Screenplay

“ At its present rate of progress, the cinema will soon become more powerful as an influence upon the minds of the masses than are the newspaper, the novel and the play taken together.
For the sun never sets upon the screen! Day and night, in all parts of the civilized, and an increasing portion of the uncivilized, globe the motion picture is making its imprint upon the minds and souls of countless millions of men, women and children. ”

“ The pictures taken are very small, and are greatly magnified on the screen.
So much for the mechanical end of the business. It may interest some to learn that the photo-play, as seen in the theatre, is not taken all at once, nor in the order in which the scenes are seen as they are reeled off.
When a play is decided on, the director or one of his helpers goes over the manuscript and picks out all the scenes that take place in one location. It may be in a parlor, in a hut, on the side of a mountain, in a lonely wilderness, on a battlefield, on a bridge—anywhere, in fact. ”

“ This is at the Grand Central Palace in New York.
If you don’t care for the comedy on the screen to the left, you can look at the romantic play in the center screen, or at the thriller on the screen to the right.
The chief advantage is that when you go in to see your favorite hero of the movies, who is billed on the posters outside, or go in to see a certain comedy, you aren’t compelled to sit waiting through a program of pictures you don’t care about particularly. It is an arrangement for busy folk who drop into a movie theater at the noon hour. ”

“ The successful scenario writers, who conceive our best plays, are the real heart of this business, and the next to them in importance are the directors, or producers, who exercise marvelous cleverness in staging the work of the authors."
"I suppose," remarked Arthur Weldon, "it is very like a theatre."
"Not so like as you might imagine," was the reply. "We employ scenery, costumes and actors, but not in ways theatrical, for all our work is subservient to the camera's eye and the requirements of photography." ”

“ In the theater the actor projects his personality, on the screen the camera projects it—a very different thing. Still, however, the theater is needed by the screen and there is no reason for a feud between 208them. In fact, the dangers and the problems that confront the theater are less complex than those the screen is called upon to face. We have but one—to do good plays. I have another silver cup for any one who can persuade me that a really fine play has ever failed. ”

“ The arrogance of the trained writer of fiction or of drama and the price of the producer were still beyond conciliation.
The first borrowings may have come in taking excerpts from history to make the modest spectacles that gave a new note to cinematography. Suffice it to say, that soon familiar masterpieces of fiction and dramatic literature began to appear. The moment that the exhaustless stores of literature were opened to the needs of cinematography we may say that the photodrama really had its inception. ”

“ When we analyze pictorial composition on the screen we must proceed as we have done throughout this book. We must look at it from the point of view of the spectator in the theater. The spectator does not see the setting with one eye and the actors with the other, he does not separate the respective movements of human beings, animals, trees, water, fire, etc., as they play before him, and he does not disconnect any one scene from the scenes which precede or follow it. To him everything on the screen is connected with everything else there. ”

“ The solid photoplay of today should not be made to resemble a cheap melodrama, in which something highly sensational is sure to happen every three minutes. Just because you have seen a sensational episode in a play on the screen, do not attempt to crowd your scenario with minor thrills and sensations, regardless of whether the incident pictured is relevant to the plot. If your plot is a strong one, its unfolding will suggest scenes of sufficient dramatic quality to hold the interest. ”

“ 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! ”

“ Let us now take up some points more closely identified with the photoplay. We have learned how to look for ideas, we have seen how a plot is built; now we must find out how to tell our story on the screen. It should be unnecessary to tell aspirants that since all photoplays are told by means of pantomime, “action” is a prime necessity. The audience wants to see the characters do everything worth while in the story. It feels cheated if you insert a subtitle saying, “Helen loves John because he saved her from death in a factory fire.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We actors are mere details of an artistic conception. We have now been in Hollywood for five months, yet few people who casually notice us at the hotel or on the streets have any idea that we act for the 'movies.' Sometimes we appear publicly in the streets, in characteristic costume, and proceed to enact our play where all may observe us; but there are so many picture companies in this neighborhood that we are no longer looked upon as a novelty and the people passing by pay little attention to us. ”

“ True, there are thousands of picture-play patrons who go to their favorite theatre night after night, prepared to see anything that may be shown for their entertainment. But there are also thousands who are not regular attendants. Many go only when attracted by the title of a picture based on some well-known book, poem, or play. A great many more are guided in their selection of moving-picture entertainment by the attractiveness of the titles displayed on the posters and banners announcing the regular daily programs. ”

“ He must be gifted with the imagination that will enable him to create a full-bodied story—a plot—from this germ. Lastly, he must possess the story-telling ability, or, more properly for photoplay-writing, the knowledge of dramatic principles necessary to relate his story in such a manner that the interest of his audience mounts steadily and is held to the end. These qualities the beginner must have at the outset. He can learn later the possibilities and limitations of the silent drama by studying the pictures in the theaters. ”

“ I have acquired the habit of late of patronizing the theatre that advertises a picture-play derived from some novel, old or new, and recounts, by means of the silent drama, a story worthy of repetition. ”

“ When a piece of fiction—no matter whether it be a short story, a serial or a novel—appears, an endeavor should be made to arrange with a film concern that the photoplay should appear simultaneously with it in fiction form. ”

“ Some day they will realize that the public really loves simple drama more than they do sensational spectacle.
3. THE MANUSCRIPT (a) Technique—In fiction the deeds need only be probable; in photodrama they must be actually performable, because the audience must see them. For the photoplay must show whatever is vital. Keep your captions down to 15 words at the most, and your inserts to 20, as every word means a foot of film. Tell how your characters shall act, leave to the director where and how they enter and exit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We'll pick a good staff, select our stories with care, get the best men to write our scenarios, and gather round us a group of actors, like those who have made the Continental cinema what it is today, more interested in their work than in themselves, willing to take their chances of scoring in fine ensemble acting instead of insistent that every story shall be distorted, every scene directed, every picture cut to throw a so-called star into prominence. ”

“ Every one not engaged in the performance, but who is behind the screen, waiting for his part, must be particular to keep back of the light, so their shadows will not be thrown on the screen.
In making entrances and exits, come on from the sides, about two feet from the screen, and you must remember that the farther you are from the screen, and the nearer to the light, the larger will be your shadow on the screen. Recollect, too, that you must be in profile, or sideways to your audience, otherwise the effect of your acting is lost ”

“ Unless you are already a successful fiction writer when you first determine to write photoplays it is not going too far to assert that you have never yet really watched a motion picture. You have witnessed many, but only the playwright and the theatrical man may be said to watch plays, whether on the stage or on the screen, with every faculty alert and receptive, ready to pounce on any suggestion, any bit of stage business, any scenic effect, or any situation, that they may legitimately copy or enlarge upon for their respective uses. ”

“ Let us simply add that the kind of rest we have in mind is never the rest of inaction, of sleep, or of death; it is rather a dynamic repose. Just as the still portions of the motion picture may be active upon the spectator’s mind, so the motions may be reposeful while they are both at work and at play. Such harmony of pictorial motions on the screen is not too high an ideal for the lovers of the cinema. ”

“ As a medium for drama the screen is only just beginning to break away from the influences that controlled it when it first set out on its career as a pioneer in a new art, namely, the silent presentation of plays and stories. It is still necessary for us who enjoy a photoplay of real merit to exercise care at the entrance to a movie theatre lest we be confronted presently by a screen drama unworthy the attention of intelligent observers. ”

“ The rightness of the spectacle film is implicit8 in its name: the screen is a place on which things can be seen, and so long as a film depends upon the eye it is right for the screen—and whether it is right in any other regard depends upon taste and judgment and skill. Omit as irrelevant the news reels, animated cartoons, educational and travel films—all of them good; omit equally those printed jokes and clippings from the Literary Digest which are at once the greatest trial and error of the screen. ”

“ But the ‘make-up’ of the motion-picture theater screen differs in that only one thing may be presented at a time. If an advertising film is unfolded, you have no other alternative in the darkened hall than to give it your attention. ”

“ All editors wear glasses, so do all theatrical managers. My appeal will be irresistible. All I shall have to do will be to see that the check is for the right figure and to supervise the placing of the electric sign
SPECTACLES OF FATE BY P. G. WODEHOUSE
over the doors of whichever theatre I happen to select for the production of the play.
Have you ever considered the latent possibilities for dramatic situations in short sight? You know how your glasses cloud over when you come into a warm room out of the cold? Well, imagine your hero in such a position. ”

“ In the first place there has to be a play to be "filmed," or taken. It may be a parlor drama an outdoor scene—anything from a burning building to a flood. With the play decided on, the actors and actresses for the different parts are selected and carefully rehearsed. This is necessary as the camera is instantaneous and one false move or gestures may spoil the film.
Next comes the selection of the location for the various scenes. Indoor ones are comparatively easy, for the scenic artist can build almost anything. ”

“ In writing for the screen dialogue is a lost quantity. It is action which is required, because the spectator has to follow the play from what he sees, and not from what he hears. Accordingly the requirements of action must be kept in mind. In the average studio the actor either extemporises dialogue to fit the part or situation, or else the producer prompts him. ”