Installment

“ Yet to the student of the modern American short story, and novel as well, the moving pictures must come in for a great share of consideration. This institution exerts a tremendous influence on the trend of our fiction, determining both its form and substance. It is no longer a secret that most of our prominent fiction-writers who still are unattached to some studio are writing stories for the magazines with a view to their ultimate adaptation for the screen. ”

“ After a director has carefully composed a series of scenes so that the motions and patterns and textures and tones dissolve, from one moment to the next, in a rhythmical flow, regardless of how the story may have shifted its setting, we do not want some film doctor to come along and break that unity into pieces for the sake of a few jokes, or near-jokes, or for a few words of schoolroom wisdom or of sentimental gush. ”

“ Footage: The amount of film consumed in the making of an individual scene, insert, or the entire picture.
Frame: See Film.
Idea: An incident, or a situation, that suggests a plot; in other words, the plot "germ."
Insert: Anything introduced into the film to aid in telling the story or to explain a point of the plot. "Leaders" are also inserts; but, as generally used, inserts refers to letters, telegrams, newspaper paragraphs or personals, or any matter other than cut-ins, or dialogue, inserted into the film during the progress of a scene, thus becoming practically a part of that scene. ”

“ The observation which is directed to noting the numbers on the motor cars, the names of locomotives, and the collection of postage-stamps and picture post-cards, can also be usefully turned, say, to noting the styles of architecture which really mark broadly great periods of our national life and development; and may help us, perhaps more than anything else, to arrange our ideas of the days of old in a proper order and sequence. An old building may be an excellent date-book. ”

“ The logical follow-up medium for your film is the motion-picture publication field, for every fan takes regularly at least one publication devoted to photoplays, and the cover of national magazine or periodical you have in mind may only catch his eye at the news-stand. ”

“ It means that we, as manufacturers, supply certain agencies in all the large cities, who in turn rent our films to the many picture theatres. When a picture is ready, we send copies to all our agencies and set a day when they may release it, or give it to their customers to use. ”

“ A long scene may be broken effectively by the insertion of a Close-view. All of these constructive possibilities must be resorted to in building the effective plot. In other words, we must test each scene by visualizing it before we write it out. Our rough draft is our plot, that may be changed to meet, create and strengthen dramatic exigencies. Remember that we must suggest even more than fiction, since we must tell the director and actor what must be done, as well as show the audience a moving drama! ”

“ Far different is it now, when the most extensive architectural undertakings seldom require more than three or four years, and the same architect is equally ready to turn out a church, a library, a theatre, or a bank. ”

“ An outline, synopsis, or description of the idea of a television or radio pro­gram, stage show, lecture series, etc., is not registrable in Class C, even if fairly detailed.
2.
Where the applicant deposits an outline or synopsis of a series of programs, to­gether with one sample script, the appli­cant will be asked to detach the outline or synopsis and register the script alone, and will be cautioned that registration for the script will not protect the idea or plan, the future scripts in the series, or the series as a whole. ”

“ Even though the director does not take the scenes in the order in which they are written, he will be able to save a great deal of time if, between the scene that is done in the library and the one enacted in the court-room, he can take his people out and get three or four, or even more, scenes in the open air, where the setting is ready for him. ”

“ Thou only of the beings who live wast acquainted with the existence of these manuscripts: thou art many miles distant, and art utterly a stranger to the mode or place of their concealment. Not only access to the cabinet, but access to the room, without my knowledge and permission, was impossible: both were locked during this night. Not five hours had elapsed since the cabinet and drawer had been opened, and since the letters had been seen and touched, being in their ordinary position. ”

“ On the other hand, a friend of mine who has produced many, eminently successful picture films, scribbles the bare idea on a single sheet of paper—the back of an envelope suffices sometimes—briefly indicating the progress of the plot step by step, retaining all the stage business in his head, and modifying his ideas as he proceeds, to suit the circumstances. ”

“ The brochures of the serial shall be arranged for gathering into volumes, each comprising the issue of a calendar year; and about the close of each year there shall be published in a brochure arranged to complete the volume a title-page, a list of contents, and an index for the corresponding volume, together with an abstract of the proceedings of the Society and lists of officers and members for the year, and a copy of the by-laws and rules governing the Society. ”

“ Of the canvas you make a screen, you build a dwelling with the pile of stones, chisel a door-sill out of the block, with the vocabulary you write an essay. And in each case you work well and creatively, if your work be in harmony with God’s laws, if your screen be light, sightly, and protective, your dwelling healthful and commodious, your sill lie solid and square, your essay be judicious and sound. ”

“ In the sixteenth century, it took a flock of sheep to furnish the vellum for one edition of a book, and the product was for the very few; in the twentieth, a forest is felled to supply the paper for an edition, and the output goes to many hundred thousand readers. ”

“ INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART II Whether you desire to break into the movies as writer, actor or director, your most important consideration will be the scenario. In the scenario you will find all the elements of the photoplay; everything is built upon that as a foundation. The actor or director who sincerely desires to do good work studies his script assiduously. The ambitious writer analyzes not only his own photoplays, but those of other people.
It is exceedingly difficult to talk technique to anyone who has never read a scenario. ”

“ When a work is completely finished, the compositor or compositors concerned shall, before he or they begin another work, unless prevented by the employer or overseer, clear away the forms, taking from them the head lines, white lines, leads, and reglets; which, with the furniture of each sheet, and the matter properly tied up for papering, are to be given to the overseer, or any person he may appoint.
12. Sweepings of frames to be cleared away before ten o'clock every morning, under the forfeiture of twopence for each neglect. ”

“ Correctly applied only to that part of the photoplay manuscript which describes the development of the plot, scene by scene and situation by situation; the complete story is swiftly outlined in the synopsis, but in the scenario it is told—that is, worked out—in action. The continuity of action; often called "the continuity."
Scene: A scene is so much of the action of a photoplay as is taken in one place at one time without stopping the camera. ”

“ How do you arrange the details of your exposition? You attempt to convey to another person the plan of some large building. What arrangement is inevitable? How do books on sports explain the baseball field, the football gridiron, the tennis court, the golf links? When specifications for a building are furnished to the contractor, what principle of arrangement is followed? If an inventor gives instructions to a pattern-maker for the construction of a model, what plan does he follow? Would a man discussing drawings for a new house be likely to formulate his explanations on this scheme? ”

“ Most of the directors take part in the assembling stage when the film is cut to its proper length, the subtitles inserted, and the finishing touches applied that make the picture ready to meet the eyes of the outside world. ”

“ It is of course apparent that if a large portion of the catalogue is to be put within reach of the present generation the scale of operations must be greatly enlarged. We may one day see the whole of the printing of the Museum a special department, like the Clarendon or Cambridge University press, with a head and a staff of its own, and carrying on operations by the side of which those I have been describing will appear diminutive. ”

“ The scope of the collection may be seen by a glance at the catalogue, whose departments embrace architecture, art-study, anatomy, biography, book-illustration, cathedrals and churches, costumes, decorative, domestic, and industrial art, heraldry, painting, and picturesque art. ”

“ According to the usual practice of our architects, a lad, after he has left school, where he has learned to read and write, arithmetic, a little geometry, and perhaps a very little drawing, together with some other things not applicable to architecture, is placed in an architect’s office, where his first employments are probably, to copy particulars of work, without understanding them, and to square dimensions from nine in the morning till seven or eight in the evening. ”

“ It would be best, of course, if the director could originate his own plot, as a painter conceives his idea for a painting, or if he could, at least, prepare his own scenario as studiously as the painter makes his own preliminary sketches for a painting. ”

“ He added a recommendation, that the whole authority over the building should be restored to the architect, but that he should be directed to call to his aid some “experts” in ventilation, and to act by their advice. ”

“ Every cottage has its own copy of the volume in time. Edition after edition goes out, first from the school, then from the greater, more dazzling printing presses of the University, to the scholars and artists of Europe and Asia, through their colleagues who are attending the World’s Fair of the University of Springfield. ”

“ The injection of detail in a story is by right the work of the continuity writer. However, most of the directors that have been referred to here, as said, are either their own continuity writers or they exercise such close supervision or collaboration over and on their continuities that here at least the injection of detail is the director's duty. ”

“ Simple—as the beginnings of all artistic work are—are the earliest chancel-screens of this country, and the progress from simple forms to the very rich and complex ones of the Perpendicular Period is as evident in wooden screen-work as it is in the history of tracery in stone. ”

“ Begin and continue on the broad principle of practical utility, making most prominent, works already executed, or in the course of erection, with a copious description, as also, plans, elevations, sections, and details of the most prominent features of the building or structure, illustrated, and the work, from its great utility, will take a place amongst the magazines of the present day, second only to the great magazine of the north. ”

“ It was a lovely little place, full of an atmosphere that recalled the publishing house of the old days, half office, half study; a workshop where books might be made, not turned out by machinery. I read many manuscripts for that publisher, and must have learned much by the experience. And now that my novel was finished I took it to him first. ”

“ There were the catalogues to be thought of, and notices in the papers to be judiciously given out, and furniture to be bought, and trees, and shrubbery, and pianos, and charts, and all things else needful to college life. Above all, there is the building itself to be erected. ”

“ Sometimes, in a scene which employs the ‘Let us in!’ formula, or on other ground looks like a threshold scene, we are suddenly pulled up either by a suggestion of the host that we are ‘in’ his house or under his roof, or by an indication that persons outside are to be brought ‘in’. ”

“ We ought, I think, to exemplify every useful device both in press construction and other departments of library work that we may have the good fortune to introduce, both for our own credit and for the advantage of other libraries which may be disposed to inquire into our methods. ”

“ A large auditorium is devoted to the study of history and geography, which are combined into one subject and inculcated with the assistance of lantern slides or moving pictures, visualization of scenes and events being made use of to attract interest and assist memorization. ”

“ The picture palace, indeed, is assuming the functions of the illustrated newspaper, and is governed by like laws. The more personal and immediate the news, the more pleased are the beholders. So there is an increasing effort to supply upon the screen in life and motion what the papers are recording in print and illustration. ”

“ A historian of the stage owes so much of his material to the printed copies of plays, with their title-pages, their prefatory epistles, and their stage-directions, that he can hardly be dispensed from giving some account of the process by which plays got into print. ”