course the characters must do things in these first few hundred feet, but they should be things that express their characters interestingly rather than things that have important significance in the plot development.  Perhaps I put the point a little too strongly, for there are always exceptions, but you will know what I mean.