John Emerson

“ On the one hand are countless men and women besieging the studio doors in the hope of starting a [pg 2] career in any one of a thousand capacities, from actress to scenario writer, from director to cameraman. There are people with plots, people with inventions, people with new ideas of every conceivable variety, all clamoring for admission. And, on the other hand, there are the men who manage the movies sending out all manner of exhortations, appeals and supplications to just such people to come and work in their studios. ”

“ Rosalie then shows the clock to the old Colonel and the two of them rave over it, forgetting the existence of Roland, who finally comes to sufficiently to see that he's sitting on something, gets up and picks up the mashed orchids, looks at them disgustedly. The clock is finally put in place on the mantel and Rosalie comes back and joins Roland, who stands looking ruefully at the flowers in his hand. He dolefully shows them to her, and she, seeing he is hurt, comforts him, telling him he's a dear boy and she loves the orchids. ”

“ Above all, they must be absolutely unconscious of the existence of the camera.
Any deviation from this course leads to the most mortifying results on the screen. The face, enlarged many times life size, becomes clearly that of an actor, rather than a real character. The assumed expression of hate or fear which would seem so natural on the stage is merely grotesque in the film. Unless the actor is really thinking the things he is trying to portray on the screen, the audience becomes instantly aware that something is wrong. ”

“ MOVIE MANNERS This chapter does not deal so much with how to act in a picture as how to act in a studio.
Motion picture people live, more or less, in a world of their own. It is a world which may seem a bit topsy turvy to the outsider, with its own peculiar customs, and a greater freedom from restraint than is customary in the conventional world outside. Examined a bit closer, these outlandish ideas appear to be the very same ones which are always associated with artists—a bohemian spirit which is the same whether in Hollywood or the Latin Quarter of Paris. ”

“ The best way to learn the principles of motion picture acting is to watch the making of as many scenes as possible before attempting to act one. Most of the stars of to-day learned their art by watching the efforts of others before the camera. Only by constant observation in the studio and, more important, in real life, where the actions and reactions of real people can be noted, can an actor hope to become proficient. ”

“ In nearly every large studio where more than one company is working there are to be heard the faint strains of Sonata Pathetique, where some melancholy scene is being taken, or livelier music for a bit of comedy in another set. Also the directors are always behind the camera to guide their actors with spoken directions as the scene is made. This orchestra business has always seemed to us pure buncombe, but if the director or actor gets any fun out of it, it doesn't do any particular harm. ”

“ A picture, according to their views, was made or unmade by a single star or director or writer, and very naturally they were loath to entrust the fate of a hundred thousand dollar investment to untried hands. While on the one hand they realized the pressing need for new blood in their industry, they were, nevertheless, very wary of being the first to welcome the newcomer. Producers preferred to pay twenty times the price to experienced professionals, no matter how mediocre their work might have been in the past, than to take a chance on a promising beginner. ”

“ Once an actor has carefully worked out the part for himself he can easily conform to the director's ideas; and once he has let himself feel his part he need waste no emotion upon it when on the "set," for his mimetic powers will reproduce his feelings of an hour before.
Auto-suggestion consists in working oneself up to the part before going before the camera by various expedients. For example, one actor, before playing a part calling for extreme anger, spends some ten minutes in clenching his fists, swearing at the handiest fence post, setting his jaw—and so making himself really angry. ”

“ Try thinking of something sad—draw your face down—and before long you will be in a very glum mood. That is the way such stars as Norma Talmadge and Mary Pickford produce tears on short notice. Most people think they are tricks of make-up, such as drops of glycerine; as a matter of fact, it is a matter of puckering the face and a few gloomy thoughts.
All this sort of thing sounds very intricate and unnecessary. And yet it is the really practical side of screen acting. The psychology of each actor is [pg 37] different and his manner of preparing for a scene and of enacting it will be different. ”

“ If we are to take the studio jobs in their natural order, the first to begin work on a picture is, of course, the author. Each studio employs a scenario editor who is on the lookout for good magazine stories or plays or original scripts. He himself is not so much a writer as an analyst, who knows what kind of stories his public wants; generally he is an old newspaperman or an ex-magazine editor. Having bought the story, he turns it over to a scenarioist—the "continuity writer." This type of specialist is much in demand, since no story can survive a badly constructed scenario. ”

“ The scenario writer sits down in the morning and works out a scene; he wakes up the director, who packs some actors and a cameraman in an automobile, together with a picnic lunch, and goes out to make the picture on some lovely hillside. Then, having finished the photoplay, they take it around to your local theater and exhibit it at twenty-five cents a seat.
As a matter of fact, the movies, now the fifth national industry in the United States, has as many phases, and as many complexities as any other industry in the world. ”

“ The second group declares that all this is nonsense and that if an actor really felt his part he would lose control of himself, and perhaps actually murder some other actor in a fight scene. Acting, they say, is an art wherein the artist, by the use of his intellect, is able to simulate that which he does not feel—using his face merely as the painter uses his canvas. ”

“ There is a fine career for any writer in scenario writing if the writer will only take the trouble to study it seriously. There is technique in writing plots and still more technique in adapting those plots to the screen, by writing them into scenario form. Studio experience is of vast benefit to anyone who wishes to write movie stories; and that is where the actor has the advantage over the outsider who tries to write scenarios with no practical knowledge of how movies are really made. ”

“ What a man's profession was before he entered the movies has nothing to do with his career thereafter; he has to learn everything all over again, and a very good actor, with years of studio experience, may make a very poor director, whereas an unsuccessful tinsmith might suddenly rise to the top by virtue of an innate gift for this type of work.
The scenario writers of to-day have also grown up with the business. ”

“ Clothes for character parts must be assembled on the moment according to the demands of the director and the imagination of the actor or actress. Realism is the great essential of character dressing. To wear the rags of a vaudeville tramp in the movies would turn the picture into a slapstick comedy. A real tramp's clothes are a mighty different matter.
The greatest difficulty which a casting director experiences is that of finding people to play the part of society folk. These parts require an understanding of drawing-room manners and ballroom etiquette, and the ability to wear smart clothes. ”

“ Griffith's latest production, cost just under a million dollars to produce.
The profits of the picture come out of its run, which may last seven or eight years, and even longer in Europe. A one hundred thousand dollar picture may eventually make half a million dollars for it's backers, but, of course, they have a long wait for their money. On the other hand, the risk is stupendous, for the picture may be a flat failure.
One cheering fact, attested by all motion picture magnates, is that, whatever may be the case in other industries, salaries are not going to drop in the movies. ”

“ The male types which are most in demand are not those whose appeal is through physical beauty. Audiences are sick of large-eyed, romantic heroes, and are demanding a little manly force and character in their heroes.
To film well, a man's head should be large, rugged, with the features cut in masses, like a Rodin bust. ”

“ A man who fails to take off his hat upon entering a fashionable house would be laughed at. A man who took it off with a grand flourish would be hooted out. Recently a director read in a certain short story that the Newport set had instituted the custom of supplying a single green glove for each dinner guest to wear while the olives were served. This was merely a bit of satire on the part of the story writer—but the director took it seriously, and instituted the fad in a dinner scene with dire results when the picture was shown to the newspaper critics. ”

“ The skin of the face must be entirely smooth and unbroken. The slightest eruption or blemish is visible on the screen, especially in this day when "close-ups" are the vogue. The teeth must be perfect. ”

“ Don't be ashamed of being in the movies. If you think movies are a low-brow form of making a living your associates will surely become aware of your state of mind and you will be quietly frozen out.
In the old days of the movies social status in the studio was determined by a curious system, based upon the pay envelope. Actors—for the movie world is composed for the greater part of actors—are classed as stars, the "leads," the "parts," the "bits," the "extras" and "mobs." The star is, of course, the highly paid actor or actress who is the feature of the production ”

“ A movie actor or actress is in a more difficult position, so far as the artistry of his work is concerned, than the players of the spoken drama. In the movies the scenes are nearly always taken out of sequence, the first last, the last first, and so forth. For that reason the motion picture stars have great difficulty in working themselves up to the proper "pitch" to play a scene, inasmuch as they have not been through the action which leads up to it. ”

“ The great demand to-day is for sane, wholesome stories of modern American life, wherein character is the paramount interest rather than eccentricities of the plot or camera.
Send your story in synopsis form to the scenario editor of the studio which employs the star for whom you think the story is best suited. Send with it a stamped and self-addressed envelope for the return of your script, if it is not suitable for their use. Keep on sending it; don't be discouraged by rejection slips. You may write dozens of stories and then sell the very first one you wrote. ”

“ If you can answer these questions in the affirmative you may have a career before you in the motion pictures. If you cannot answer any of them but the last in the affirmative, you may still be successful as a movie actor, for "types"—whether of gunmen or millionaires, villains or saints—are much in demand. ”

“ The studio manager consults with him as to the expenses of the scenery and the length of time to be spent in making the picture and then summons the technical staff.
The technical staff of a studio is a rather large assembly. There is the art director, who plans the scenery, the technical man who directs the building, the casting director, who selects the actors, the electrician, who assists in working out the lighting effects, the laboratory superintendent, who must supervise the developing of the film, the cutters, who assemble the completed film, and last, but not least, the cameraman. ”

“ The possibilities of making a motion picture at comparatively little expense were first drawn to public attention five years ago when two young men, both of whom have become well-known directors, made a saleable photoplay in their own back yard. These boys had many theories about what a movie should and should not be, but they could never find a company willing to give their theories a trial. ”

“ In the same way the camera picks up and accentuates every motion on the part of the actor. An unnecessary gesture is not noticed on the stage. On the screen, enlarged many times, it is instantly noted.
The two most important rules to follow, then, in motion picture acting are: act as you would under the same circumstances in real life, and eliminate all movement and gesture which does not bear on the scene. It is better not to move at all than to make a false move. ”

“ First are those who say that an actor must feel the part he is playing. The greatest actors, they say, have always been those who wore themselves out in an hour's time, because they felt the emotions they portrayed. ”

“ On the stage it is necessary to overdraw the character in order to convey a realistic impression to the audience; exact naturalism on the stage would appear as unreal as an unrouged face under a spotlight. ”

“ Roland looks over at Tom and gives him a wink. Tom gives Roland the high sign and the two of them feel that things are going fine when suddenly Lord Howe-Greene scratches his head and gets a brilliant idea. He then tells Roland that he has just the place for him and says:
SP: "I HAVE A COUSIN—A REAL ESTATE AGENT IN LOS ANGELES—WHO WRITES ME THAT THE CLIMATE IS SO SALUBRIOUS THAT EVERY ONE LIVES TO A RIPE OLD AGE."
Roland looks at Lord Howe-Greene in astonishment, feeling that he has been stuck at last. ”

“ The larger companies, however, in the last year or so have awakened to the fact that by excluding beginners they have themselves raised the cost of motion picture production many times. They have found themselves with a very limited number of stars and directors and writers and technical men to choose from, all of whom, for this very reason, could demand enormous salaries. One by one these companies are instituting various systems for the encouragement of embryo talent. Now, if ever, is the time to break into the movies. ”

“ The doctor looks at her, tries to speak, stammers, stops, not knowing what to say. Eve then takes a step toward him, smiles commiseratingly, and says:
SP: "You Don't Have to Do That. I Have Learned How to Handle Mama. You Don't Have to Worry about My Health."
The doctor looks at her, surprised at this new Eve, who is in no need of him at all in his professional capacity. Eve looks at him, throws out her arms with gestures of complete victory over all her worries, and says:
SP: "I am Going Back to New York, And I am Going to Live." ”

“ SALARIES IN THE MOVIES So much propaganda and press-agentry has been at work during the last few years that no one knows what to believe of the movies. There appears to be a sort of attenuated smoke cloud thrown up about all connected with the artistic, and, more particularly, the financial side of the movies. And naturally the first question to be asked by one who is considering entering this field as a vocation is "What do they pay? Is it all true? Is there money in the movies?"
The leading stars of the screen get anywhere from one thousand to ten thousand dollars a week. ”

“ The very nature of the industry was responsible for this situation and, to a large extent, it is a condition which still prevails in a majority of the smaller studios. The greatest obstacle which every beginner must surmount is the one which first confronts him—the privilege of doing his first picture—the first chance. ”

“ The camera, however, demands absolute realism. Actors must act as naturally and as leisurely as they would in their own homes. Their expressions must be no more pronounced than they would be in real life. ”

“ Tom and Roland rush in from hall, tell them there is a revolution on and they've got to beat it to save their hides as the soldiers and revolutionists are coming. They all get up in a drunken, stupid sort of way—don't take it in. ”