one character registers surprise and points excitedly at an unoccupied corner of the room, it is the first step in introducing the fairy, or the spectre, who is to appear there in the picture as shown on the screen.  After the scene has been gone through with, following this rule, the film is run through the camera a second time, the “stage” being empty of players up to the count of “Eleven!” at which point the unearthly-visitor character is brought into the scene at the proper place in the setting, either appearing quite suddenly or being more gradually dissolved in, different studios having different methods of accomplishing this.  The point is that visions of this kind are obviously written into the scene proper, just as you would introduce any new character.  If it is a ghostly visitor of some kind, you simply say:  “Harding looks in horror (at whatever point of the room or location you desire).  Vision of Blake, standing quite still and pointing an accusing finger at Harding.”  Or, if Tom is in the city and has reason to believe that Frank, back on the farm, is taking advantage of his friend’s absence to win his sweetheart away from him, write the scene down to the point where Tom straightens up in his office chair and stares (perhaps directly into the camera) with a worried expression, and then say:  “Vision-in portion of the apple orchard, with Frank making love to Mary as they stand beneath one of the trees.”

Everyone who has attended the motion picture theatres has seen dozens of examples of “visions,” produced in one or another manner, and it should be easy to distinguish between “visions” and “thoughts” or “memories.”  The latter may be introduced as part of another scene just as the vision (using the word in the sense of “apparition” or “supernatural visitant”) is introduced; but it must be borne in mind that the photoplay spectators have in the past few years been gradually educated up to a rather perfect comprehension of what results different technical devices produce—­even if they do not quite understand the technical why and wherefore; and for this reason it is best when writing action in which the characters are supposed to show what they are thinking about or describing to use the fade-out and fade-in device, as the meaning of this is now very clearly understood.  The spectators are quite used to seeing the picture fade out, or “go black” at the end of certain scenes, just as they are familiar with the use of it at the actual end of the photoplay.  Apart from these two uses, they have come to associate the fade-out with the thought of the immediate introduction of a “memory,” either related to others or silently indulged in, or a mere thought, or, if the character is seen going to sleep, of a “dream.”

If the fade-out is used, it means three scenes instead of one, of course, because following the introduction of the “memory,” or whatever it may be, you return to the scene proper, just as you go back to the wide-angle view after using a bust or a close-up scene.  They would be numbered, for example, 17, 18 and 19, and you would write the action as follows: