Let us suppose that Edith—­not knowing that her friend Eleanor has fallen in love with Jack Temple, whom they met at a resort the previous summer—­writes Eleanor a letter in which she says: 

On screen, letter.

     and I’ll send it in my next letter.

     By the way, I heard a report that Jack Temple—­the fellow
     that you thought was so bashful—­was seriously injured in
     the wreck of the Buffalo Express last week.  I

Back to scene.

The expression on Eleanor’s face, as she reads this, would be the same as if she had picked up a newspaper and read: 

     at the time of the collision.

     Among those reported injured are James T. Appley, Syracuse,
     N.Y.; Lloyd W. Stern, Boston, Mass.; Mrs. Geo. P. Rowley,
     Bangor, Me.; and John Temple, New York City.

     Conductor Thomas Hammond told a World reporter that as
     soon as the report

Of course, at some point in the action previous to the scene in which Eleanor reads this report in the newspaper, you will have made the spectators familiar with the hero’s name by means of a leader or some other insert.

“Where the information is brief,” says Mr. Sargent,[23] again, “it may be better displayed as a newspaper headline.  A two-column display head is better shaped for use on the screen than the deeper single-column head.  A deal of information may be conveyed in a headline and the spectator seems to read the item over the character’s shoulder rather than to have been interrupted by a leader.”

[Footnote 23:  Epes Winthrop Sargent, Technique of the Photoplay.]

Mr. William Lord Wright, author of “The Motion Picture Story,” has this to say on the subject: 

“Nearly all photoplays now contain a flash of newspaper headline.  It’s a good way of putting over the information essential to the plot, but it is suggested that the headlines be properly written.  Perhaps the author of the playlet was a novice in writing headlines, or maybe the director was a know-it-all.  If not a newspaper man and a headliner, we would advise the author who wishes to use headlines in his action to get some newspaper man to write them for him.  Some of the would-be newspaper heads we have read on the screen lately are not impressive or well written.  Headlining is a difficult art.”

If you have occasion to use a will, mortgage, or other legal document, in telling your story, you will realize that the property man in every studio has the blank forms on hand for anything that you may introduce.  It is therefore only necessary to show, say, the back of the mortgage on the screen, with the names of the principals written upon it.  Then, later in the scene, or in some other scene, you can show the body of the mortgage.  But if you show the body of such a document in Scene 10, after having shown the outside in Scene 4, it would be well to flash the outside, or cover, again in 10, before displaying the contents—­for the purpose of identifying it, as in the case of the letter.