Most critics are also agreed that the use of leaders introducing the principal characters (usually accompanied by a few feet of film in which the character named is also pictured, perhaps in the act of bowing to the audience, or in some pose characteristic of the part he plays) is a mistake, when such “introducing” is done before the first scene of the story has been shown.  Undoubtedly anything coming before the first scene is really out of place—­so far as its being part of the story is concerned.  Again Mr. Sargent stated a fact when he said that “What goes before the first real scene of a story is no more a part of that story than the design-head is a part of the fiction story.  No magazine editor expects the author to be his own artist and supply an illustrated title.  Start your story with the first scene of action, and let the director supply the preliminary scenes [close-ups of the principals] and leaders to suit himself.”

As a matter of fact, though, the very best reason for not introducing from three to six or eight characters before the opening scene is that by the time the story has advanced a little many of the spectators have forgotten “who is who,” whereas they have a much better opportunity to fix a character’s name and occupation—­so to speak—­in their minds if that character is briefly but properly introduced at the point of his first entrance into the action of the play.  Only the fact that we were already familiar with the faces of the contemporary historical characters shown in such features as Ambassador Gerard’s “My Four Years in Germany” made it possible for us to keep track, during the first few scenes in which each one appeared, of the persons shown.  No one could possibly have memorized the “panoramic” leader giving the cast, with its thirty or more names of characters and players.

4.  Four Special Functions of Leaders

Properly used, leaders can accomplish four results very satisfactorily:  (a) Mark the passage of time; (b) clear up a point of the action which could not otherwise be made to “register;” (c) “break” a scene; and (d) prepare the mind of the spectator to enter into the scene in the right spirit.

(a) Marking the passage of time. In the amateur script previously discussed, we found the need for this 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.”