Henry Albert Phillips

“ The music artist peoples the imagination of his audience with a glorious phantasmagoria. There is a music of vision that delights the beholder of motion and action, typifying life, health and sanity. We have only to give photoplay art its premise and we may find it ranked among the muses. In artistic photodrama we perceive with the ears of the heart and the soul, gifted, it would seem, with a new soul organ. The day of the skilled spectator must follow the dawn of the art of the ideal interpreter. ”

“ A play will exert influence in the same proportion as it is artistically effective; which is as much as to say, the greater the artist the greater his power for good or evil. To become over-zealous in presenting morality leads to propaganda; to be too realistic and careless in the portrayal of immorality leads into the mire of obscenity. True art has nothing to do with morality, for or against; it is intrinsically noble, uplifting and inspiring. Whether the life of the artist is exemplary or not is a matter of his own conscience ”

“ The editor, the director and the actor must understand from your scenario exactly what action, interpretation and suggestion your words are intended to convey. Many big ideas, striking situations and splendid scenes never see the light of the screen because of the photoplaywright’s poverty of expression.
A broad vocabulary hesitates at no flight of inspiration, no matter how transcending; it falters at no wave of emotion, no matter how profound; it pauses at no thought, no matter how beautiful. ”

“ The clash of souls is lost sight of in the orchestral crash of falling buildings; the climax in the struggle of a heroic spirit is hidden behind locomotives coming head-on and smashing themselves into junk; the pathetic twilight closing over some wonderful character depiction is lost in the glare of a bona-fide fire advertised to cost thousands of dollars. These are melodramatic sensations, not drama. ”

“ He was the plot material; his tears the plot germ; how to make the old man happy in the last great moment of his life, is the climax and aim of the prospective play.
The climax resolves itself into a definite purpose to guide the playwright; for he writes every scene with a view to its influence on the climax; if it has no influence on the climax, that is sufficient evidence that it is not necessary for his play purposes. The writer who sits down to write his play with no definite idea of the outcome is bound to be swayed by every new development that appears on the horizon of his imagination. ”

“ The play, the characters and the audience are lost in the debris both literally and artistically. Our object in dramatic expression is to enthrall, not to paralyze. Every distraction of attention [Pg 160] from the elemental mediums of pure art is an obstacle thrown into the clear channel of receptivity. Spectacles are for the most part acts that concern themselves and not deeds that are an intrinsic part of the drama. The characters and the action step back as it were, while the precipitated spectacle usurps the stage and the attention. Unlike the circus, drama has no legitimate side-shows. ”

“ The photoplaywright is the only literary craftsman who does not carve, model and perfect with his own handiwork the actual presentment of his creation offered to the public. And, greatest obstacle of all—our photoplaywright must accomplish his eloquent task by remaining technically silent! We come to the inevitable conclusion that construction and technique are equal in importance—if not superior—to idea or conception of the writer. ”

“ Contrasts in action, appearance and conduct between characters is always effective in clarifying characterization. Where there are no voices and many characters, great care must be exercised to differentiate. The sooner the writer realizes the difficulties that beset actor and director in differentiating character, the quicker he will begin to economize on the number he employs and to strengthen personalities. It is an axiom of photodrama that the bigger the idea, the fewer the characters! Thus it is seen that too many important characters make too great a demand on the audience. ”

“ The conquest of the lighter emotions is already a reality, as any one may learn who will take the trouble to step into a photoplay theater while a good comedy is being run. But the supreme test of the appeal of art—the drama that loosens the treasured tears of a self-conscious, conservative audience—is still the unattained, but attainable, goal of the new profession. ”

“ In other words, our characters become living people who are endowed with human traits of which their every action is the natural outcome.
Good taste in the selection and treatment of theme brings us back again to the same admonition of exercising the simple quality of being well-bred. Just as we would not think of startling a drawing-room assembly by forcing our personal bias upon it, so we must select our dramatic matter in a serious, humane and delicate manner. ”

“ With fiction construction and expression, the photoplay has much in common. The short photoplay, as we have pointed out, is expanded to practically the same degree as the short story, while the multiple-reel, or long photoplay, has within its scope the complete and satisfactory dramatization of the novel or many-volumed literary work, thus enriching the dramatic field with new forms of surpassing material which must forever have been denied millions of people who abhor reading even the glorious treasures of fiction literature. ”

“ It demands the concoction of a series of violence and spectacle to happen in a logical and progressive order. Melodrama resembles farce, in that the characters are cursed with all the earmarks of the deepest-dyed type they portray—the beetle-browed villain, or the ludicrous Jew-Irishman-Nigger. In the true drama we meet men and women who live poignantly in our lives—tho we see them for the first time. ”

“ The impression that the perfect play is the one which can dispense [Pg 49] with any of the legitimate devices, no doubt comes from a misconception of the precise potentialities of these artifices. It is true, if they do not serve as a means to an end; an integral part of the play; units in the development of the story; then they not only may, but should, be dispensed with, by all means. We employ nothing—property, actor, scene, spectacle, spoken word, insert, incident or device—in the perfect photoplay that has not a bearing on the climax of the play. ”

“ Too often the message of fiction or stage drama is limited, by the printed or spoken [Pg 31] word, to the understanding of one’s own people; but the drama of the screen is told in terms of world-wide action, spelt in a tremor of world-old emotion, and writ in the simple language of the human heart—regardless of culture or color, clime or creed. He who has eyes to see may readily understand.
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In Photodrama, as in real life, we are never permitted to reverse the hand of Time and relive the deeds of yesterday—except we pass thru the gateway of visions and dreams. ”

“ He is the living motive of the play and the most important symbol in the expression of its inner truth. When will actors learn their lines in order to catch the very soul of your play, instead of yah-yahing at each other when a visualized exchange of words is necessary? But the writer will have to write the essential words—perhaps that’s the rub?
Violent action will always excite and thrill the mind; but it takes passive repression to move the soul. The body that suffers, writhes and flings itself about; the hurt soul shrinks back and lies stunned. ”

“ As plot is the science of structure, so dramatics is the art of treatment. Plot is a matter of selection; drama one of application of the selected material. We take it for granted that all plot material is inherently—tho crudely, perhaps—dramatic. We hint at both plot and treatment when we state that drama is a supreme human experience interpreted by characters in terms of emotion with piercing effect. ”

“ Too often actors en masse have had no [Pg xxiv] further intimation of what they were doing than the vociferous bellowings of a director beyond the camera. Thus was the writer deprived of his most necessary ally in the interpretation of his finer dramatic ideas. If many directors cannot “see,” and possibly perceive every scene and situation of a manuscript with all their five senses, they have been known to return it to the author as “impossible for production.” In true drama our five senses—in photodrama but one, sight—merely act as the agent of the emotions, the real participant in the drama. ”

“ The finer points in dramatic construction are equivalent—and just as necessary—as those of fiction narration. Dramatic construction and expression are modulated according to the nature of the theme. Realism, Romanticism and Idealism each has its methods of producing effects. We must guard against the vulgarity of ultra-realism and bear in mind that all idealism must be edifying and romanticism refined. Realism is materialistic and calls for gross details and convincing spectacle; Romanticism is luxuriant and revels in the vagaries of youth, the desire for love and the intoxication of adventure ”

“ Comedy must always be delineated good-naturedly, and never with satire or animus. Misfortune is not a comedy subject.
In all good drama—whether it be drama, melodrama, comedy or tragedy—there must be an idea in the material, a motive in the characterization, a definite end to be attained; a reasonable cause, a logical effect and a climacteric deed; a plot.
In all drama there is struggle with an obstacle. In pure drama and melodrama we have the hero struggling against the obstacles and pitfalls placed in his path by the villain ”

“ Melodrama is pure drama exaggerated. The hero and the heroine are very, very good; the villain and the adventuress are very, very bad; their manner is extraordinarily violent; their method is to startle both the audience and each other by their actions and deeds; all emotion with them is passion; they accomplish superhuman tasks and are generally untrue to all conception of real life. ”

“ A play should progress even when it appears to go back. This seeming paradox is concerned especially with the employment of the Vision. It means that every scene should contribute action—and every insert supply data—that advance the play in the mind of the audience, by indirectly clearing away some obstacle that has stood in the way of its further progress, or by supplying material that heightens lingering suspense, or by directly adding new action that impetuously drives the development toward a climax. ”

“ Given the conception of an idea worth while, he must first have the power to visualize its phenomena to himself; he must then be able to represent its dramatic development visibly in terms of action and symbols of emotion. The power to visualize a story to one’s self can neither be taught nor learned; its exercise lies in the gift of imagination. The ability to represent this story in a form that may be readily interpreted depends on a practical assimilation and a working knowledge of dramatic construction and photoplay technique. ”