THE AUTHORS’ HAND-BOOK SERIES

THE PHOTODRAMA

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ITS PRINCIPLES, THE NATURE
OF ITS PLOT, ITS DRAMATIC CONSTRUCTION
AND TECHNIQUE ILLUMINED BY
COPIOUS EXAMPLES

TOGETHER WITH

A COMPLETE PHOTOPLAY AND A GLOSSARY

MAKING THE WORK

A PRACTICAL TREATISE

BY

HENRY ALBERT PHILLIPS

Author of “The Plot of the Short Story,” “Art in Short Story Narration,”
Formerly of Staff of Pathé Frères, Successful Contestant in
Vitagraph-Sun Contest

INTRODUCTION BY

J. STUART BLACKTON

Pioneer Manufacturer and Producer and Secretary of The Vitagraph
Company of America

(SECOND EDITION)

THE STANHOPE-DODGE PUBLISHING COMPANY

LARCHMONT, NEW YORK, U. S. A.

Copyright, 1914, by

HENRY ALBERT PHILLIPS

(Published September, 1914)

The William G. Hewitt Press
Brooklyn, New York

TO
ALL LITERARY WORKERS
WHO STRIVE TO ELEVATE AND DIGNIFY
THE PHOTODRAMA
I DEDICATE
THIS LITTLE VOLUME

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

AS one of the pioneers in the most wonderful art-science of the age—the motion picture industry—the writer feels doubly qualified perhaps to throw some light upon a subject equally interesting to author and producer.

A few years ago to the uninitiated “moving pictures” spelt little more than pantomime, buffoonery or sensational catch-penny device. To-day, there are few who maintain this view, and they are the unenlightened; for to the vast majority of those familiar with the art and interested in its progress, the word has become symbolic of things important and far-reaching.

Literature is literally the basic foundation upon which the already gigantic edifice of picturedom has risen.

Ten or twelve years ago picture manuscripts were unknown—office boys, clerks, camera operators, any one with an “idea” furnished the material from which motion pictures were produced. Plot was unknown, technique did not exist, and literary and constructive quality was conspicuous by its absence. The art, however, developed rapidly. It was found possible to do more than portray outdoor scenes of moving trains and other objects, or simple pantomimes with exaggerated gesture à la Française. Methods were discovered and evolved whereby powerfully dramatic scenes could be reproduced, subtilty of expression in either serious or humorous vein could be communicated to numberless people—their emotions played upon, laughter or tears evoked at will—in other words, the Silent Drama was born.

Classic and standard literature was then reproduced in photodrama. Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Scott and Hugo became known to millions of people whose previous acquaintance with their famous works was either very slight or non-existent. It was at this stage, when literature was combined with other arts allied in picture production, that the real impetus was given and the triumphant onward march of the world’s greatest educator and entertainer commenced.

To-day, millions are invested in great industrial plants for the creation and manufacture of the wordless drama; thousands of people rely upon it as their sole maintenance and profession. Millions upon millions of men, women and children all over the world look upon this form of entertainment as their principal recreation and, incidentally, are being unconsciously educated to understand and appreciate the higher forms of art.

Bernard Shaw says: “The great artist is he who goes a step beyond the demand and, by supplying works of a higher beauty and a higher interest than have yet been perceived, succeeds after a brief struggle in adding this extension of sense to the heritage of the race.”

There is no doubt that the works of higher beauty and interest accomplished by the real artists in the motion picture profession have been widely productive of the “extension of sense” above quoted.

All this brings us to the practical purpose of this discussion—the dissemination among those who write of the intelligence that a new and fruitful field is open for the works of their pens. The short-story writer who gets from one hundred to five hundred dollars for magazine stories can get a similar amount from the picture manufacturers; the authors of international fame, who make thousands in royalties, can make thousands more from picture royalties—and in every case without interfering with their magazine or book rights. In fact, the greatest advertising a novel could receive would be a preliminary exhibition all over the world in pictures.

Many of the best modern authors have already gone into this field and many more will. For the day has arrived when, in addition to producing well-known plays and successful books, there is a need for big original features, especially written for pictorial presentation.

The motion picture has narrowed the field of the playwright, but there is another and broader pasture awaiting both the play and fiction writer when he has mastered the technique of the “life portrayal.”

It is the writer’s belief that a gripping, compelling story, hitherto unknown and unpublished, properly picturized and bearing the name of one of the best known writers of modern fiction, would be a greater success artistically and financially than a revived popular play or “best seller.” The words “properly picturized” emphasized above are significant.

The motion picture manufacturer stands to the author in the position of publisher—he needs you—you need him. There are good and bad publishers. You, whose name is an asset, would not deal with a publisher of questionable methods; ergo, when seeking out a market for your work, deal with none but the highest class and best and old-established motion picture concerns.

Picturedom is looked upon by many as the New Eldorado. Many misguided fools are rushing in where experienced angels fear to tread. Many theatrical concerns are now “going into the moving picture business,” and they blithely announce their intention to uplift the motion picture and show the public some real stage productions done in pictures. The few that have come to light so far have been very sad affairs, as is but natural. The average theatrical man makes about the same brand of pictures as the average picture producer made five years ago. To quote again the invaluable Shaw, “Vital art work comes always from a cross between art and life.”

The art of the picture is to convey an impression of absolute realism in a manner artistic. The theatrical stage manager has been proven to be utterly useless in picture production until he has unlearned all traditions of the stage and acquired an entirely new technique. It is unfortunate that many stock-jobbing, security-selling schemes are being offered to investigators and the public under the magic “movie” name. Many royalties are being promised that will never be paid and of many of these cardboard houses great will be the fall thereof. “A word to the wise is sometimes money in pocket.”

All summed up in a paragraph, the answer is, without a story motion pictures would be what they were styled at their inception—a novelty or a fad. So literature is indissolubly linked with the future and success of the greatest of the allied arts. The “life portrayal” or “thought visualized” is perhaps better than all “literature realized.”

J. Stuart Blackton.

The coarse passion of the Crowd constitutes “What the public wants” in the way of productions; the refined emotion of the artist must discipline, guide and gratify it by his appealing creations.

FOREWORD

WRITERS of fiction and dramatic literature have been less apt to respond to the call of a new literary vocation, than a world-wide public has been ready to flock to the appeal of a new dramatic art.

A wonderful event has come to pass in the annals of dramatic literature thru the development of cinematography. So wonderful indeed was this new addition to the art of effective dramatic expression, that even after a decade of existence, scarcely a dozen successful writers of literature had realized its potentiality and had allied themselves with the new drama.

The public’s first recognition of cinematography was as a novel diversion. People flocked to see these presentations that crudely reproduced not merely static likenesses, but moving realities, just as they had appeared before the camera. In those early days only the elemental reproduction of moving objects was attempted. The photography was miserable; the presentation itself a blurred, eye-racking ordeal.

Luckily for the waning novelty, the possibilities for the trick picture were suddenly realized and cinematography took on a new lease of life. But once the wonder, amazement and speculation that surrounded the unnatural phenomena of these animated photographs wore off, they became deadly monotonous for the mature mind. Once again cinematography hovered near the abyss of oblivion.

Something significant, however, had transpired: the trick picture had blundered, as it were, into the realms of misadventure and laughter. Slap-stick farce supplemented and finally succeeded the trick picture. Cinematography as an entertainment acquired a tremendous commercial impetus immediately. In less than a year the puling infant became a healthy youngster, and the five-cent theater began to take its rightful place as “the poor man’s playhouse.”

Thus we have arrived at the beginnings of a need for a literature to provide for the screen portrayals. What had previously been the device of a moment or the conception of an hour, on the part of some ingenious—or ingenuous—director, together with the combined aid of all concerned, now became a matter of serious consideration in order more nearly to meet and to co-operate with the mechanical requirements of length of film, speed of operation and duration of projection. All products were “home-spun” and in no way belied their crude sources. In a very short while it was discovered that there were surprisingly few funny ideas and situations in real life. The comedy personalities of clever actors were worked to death trying to put something new into old, frowsy and threadbare saws.

But a world-old, child-young desire had been awakened. The now vast audiences wanted to be told a story—logical, dramatic, gripping, living! They did not quite realize—as they never do—what they were clamoring for, and the producers had paused aghast, as tho conscious of the new and Silent Drama that stood at that moment on the threshold of cinematography.

The first cinematograph stories were humorous. Most of them were pathetic—which is the case when any but a story teller tries to tell a funny story. The serious story was attempted with even worse results. 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. In the voracious search for a story, borrowing became more general, descending from the greater to the lesser lights. At first, borrowings were looked upon by both authors and publishers almost good-naturedly. Not until the intrinsic commercial value of literary work, from a photodramatic point of view, became obvious was the virtue of the copyright called into effect.

Several successful suits by publishers brought the fear of the copyright into the producers’ hearts. The scenario editor and the photoplaywright became a power from that time on.

All said and done, a large percentage of the photoplaywrights developed in the mechanico-commercial atmosphere of the early days of cinematography were bound to be limited in their range of vision, in their conception of artistic drama and in their ideas of the needs of the ever-widening audiences. From the five-cent show, with its audiences of crude farce- and melodrama-loving people of small or limited education, had sprung the million-dollar theaters, including the rich and poor, the learned and the ignorant, the young and the old in their vast, changing throng of patrons, demanding something always better.

Is it any wonder—with the heads of the companies becoming wealthy magnates by the hour—that many of them gave little thought to anything else but the income end of their wonderful business, forgetting the output almost to the point of killing the goose that laid the golden egg? Many of these men had not the slightest conception what the word drama meant; altho their employees had grown up with the business, yet they knew nothing of those more cultured professions of literature and drama. Drama to them meant only the production of so many feet of “pictures.”

On the other hand, the consummate handlers of plots, the trained writers of fiction and dramatic literature, who had made writing their profession and had given years of their life to demonstrating their ability to make men laugh and cry and wait, by means of dramatic pictures on page or stage—they had stood aloof. The studio-bred photoplaywright smiled indulgently as tho an insuperable barrier separated these literary mastodons from their preserves; the writers scanned the field arrogantly as tho viewing the common herd. Neither was giving the other his due.

It is true, many well-known writers have failed as photoplay technicians; but it is even more true that most photoplaywrights would fail as writers of fiction or stage drama.

Thus we arrive at our point: photoplay writing is a new profession, for the simple reason that the photodrama is a new form of dramatic expression, tho in many ways like, yet in even more ways differing from, either fiction or stage drama.

The studio-bred photoplaywright needs just as much to study and to learn the valued art of choosing, developing and completing the dramatic idea artistically, as the writer of fiction or stage drama needs to master the difficult and effective technique of the photoplay.

The photodrama is more sophisticated than either the writer of other forms of literature, who dabbles with it, or the studio-bred photoplaywright, who struggles with it, at first suspects. Each new test of illusion that is put to it has been met effectively, maintained realistically and completed convincingly—providing it has had the artistic co-operation of director, actors and appropriate scenic effects.

It was but a natural consequence that years of dearth of play material and practical apprenticeship should have brought to the surface many promising photodramatists from among the studios. While there have been a limited number of plays effective from a purely artistic standpoint, and depending thruout on emotional situations, there have been thousands upon thousands of productions, startling because of dynamic spectacles, with scarcely a dramatic suggestion outside of outlandish peril. 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.

Just as the average person can seldom appreciate a startling sensation except for the first time, so we find producers, directors and audiences clamoring for something new and surpassing all that has gone before, resenting repetition or spectacles that are keyed below the highest pitched sensation they have already witnessed. One visit to the circus a year suffices most people; tho few of us are contented with a weekly attendance at the theater with the promise of a good drama. Dramatic revivals are always welcome.

And so we see the feverish daily change of program, and films that flare for a day and then, like the reams of cheap reading trash of the hour, are literally thrown into the waste-basket and justly perish.

Many problems have been met with wonderful facility in this new art. The actor, for instance, has had to mould himself to new requirements, demanding of him oftentimes a more exquisite art than the spoken drama comprehends. A vast number of actors have acquired something near perfection.

A power has risen in the production of the photoplay, however, that has often hampered the progress of the new drama. All authority, in too many instances, has been given to the director. Even tho the meaning of the word classic was as remote from his understanding as the study of astronomy, yet all manuscripts were subject to his interpretation, alteration and elimination, from “Lucile” to “Lear.” Too often actors en masse have had no 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 photodrama is bound to be taken seriously in the end. We have theaters, we have actors, manufacturing plants, we have a world-wide audience—but no vital drama worth mentioning yet. When we are supplied with good plays the millennium of the photodrama will begin, which, in its universality, will eclipse anything known in the realms of artistic expression. The photodrama needs thinkers, not tinkers. There must come writers with ideas as well as methods. The future has room only for swayers of world-wide emotion, and not mere footage producers. The trained writer has only a slight advantage over the untrained writer, because he must reject all his well-grounded rules of fiction and dramatic technique. The novice has a better chance in photoplay writing than in any other field of expression, providing he is mentally and temperamentally equipped to take it up.

Photoplay writing is bound to become a dignified profession despite the obloquy that seemed to rest upon it for so long. But the photoplaywright must elevate himself thru his artistic product and thru a demand for recognition of meritorious work by appropriate compensation and also by credit of his name to appear on the screen as author of his plays.

It is to further these high aims in the realization that the photodrama needs students earnest in their desire to become honest artisans and true artists—that this book has been written by an ardent student of the new art.

Henry Albert Phillips.

May 18, 1914.

PART I

THE PRINCIPLES OF THE
PHOTODRAMA

The writer of the Silent Drama must portray emotions that may be felt by all mankind, and create heartbeats that may be heard round the world.

CHAPTER I

A New Medium of Artistic Expression

THE PREMISE OF ALL ART; THE BATTLE OF NEW STANDARDS; THE DRAMA OF THE EYE; NOT “MOVING PICTURES”; ALL THE WORLD’S THE STAGE; A FIELD WITHOUT LIMITATIONS.

IN all expressions of true art we find the portrayal of a message from the soul, mind and emotions of one man to those of his fellows. The message may be graven in stone, wrought in iron, blended in color, soaring in song, poured thru a pen, or spoken from the stage. If it be art none may pass by without a portion of it entering his soul and enriching his experience.

There is one essential condition, however, that precedes all participation in, and mutual enjoyment of, art—only true believers may enter the shrine of complete illusion. The observer, the reader, the listener, the participator in a work of art, must concentrate the attention of his body, mind and soul upon the emotional message it contains, regardless of the artificial mediums employed in giving it material existence. For art consists simply in an endeavor to express thru an outward and visible symbol some inward and spiritual truth, or struggle.

All new and unfamiliar forms of art, therefore, are subject to superficial criticism, if not ridicule, on the part of the uninitiated, who either fail, or refuse, to see the underlying truth interpreted by a work of art. Upon being shown one of the splendid marbles of Angelo they see but a piece of chiseled stone and not the wonderful vision that inspired the artist. To them one of Turner’s symphonies of color is but a daubed canvas.

But once let appreciation of art values become part of a people’s understanding, and the glories of a new and more wonderful world is opened to them, which brings us to the conclusion that there is a division of opinion regarding even the Fine Arts—some of which are patronized by the few, others are participated in by the many. Among the latter we find the devotees of fiction and dramatic literature far outnumbering all others. The reason, without doubt, for the wider popular approval of these two mediums of artistic expression lies in their portrayal of a segment of life with all the vicissitudes, settings, characters and contributing elements that lead to its dramatic climax, as opposed to the single static incident that the artist has limned in stone or wood or on canvas.

Stage drama takes even a step in advance of fiction literature in its approximation of realistic illusion. The characters of the play become the breathing, living, walking and talking persons conceived by the playwright and anticipated by the audience. Audiences laugh and weep, rejoice and sigh, despite themselves, wherever good stage drama is offered.

Thus we come to the inception and introduction of a new medium of artistic expression that is destined to be numbered among the Fine Arts. While the Photodrama is closely allied and dependent upon both Fiction and Dramatic Literature, yet it has a construction, an expression, and a production so uniquely its own that it is even more unlike than like its allied sources. The Photodrama is notable, too, in being science’s first contribution to the Fine Arts.

The Photodrama has had to fight its battle of the new standards. The day was when we scoffed at the possibility of a mere animated photograph making an artistic appeal to us sufficient to stir our emotions. 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.

Too often the message of fiction or stage drama is limited, by the printed or spoken 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.

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.

CHAPTER II

Differentiation

HOW PHOTODRAMA DIFFERS FROM STAGE DRAMA IN CONSTRUCTION, TECHNIQUE AND EXPRESSION; ALSO FROM FICTION CONSTRUCTION AND NARRATION IN GENERAL AND THE SHORT STORY AND THE NOVEL IN PARTICULAR.

THE very first impulse that comes to the photoplaywright, as a true exponent of literary art, must be stifled—he cannot clothe his message in glowing words that will ravish the ear and please the eye of an esthetic public. Rather, he must construct a silent, technically wordless picture. He must smother his vocabulary under a mass of technique. He must hide the light of his diction under a bushel of “business.”

Nevertheless, there must be the message to radiate, the story to tell, the gratifying material for entertainment. Granted an idea worth artistic exploitation, there remains the exercise of one of the most difficult processes known to literary or dramatic construction.

A photoplay is composed primarily of mechanical units, technically termed reels. A full reel consists of 1,000 feet of film and occupies approximately twenty minutes to display its contents upon the screen. By contents, we mean to include everything that is projected: trade-mark frame of manufacturer, including title of play and name of the author; cast of characters, with Board of Censorship notice at the end. The foregoing take approximately two minutes of valuable time and are merely incidental to the play. They concern the writer only in so far as they act as limitations. The essential photodrama itself includes portrayal of dramatic action of the characters; printed words contained in captions and inserted dialog; close-views for the purpose of emphasis; inserted printed matter bearing upon the unfolding of the story.

We find a distinct advantage in the construction of the short stage play over that of the short photoplay in the fact that the former permits us approximately as long a time for its single scene as we are allowed for the entire photoplay composed of from 25 to 60 scenes! Again, the short stage play is merely episodical in an intensive sense, developing a single dramatic situation to an immediate and effective climax; while the short photoplay is usually expansive in character, comparable to the wider boundaries of the short story in selecting a supreme dramatic moment in the life or lives of characters and portraying even the remote cumulative incidents that began, contributed to and compelled the climax, and possibly containing many situations, tho of lesser power than the climax itself. Aside from the incidental employment of a mob now and then, we may say that a vital characteristic of the short stage play is economy, often two and seldom more than five characters appearing in the play. Because of its multiplicity of scenes, however, the short photoplay normally includes the employment of many extra characters who establish and naturalize settings, and seldom employs less than five important characters, for the reason that frequent change of scene is necessary to photoplay development and effect.

(EXAMPLE 1.) In a short photoplay it may be necessary for our hero to visit his club, to gamble and to lose the money that he is holding in trust. While he and the villain, his opponent in the game, are the two principal characters, it is essential to introduce many others to make the club-setting natural. We might call these “setting characters.”

(EXAMPLE 2.) We must always take into consideration those scenes that act as a foil for those in which our principal characters appear in their important situations. Photoplay scenes without the prop of dramatic dialog begin to lose power after being sustained for two or three minutes. New power is provided by reverting to another scene that has a direct cumulative bearing upon the scene in hand. With but two characters, or only a small group that must be kept together for effect, quick changes would keep the characters moving unnaturally fast.

An examination of the three-act, or long, stage play and a comparison with either short or long photoplay, likewise disclose some advantages in favor of the stage drama. Each act of the long play allows the playwright approximately forty minutes in which to attain a desired effect, or about one hour and twenty minutes of combined action in all. By means of the condensed method and rapid action of photoplay drama, we may often get a three-act play into a single reel of photoplay action, while a solid evening’s entertainment may include several short plays, and one long one, equivalent in itself to a meaty drama.

The great advantage of photodrama over stage drama, however, lies in the playwright’s privilege to fill in all essential action of the most infinitesimal character in exactly the order and degree of its occurrence, so that the spectator gets everything first-hand and not thru hearsay. Furthermore, the photoplay begins at the beginning of things essential.

(EXAMPLE 3.) Stage drama, thru the use of a few well-chosen phrases, will often make clear to the audience the relationship between characters and the cause for the struggle that is the basis of the play. Photoplay construction takes us back to the causal act, tho it may have happened months before the opening of the bigger situations.

The great problem that confronts the photoplaywright is how to make his story convincing without words, how to interpret every emotion into pure action. He must learn the truth of that axiom which states that “actions speak louder than words.”

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.

The two fields—of fiction writing and photoplay writing—diverge into opposite directions the moment we discuss the narration of one and the visualization of the other. In fiction narration, we resort unequivocally to words to express our inmost vision and weave our story; in the photoplay our words merely indicate the line of action. The effectiveness to be gained thru descriptive writing is barred to us; we must confine our description to a line at the head of each scene. Fine paragraphs on introspection, or mental agony, or deep feeling are helpless, unless they have their counterpart in vivid action. Artistic narration is a handicap; expressive vocabulary is essential. We must express ourselves, then, in terms of action rather than in periods of rhetoric.

But does not the absence of the spoken word make it easier to give expression to the universal language of the heart? All motives and emotions must be made to appear on the surface. Even sounds must be silently, yet effectively, portrayed. 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.

Here we do not want that mechanics of motion which labors and creaks, revealing the machine; but rather that poetry of silent action which translates itself emotionally into visualized motive and visible drama.

CHAPTER III

Parts of the Photoplay and Their
Purposes

TITLE; SYNOPSIS; CAST OF CHARACTERS; AUTHOR’S REMARKS; SCENARIO; SCENE; SCENE-PLOT.

WE find the presentation of the photoplay in manuscript differing widely from that of both fiction and stage drama, in that it represents a mechanical point of view. Whereas the entire fiction manuscript is submitted verbatim as it will appear before the reader, and the stage play manuscript contains every word as it will be heard by the audience, the photoplay manuscript contains only a few lines of captions and possibly several inserts which alone of the actual manuscript will appear on the screen.

The first item that appears on the manuscript, the title, is coming more and more to be regarded from its literary and story-fulfilling point of view. We must ever bear it in mind, however, chiefly as a commercial asset. First, will it attract and reach the pocketbook of the hesitating public and add a drawing power to the poster displayed in front of the theater? Second, will it successfully compete with the ever-increasing number of releases brought to the attention of the exhibitor to choose for his daily or weekly change of program? Third—and in a lesser degree—will it appeal to the photoplay editor because of its promise of high-class literary or dramatic material? It is possible in nine cases out of ten to combine all these desirable features, but not without careful thought.

The synopsis of the photoplay is something more than a mere synopsis, it is an abridgment, a condensation of the scene contents. To write a perfect synopsis requires the exercise of rare literary skill. By this is not meant rhetorical flow, but the power of such a choice and command of words that enables the writer to reduce possibly several thousand words of instructive scenario to a few hundred words of suggestive synopsis without missing a single essential point. There must be a style of telling the photoplay story that is terse, crisp and suggestive. There is a studio convention that seems to have limited the length of the synopsis to 250 words. It is unfair to make a hard-and-fast rule governing the synopsis, for the reason that most aspirants get an erroneous impression. Experience demonstrates that most clean-cut, vivid plots may be perfectly delineated in a synopsis of even less than 100 words. On the other hand, the power of the slight play made great thru pure dramatic artistry would suffer from a too brief synopsis. The refined emotional play free from all the coarser strain of exaggerated melodrama and sensational spectacle would sacrifice its finer points if it did not touch upon them and reveal their beauty in the synopsis. Employ as few words as you can to amplify and completely tell the abridged story of your play!

The synopsis is designed primarily for the convenience of the editor or reader who takes up your manuscript with a view to its acceptability. The synopsis is its recommendation. If it does not tell him all its dramatic possibilities in a brief space, its opportunity is lost, for the editor seldom has time or inclination to peruse the scenario. Should the manuscript meet with acceptance, the synopsis is thereafter used as a guide for the director.

(EXAMPLE 4.) Showing how little side-lights are thrown on character, and shades of emotion may be revealed in the synopsis: “Frail, piquant Rosalie, with whom Malcolm is in love, is often piqued because he never comes to the point in anything.... Malcolm prefers to sit on the porch and dream of his coming deed.... Douglas is a doer of things and immediately carries out the music in his heart in appealing words.”

The cast of characters should mention individual characteristics if possible and clearly show the relationships at a glance. The cast is for the convenience of the director in computing the number of players necessary, in selecting actors for the parts according to their talents and personal characteristics.

(EXAMPLE 5.) MALCOLM FRENCH.... (Lead).... In love with Rosalie; Artist, Dreamer.

ROSALIE.... (Ingénue-lead).... Piquant, impatient, frail, flirtatious.

Characters that appear singly should be mentioned singly; those appearing in groups, or mobs, described en masse, so that the director may form at a glance a comprehensive idea of outlay in characters, costumes and possible character props.

There should be a distinct part of each photoplay manuscript known as “Author’s Remarks.” These should be brief and contain such helpful suggestions as a mention of the period of the play, its locale, where ideal locations may be found near particular studios, the need of extraordinary properties and where they might be obtained (possibly the author might have in his possession a coin, MS., or oddity), maybe the suggestion of specific actors whom you have in mind for important parts. Confine these remarks to 50 words or less.

The part of the manuscript next to appear is the scenario, or enumeration of scenes, including the respective action taking place in each. After numbering the scene, a single line is devoted to the description of the scene of setting. This is the only space permitted the writer for description, and one or two words are supposed to suffice unless he wishes a certain arrangement of setting that will have dramatic bearing on the development of the action.

(EXAMPLE 6.) Scene 3—FRONT OF SHOP (Window plainly lettered: J. CADWALLADER—ANTIQUE JEWELS).

Despite the fact that it is the same in name as a division of stage drama, a photoplay scene is by no means identical with a stage play scene. An apt parallel may be drawn by saying that while a stage scene is all that is seen and acted in one setting without dropping the curtain, a photoplay scene is all of the setting and action that is photographed without stopping or changing the position of the camera. If the position of the camera is changed an inch, or if we should return to the same scene a score of times, viewing it from the identical point, it must bear another scene number and be treated as a new scene. There is one exception to this rule. When a scene is broken by an insert or a close-view we “continue” the scene, for the reason that the scene is not interrupted at all in the taking, the film being cut to insert either close-view or other inserted matter.

(EXAMPLE 7.) Scene 24.—INTERIOR PAWN-BROKER’S. Broker takes necklace from case, examines it, eyeing Douglas all the while, examines jewels with jeweler’s glass, then turns, with shake of head: INSERT 4.... “I DON’T RECEIVE STOLEN GOODS. GET OUT OR I’LL CALL THE POLICE!” Scene 24—(Continued). Douglas slinks out with a scowl.

It is presupposed that every scene set down in the manuscript is absolutely necessary, and by necessary we mean essential to the cumulative advancement of the play. The contents of the scene itself consists of the writer’s process of visualizing his story thru appropriate directions for the movement of the characters and a description of the resultant action, vividly, tersely and suggestively told in the present tense. The same economical care should be practised in the selection of only essential material and the rejection of unessential details as one observes in the construction of the short story. While the writer is supposed to tell only what is to be done and not to presume even to suggest how, yet there are many subtile emotions the perfect interpretation of which he may have in mind. A happy suggestion may often save the busy and hurried actor or director time, and express exactly what the writer has in mind instead of making it necessary to guess at his thoughts.

As the writer plans the effect to be produced by his completed play, so he must keep in mind a desired effect to be accomplished by each scene. The length of a scene is determined precisely by it attaining the single effect for which it was created. Thus a scene has a unity of its own which is comparable with that of the complete play: Introduction, or establishment of relationship sufficient for the audience to grasp the significance of the action; rising development; pronounced climax, which is the signal for its termination—for a scene never has a denouément. The succeeding scene always carries the play a step forward or higher.

(EXAMPLE 8.) Scene 52—ON THE BALCONY. Malcolm singing with his whole soul in his expression. Scene 53—JEWEL ROOM. Douglas still kneeling before the cabinet, suddenly pauses, his face contorted with painful memory.

Much confusion would be eliminated, and clearness and precision affected, if there were a change in terminology calling scenes “acts,” for they are distinct units of action and definite and complete acts in the development of the play. The scene, as its etymology indicates, has primarily to do with the scenery or setting. The same scene is repeated over and over again, tho it always bears a new number. The same act is never repeated (except in facsimile in the vision scene), so that the consecutive numbering of acts from beginning to end of play would have a specific value, just as the consecutive numbering of repeated scenes is decidedly confusing.

SPECIAL NOTE.—In Part IV of this volume will be found one complete photoplay, embodying all points discussed in these chapters, and from which, in the main, illustrative examples have been chosen. A Glossary contains a modified definition of all technical terms employed.

Artifice is the edged tool of Art which, when wielded skilfully, may carve lines of life in a piece of clay and bring fame to the artificer; when handled clumsily it is sure to mar the material and may injure the hand of the artisan.

CHAPTER IV

Various Devices—Their Use and Misuse

THE CAPTION; THE INSERT; THE CLOSE-VIEW; THE VISION; DIALOG; BREAKING UP LONG SCENES; PRESERVING THE ILLUSION.

DO not seek to write photoplays that are sufficient in themselves and do not need the aid of tricks of the trade, devices or artifices. Such plays must need be crude because, even tho perfect in plot, they are bound to appear cut-and-dried, clipped and cured, and wanting in all those little human touches which by piercing the emotions and gaining the sympathies of the audience, do more than win the approbation of the mind. The impression that the perfect play is the one which can dispense 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.

The caption—variously miscalled leader, sub-title, etc.—is the most necessary, the most difficult and the most powerful of the illusory agents employed in screening the dramatic story. Its importance to the writer may be reckoned from the fact that it is one of the few small parts of the photoplay that is supplied by the author and shown intact to the audience. The caption is an action-title and, like the chapter headings of a novel, portions and savors the great bulk of the story and collectively gives its gist.

(EXAMPLE 10.) Take, for instance, the captions of “The Coming of the Real Prince” (Reliance), and we have the big moments in the play that made it impossible for the audience to lose its vital significance: (1) ANNIE’S WIDOWED MOTHER, LEFT PENNILESS, OPENS A BOARDING HOUSE; (2) THE DRUDGE; (3) ANNIE FINDS SOLACE IN “CINDERELLA”; (4) THE DREAM OF PRINCE CHARMING AND THE WONDROUS CITY BEGINS; (5) “NO, BUD, I HAVE GIVEN MY HEART TO A WONDERFUL PRINCE;” (6) THE COMING OF THE PRINCE; (7) THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY THEY GO FOR A STROLL IN THE ENCHANTED FOREST; (8) THE FAIRY TREASURE—HIDDEN BY ANNIE’S MISERLY FATHER; (9) THE PRINCE SEES AN EASY OPPORTUNITY TO FILCH TWO TREASURES; (10) THE FLIGHT TO THE WONDROUS CITY OF DREAMS; (11) THE MAGIC AWAKENING OF MOTHER-LOVE; (12) “FOR THE PRINCE WAS A MIGHTY GOOD FELLOW!” (13) THE GLORY OF THE PRINCE’S DOMAIN BEGINS TO FADE; (14) “YOU WOULDN’T HAVE ME, MOTHER, SO I DREAMED OF A PRINCE!” (15) THE COMING OF THE REAL PRINCE... And there’s the complete story, which any one with imagination can readily fill out.

A play screened without captions or inserts would be wanting in all the little human, intimate and sympathetic touches that warm the heart and pitch the emotions of the audience. The figures that flitted thru the play, unintroduced, would be identified by the spectator as
this or that actor, and not as Tess, or Mr. Barnes, or Sherlock Holmes—all characters of delightful memory. Pantomime sufficiently powerful to suggest every relationship; costume and accompaniments obvious enough to establish every environment; and action violent enough to interpret every emotion without the aid of captioned or inserted matter, belong to the elemental days of photodrama.

First of all, the caption should never be employed to tell of an action that is to follow in the scene, for a caption should never be used if it is possible to translate its essence into action:

(EXAMPLE 11.) For instance, in the following scene: Scene 56. JEWEL ROOM—Douglas has just finished forcing open the door of the jewel cabinet and holds the necklace in his trembling hand ... it would have been superfluous to have captioned, DOUGLAS STEALS THE NECKLACE.

Too often important points are unsuccessfully left to the imagination of the audience because they have been so clear in the mind of the writer. Frequently these points are essential to preserve an unbroken continuity, yet too subtle to be conveyed by action, deduction, suggestion, inference, implication or relationships.

(EXAMPLE 12.) (a) To economise, by getting right into the pith of the story: ANNIE’S WIDOWED MOTHER, LEFT PENNILESS, OPENS A BOARDING HOUSE ... introduces us to Annie and her mother, tells that her father has died, they are penniless, they must work, the place we find them in later is their boarding house. (b) To indicate a lapse of time and tell what worth-while has happened: THE SPRING COMES—AND WITH IT HER PRINCE ... the previous scene had been in the winter, Annie has been dreaming of her prince and we might not have identified the weak, flashy young man as such; the caption is, also, a link in the suspense. (c) To communicate a mental or psychological process: THE DREAM OF PRINCE CHARMING AND THE WONDROUS CITY BEGINS.... contains the very essence of the climax and reveals the psychological trend of the entire play.

We must bear in mind that there is something more important than sequence of visible action, and that is unbroken continuity or perfect cohesion of story unity—of which every intelligent audience is ever conscious—that knows no such thing as gaps, breaks or retrogressive movement. The caption is the bridge that spans these and supports, quickens and gratifies the imagination in addition.

The caption can be made to fulfill its most artistic function by combining all the essential qualities, already referred to, and also by serving as the action-title for a complete sequence of dramatic action. Thus one caption may cover all the scenes in a sequence, each caption adding a link in the development of the story and all together giving the gist of the story itself (as illustrated by Example 10). Thus the caption becomes a distinctive aid in building the dramatic plot, a contributory force in its expression, and a gratifying parallel to lead, guide and fulfill the action for the audience. Captions are not labels, but means of suggesting beyond the visible action and of furnishing deeper motives than those on the surface. There are beauty and harmony captions which often add a poetic touch, or an emotional tone, and intensify the dramatic effect.

(EXAMPLE 13.) THE FLIGHT TO THE WONDROUS CITY OF DREAMS ... but we must take care that the poetic title is not a part of the harshly realistic play, for we are seeking integral harmony. For example, in HELL—SECOND-HAND, we find captions to suit the theme: 10 MINUTES THIS SIDE OF ETERNITY! ... THE LIFE-BLOOD RED FLAG.

An insert is filmed matter which is inserted in the appropriate place in a scene, the film being cut for this purpose. This matter must appear and be known as an insert to the writer and manufacturer only; to the audience, it becomes the normal, logical and only natural phenomena that could be presented under the circumstances and sustains and strengthens the illusion of reality. From the point of view of the screen, an “insert” would suggest something stuck in, or a patch; therefore it must never be recognized as such except in the workshop. Technically speaking, all inserted matter is inserts. From a mechanical point of view, the film must be cut in order that captions, printed or inscribed matter, close-views, visions, spoken lines, etc., may be inserted. But we should ignore the manufacturer’s construction and consider inserted matter only as an essential to the perfect visualization of our dramatic story.

The letter, telegram and newspaper insert are dangerous expedients to employ too frequently in the artistic photoplay. They are so easy to stick into a play that, like slang, they become a ready makeshift for the lazy mind, with results that are damaging to dignity.

We cannot repeat too often that everything employed in the photoplay is done so with a specific purpose, for a progressive effect, and for no other reason. Likewise, it must bear some cumulative and contributory relation to the climax. Thus inserts and captions must be something more than mere explanatory matter by becoming important contributory data.

The insert is a great factor for economy, and when properly used in this respect may contribute to heightened effects thru suggestive condensation.

(EXAMPLE 14.) The following letter insert not only saves many scenes but teems with revelation: “Dearest—You simply can’t stand it any longer. Come with me to the city at daybreak. Meet me in the office.” What it has told fills the gap; what it promises because of this audacious proposal makes the play.

The telegram is similar in character, only it allows still greater condensation:

(EXAMPLE 15.) “Meet me in the office at daybreak.” It serves as a further amplification of the same example, tho there is an obvious inconsistency in conveying such startling intelligence by wire.

The employment of the newspaper heading and paragraph is a decided novelty in conveying artistic data. The seeming awkwardness of the medium must be overshadowed by a simple and convincing naturalness on the part of the character in obtaining information from this source that strengthens its plea as dramatic material:

(EXAMPLE 16.) LIBRARY—Nelson enters with tray containing letters and papers. Shelburne opens paper, reads, pauses, laughs:

INSERT O ... (News item heading)

WEALTHY SOCIETY WOMAN LEARNS SHE HAS MARRIED BOGUS BARON

Scene (Continued)

Shelburne thoughtful. Mary steals in and places her hand over his eyes. The fact disclosed in the item wiped out all the past that stood between Mary and Shelburne. The library scene was made more natural by the reading of the paper and what followed was inevitable. Neither the sense of the scene nor any conceivable action alone could have told adequately what really transpired. An insert alone filled the purpose.

Perhaps the most effective use of the insert is to establish the premise of the plot, to cover the causes leading up to the opening of the play and possibly the relationship of the characters:

(EXAMPLE 17.) “Dear George:—As I write this I am preparing to run off with the Baron Komiskey. To be frank, I’ve gotten tired of not seeing you take any interest in anything. Forgive your former fiancée,

PETRONELLA.”

In which we see the characters of both Petronella and George laid bare, besides furnishing a motive for George’s change of character and future actions. This insert breaks the first scene.

The theory of breaking scenes with inserts has been discussed and has grounds for objections from an optical point of view only. The argument advanced against their use is based on the persistence of vision with which the eye retains for a considerable period the image of that which has passed before it, obscuring that which follows. This theory would become seriously operative when applied to inserts should we look upon them as extraneous matter—as for example the vaudeville acts that intervene between the parts of the long photoplays produced in many of the variety theaters. But, far from it, the ideal insert is contributory dramatic material that rather precludes a possibility of gaps, jumps or discontinuity of dramatic sequence. The perfect insert emphasizes an otherwise too modest period of action. Optical delusion is a negligible quantity in the face of dramatic illusion, which sweeps everything mechanical before it.

To speak of inserts as explanatory matter is objectionable, because of the natural inference that the story is to be interrupted and the audience button-holed while a formal explanation is inserted. Unless an insert becomes essential interpretive material, quickening the movement of the play and heightening the interest in the story, something must be wrong with the construction. Inserts should be classed with all other forms of essential interpretive material, such as expressive action, gestures and attitudes; logical characters and effective settings; and should be mercilessly dispensed with unless they fulfill a specific mission in carrying the story forward toward an inevitable climax.

The term, close-view, makes a finer distinction, signifying that an object or a portion of it is magnified, or that a close-view of a segment of the action is seen on the screen at close range by itself.

(EXAMPLE 18.) “.... Annie reads letter, a great joy breaking over her face: INSERT LETTER.... “Dearest—Come with me to the city at daybreak.”

In which the letter is presented for our perusal with the same care that it would be inserted in a story at the proper moment. It is part of the story.

In the same manner a calling card, an inscription on a grave-stone, a monogram on a ring, a miniature photograph, may be brought, as it were, close to our eyes. The illusion is ingeniously preserved by the presence of the character’s trembling or tracing fingers following the emotion in his soul.

The close-view, however, may take a step farther than merely photographing an inanimate object; it may dramatically emphasize a segment of exquisite action.

(EXAMPLE 19.) INSERT CLOSE-VIEW of title page of “Cinderella,” Annie’s trembling hand tracing first word .... INSERT CLOSE-VIEW of Annie’s face, she closes her eyes, her lips move with a smile of ecstasy.

The close-view is indispensable for acute emphasis; for peculiar dramatic effect; for discernment of some essential object too small to be sufficiently noted or noticed otherwise; for the display of the finer and more subtle emotions; for the revealment of some otherwise hidden object or action important in unfolding the scene and developing the action. The last named takes the same latitude as fiction in bringing in essential data beyond the discernment of the human eye. The optical process, too, of looking at distant objects thru a strong glass is effectively reproduced by the close-view. A rather bizarre use is made of the same device by showing a sectional view of some inclosure:

(EXAMPLE 20.) The hero may be eavesdropping on the villain and be concealed in a box or a barrel; this fact is disclosed by means of the sectional view. Or a man crawling thru a tunnel and shaking the earth beneath the scene of action.

The close-view has no equal for breaking dangerously long scenes in a manner so natural and potential that oftentimes it makes a brilliant presentation of something that would in all probability have become tedious.

The vision insert is treated more particularly later on, under other captions. Suffice it to say, that the vision insert simulates the more subtle mental processes of thought and fantasy—such as reflection, introspection, dreams and hallucination—that have a simultaneous dramatic bearing on the conduct of the character and on the psychological development of the story.

(EXAMPLE 21.) CAPTION .... AFTER FIVE YEARS WITHOUT HER.

Scene 31. Simply marked grave in cemetery.

Malcolm discovered kneeling, closes his eyes. Fade to

INSERT VISION .... Reproducing scene 20 in part (great rock above beach, etc.). Fade to

INSERT VISION CLOSE-VIEW .... Malcolm looking intently at Florence, whose eyes disclose her tender love for him. Fade to

Scene 31 (Continued) Malcolm has opened his eyes, arms opened as tho to take Florence.

A helpful distinction between the simple insert and the close-view insert—tho they are both close-views, as a matter of fact—is to designate all static and inanimate matter that is neither alive nor in motion, as simple inserts; and that which is properly part of the action and has life, motion and expression, as close-view inserts.

(EXAMPLE 22.) Letters, telegrams, news excerpts, printed, carved, engraved matter, miniatures or other likenesses reproduced, and objects incapable of automatic effort are simply inserts. Close-views of a hand, face, or other part of the anatomy under the stress of emotion, or merely revealing a contributive peculiarity, remote objects with their contingent action brought near, and fragments of action isolated for emphasis, are close-view inserts.

The question of the employment of dialog at all in the photodrama has been widely discussed. It would seem to hinge on the meaning of the word “dialog.” If the word is used in its strict sense of “a conversation between two or more persons,” then we may eliminate it from the photoplay without further question. The photoplay is no place for conversations. But there are occasions upon which the apt employment of a spoken line of dialog has no equivalent or substitute. It becomes one of the fine contributory elements that establishes and preserves the illusion. The effective use of the spoken line is usually as an insert, being timed to appear simultaneously with the representation of its utterance:

(EXAMPLE 23.) To be precise, the insert follows its actual utterance:

Scene 23. Vine-covered arbor.

Follows business both pathetic and ludicrous of Bud proposing: Annie smiles, shakes head.

INSERT SPOKEN LINE .... “NO, BUD, I HAVE ALREADY GIVEN MY HEART TO A WONDERFUL PRINCE!”

Scene 23. (Continued) Bud broken up but manly.

The spoken line is occasionally used also as a caption, giving voice to the climacteric sentiment or situation in a single scene, or series of scenes, that follows:

(EXAMPLE 24.) CAPTION 6 .... “TO BE HANGED BY THE NECK UNTIL DEAD!” is followed by a courtroom scene. The nature of the proceeding is obvious. The judge rises and pronounces the conventional sentence of death that gives dramatic significance to the entire sequence of action that follows.

The spoken line has a poignant directness in it that is scarcely equaled by any other piece of business. The mental process should be so cunningly imitated that the enthralled spectator hears the words he craved just as distinctly as tho they had beat upon the drums of his ears instead of the drums of his soul. The words pierce the spectator with personal sympathy, or antagonism, and fairly thunder thru the silence. Like all other inserted matter and devices, the spoken line must not be used if it can be dispensed with to the artistic betterment of the play. It must come naturally and bridge a possible gap. It must be used as a supplement to, not a substitute for, effective action. Visualized action takes first and foremost place in the photoplay; all other matters are harmonious trappings and devices or illusion that decorate creaking mechanics with esthetic realities.

Inserted matter, unless artistically used, becomes theatric instead of dramatic. It becomes a sign of weakness and appears in the same light as clumsy explanations in stories written by inexperienced writers. The perfect photoplay leaves no doubts, offers no explanations, starts nothing it can not finish—it is all action, action, ACTION! And by action we mean technically visualized interpretation of whatsoever nature that convincingly contributes to the perfect illusion of emotionally seeing a dramatic story.

Visualisation consists in giving tangible form to Inspiration; clothing Thoughts in flesh; creating living matter from Ideas; transmuting Emotions into thrilling substance; and peopling the imaginations of millions with the glorious company of Dreams come true, Desire gratified, Justice fulfilled, Brotherhood universal and Love triumphant!

CHAPTER V

Visualization

ITS RELATION TO ACTION; IMPORTANCE OF VOCABULARY; LITERATURE; TO REGISTER; INTERPRETATION; IN TERMS OF EMOTION; THE PART OF IMAGINATION.

TECHNIQUE and rules, idea and action are as chaff on the threshing floor of the photodrama compared to visualization, which is the precious kernel to be sought. Visualization is both the key and the keynote of all photoplay-writing.

Hitherto, too much emphasis has been laid on the importance of action, with but a half-formed idea of the true technical definition of the term, which is “the connected series of events upon which a piece depends; the main subject or story, as distinguished from an incidental action or episode.” Too often has the novice had in mind the violent, whirling, feverish and physical action, familiarized by the “going into action” of the battlefield. Such action is always dynamic and spectacular, but not necessarily dramatic or interpretive. Everything is on the surface. It is all a matter of primal passion and primeval emotion. It is the stuff that melodramas are made of. But the deeper, more powerful and moving emotions of a civilized people are not surfacial. Their true interpretation is not expressible in immediate violent action. Culture and civilization are recognized and realized thru their repression of passion. Even the savage and the dumb beast have their refined emotions, expressed most vividly thru unwonted inertness or carefully concealed cunning.

(EXAMPLE 25.) The eternal mother-heart broods in dark corners over its dead offspring; it softly croons over and gently caresses its babe; deepest hate is manifested by the savage or sage thru cunning, soft-footed revenge and veiled thrust.

There are two sides to the technical difficulties that confront the photoplaywright. 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. It resolves itself into the task of telling the story indirectly with “business,” instead of by direct discourse.

A careful examination of the conditions of photoplay acceptance has revealed a curious and valuable piece of information. An unusually large percentage of the manuscripts received by producing companies contain good ideas, but they are very often rendered unacceptable because of imperfect and unilluminating expression. 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. “Beyond words,” “inexpressible” and “indescribable” are confessions of literary and dramatic weakness that disappoint editors and bring manuscripts back by return mail. There are human words to express every impression that the human mind records. The language of the heart, of the soul and of the photoplay is the language of the dictionary. Familiarity with words begets fluency and accuracy in their use. There is but one word to express one situation under a given condition; do not be content until you find it. That diligence alone will make the finished and successful writer. Given inspiration, the right words to express it will carry it to production, perhaps fame.

Perfect visualization, then, demands an exquisite command of language capable of nicely interpreting the finest shades of pathos, the deepest wells of passion, the most delicate waves of emotion, and a thousand grades of feeling.

Passing from the literary construction of the manuscript and play, we must become familiar with the mode of translating ideas, which must be clearly indicated by the writer. The three possible modes are by means of psychological action, suggestive attitude and mimetic expression. These are the elements of the new mimetic art of the photodrama just as the notes and keys are to music; words and sentences to literature; pigments and brushes to painting.

The secret of visualization lies in the nice employment of symbols of emotion. The danger lies in over-emphasis, which the writer can forestall by using an indirect or relative method, which means a constant exercise of repression.

(EXAMPLE 26.) A girl is made to show pity for a sister-woman who is weeping because of some fell blow. She does not go over and embrace her; that would show sympathy and participation. Pity comes into her face, her poise of the head, her wistful attitude. And if sympathy, she would probably stand with hand half-raised in helplessness if the woman was bereaved. If some lighter grief, she would gently caress the other and smile encouragement. Gentleness is poignant!

It is the thoughtful addition of the little human touches and scenes that makes the great plays and gives appropriate expression to great ideas.

(EXAMPLE 27.) In scene 8, of “The Coming of the Real Prince,” we see Annie being driven from the kitchen by her unfeeling mother. The gist of the story would have been clear without dilating on this sequence. But the tragedy in Annie’s heart that was responsible for the play needed further visualising, so we see Annie passing up the back stairs with a broken-hearted look in her eyes; we see her cast herself upon her miserable cot and sob as tho her heart would break.

(EXAMPLE 28.) In scene 22, of the same play, we see the very depths of Annie’s soul visualized. First in the caption: THE DREAM OF PRINCE CHARMING AND THE WONDROUS CITY BEGINS. Annie, in grotesque position in bed beside battered lamp, reading “Cinderella.” Close-view shows her face, with lips moving, an ecstatic smile lightening her features. We return to the scene and see the book slip from her fingers, and in her dreaming sleep her hands clasp on her breast; she raises her hand as tho she saw someone approaching. A vision-scene pictures Prince Charming in doublet and hose. Returning to the scene again we find Annie wakened, with her hand over her eyes as tho what she saw was too brilliant to look upon.

The photoplay is silent only technically. In order that convincing illusion be accomplished, there must be a successful registration of all such sounds as affect the characters and action in the normal and natural development of the play. We are interested only in such sounds as have a direct bearing on the matter that holds the attention of the audience. In other words, it must—like all other interpretive matter—be contributory.

In indicating that the character hears a particular sound, we say that he “registers” it. The term register has been used too generally in photoplay construction to indicate what actors shall do under the stress of every emotion.

(EXAMPLE 29.) For instance, “Annie registers anger,” or “hate,” “that she will not consent to something,” “that she is displeased.” A character who registers anything taking place in his own heart or soul becomes merely an actor—he is pretending. Characters do not pretend—they ARE. They do not register their feelings—they FEEL them with results unquestionably natural.

Sounds are recorded then thru reflex action, or registration, just as they actually reflect against the drums of the ear, telling the hearer that vibrations have been produced affecting the ear. Sounds are visualized by showing the appropriate affect on the character or characters.

(EXAMPLE 30.) We might have a deaf old father and his daughter. Her forbidden lover is behind a stone wall. He whispers softly several times before she is conscious of his call. She turns, joyously, and the two pantomime behind the old man’s back.

Sounds are even more effectively visualized thru the employment of one or more correlative scenes.

(EXAMPLE 31.) In one case we see someone in the act of calling; in the next we see the call registered. The intervening distance may be gauged by the amount of energy expended by the character. Or we may see a man escaping from peril, he stumbles and falls. The next scene shows the captors registering the noise of his fall.

In the elemental days of the cinematograph, it seemed improbable that music could ever be effectively registered. The visualization of strains of music, however, has met with most successful accomplishment. It is effected thru a careful imitation of the auricular and mental process of recording sound, combined with the use of symbols of emotion.

(EXAMPLE 32.) “The Lost Melody” (Vitagraph) is a play the plot of which is based on visualized sound. A strain of music sung and heard by a man under most virtuous circumstances is repeated when he is on the point of committing a crime, and it saves his soul.... In one scene we see the four leading characters walking along and singing each his love song, with his soul in his face; next we see the dancers at the club pausing and listening, some of the rapture of the singers faintly transmitted to their faces; in the roadway an automobile party stops, they put their hands behind their ears and listen, two keeping time, the other two put the spirit of the song in action and steal a lover’s kiss.

(EXAMPLE 33.) Five years later the song is sung to save Douglas. The mental process of receptivity is imitated. We see Malcolm on the terrace singing; a close-view is then screened of a line of the music and words; then we see Douglas pausing in his act of robbing his best friend, registering in alarm; then what he suddenly sees in his mind and heart is visioned, being the scene of that wonderful night years ago.

Thus the silent drama may become vibrant with emotional music and resonant with tongues that need no interpreter, for all nations understand the universal language of the heart. The most sublime characters and valiant deeds, ravishing color and mellifluous voices, are in our soul; sublime sympathy is in our world-old heart; profound understanding is in our God-given reason, and this multi-glorious human marvel is gratified to the utmost in having its humanity called into active being.

The leading characters must become the center of all action; the supernumeraries are nothing more or less than animated portions of the set itself.

CHAPTER VI

Characterization

IDENTITY AND PERSONALITY; CHARACTERISTICS AND IDIOSYNCRASIES; DESCRIPTION AND DELINEATION; ESTABLISHING RELATIONSHIP; MOTIVES; EXPRESSION; CONTRASTS.

IF we will view characters and characterization as elements of interpretive and contributory matter, along with inserts, setting and action, it should aid us in building perfect climaxes. This view would protect us from that error resulting from the leading characters seizing the bit in their teeth, so to speak, and running amuck with the story. Characters are subservient to climax. We have no use for any manifestations of their character outside of the needs of properly developing the big moment of the story. Character is the most effective means to our photoplay end.

Photoplay actors in particular should become exquisite interpreters of character. Directors should be skillful managers and directors of interpretation and other mechanical detail. The photoplaywright alone should be the originator and creator of ideas and an expert in their expression. But, because photoplaywriting has been in a crude elemental state, and the new mimetic art of photoplayacting has had to be slowly and thoughtfully developed, abuses have crept in. Too often the director becomes the self-appointed creator, interpreter and adapter, withholding complete knowledge of the play from the actors and remaking the author’s artistic ideas according to the mold of his own mental and emotional understanding, and the mechanical and material equipment he has at his command, or deems essential. Still, we cannot too harshly blame the officious director until the photoplaywright has become an indubitable master of expressive and comprehensive “business.”

Photodrama differs radically from the short story, in that there are at least two leading characters, instead of a single predominating, all-absorbing character. Such a character would be capable of little else than the development of itself thru introspection, reminiscence and possibly ambition, which would result in a character study. A character study is next to impossible in photodrama. An internal struggle of one being with himself can sustain but a few scenes at most. There must be two, or more, souls (and bodies) struggling to accomplish, overthrow or maintain a certain end.

We find in the photoplay, then, two leads, or leading characters, at least; while there may be often three or four. All the important action surrounds these characters. We see the characters in their characterizations standing out clearly as symbols of the motives and forces in the play. The hero and the heroine battle for, and accomplish, the gratifying conclusion; the villain and his accomplices employ their villainous designs in an unprincipled effort to overthrow the good, wholesome and happy elements. Obstacles thrown in the path of one side constitute suspense, and in their removal form a situation.

After the leads, there may be an economical number of supernumeraries to carry the action along with logical environment and natural life-likeness.

(EXAMPLE 34.) A courtroom, a busy street, the floor of the stock exchange, or any other setting wherein other characters should appear to naturalize it, must be appropriately peopled. These characters are animated portions of setting and contribute to harmony.

The early identity, or differentiation between the leads themselves, and between the minor characters is of vast moment and importance. The moment a character appears, or is discovered in a scene, his identity must be disclosed, and his relationship to the other characters and the action made known.

There are three ways of establishing identity: (a) thru personality, which discloses strength or weakness of character and the manner in which it dominates or is subservient to others with whom it comes in contact; (b) by means of idiosyncrasies, or marked personal oddities, deformities, or deportment; (c) vocational garb, national characteristics, uniform or peculiarity of personal ensemble.

(EXAMPLE 35.) (a) The line, “Mother weeping and Annie supporting her,” in Scene 1 of “The Coming of the Real Prince,” foretells a certain strength and weakness that manifests itself thru the two characters. (b) A character exhibits a continual frown, or sniffs, or winks, or limps, or has a scar or deformity. (c) As a soldier, policeman, a character would wear his uniform, or a foreigner might wear all or part of his native costume, etc.

Strong personalities flourish in the serious drama, while the leads in comedy are usually distinguished by peculiarities. Each human being has his normal characteristics that differentiate him from the rest of his fellows; this must become well marked in photodrama, tho not exaggerated to the point of becoming a personal oddity. They must be clearly brought out and maintained in a dignified manner thruout the play. In the serious play, character is but a means of developing a moving personality, and personality is but the outward symbol of the internal truths of the story. Personality is motive visualized.

Your few words describing your characters and indicating their actions must be suggestive enough to enable the combined efforts of director and actor to delineate truthfully the personality that is part of your dramatic vision. Nothing stands still in the photoplay; therefore characters must be delineated in terms of emotion—repressed or active—or described in words of action—commonplace or dramatic. The audience should be informed unmistakably who and what your characters are thru what they do. The motives of the leading characters must come to the surface at once in order to ignite the audience’s interest with the dramatic spark. There must be sufficient insinuation in what your characters do, to reveal why they do it. Altho a character, during the action of the play, may develop from weakness to strength, yet each bit of action has a determining character of its own, that is either weak or strong.

The immediate and unmistakable identity of your characters is essential to knowing your characters; the early and clear establishment of relationship between characters is essential to grasping your story. A profound study of the subject yields the conclusion that the simplest, most economical, quickest and most effective means of revealing the identity and establishing the relationship of the character is the caption. Without the caption we must resort to the inartistically obvious and more or less clumsy devices, such as doors labeled “Private Office of John Smith”; trade-signs, as “Solomon Isaacs, Pawnbroker,” or have the actors overgesture their parts in a laborious effort to tell the audience who and what they are.

(EXAMPLE 36.) A perusal of six produced plays discloses the unanimous use of the caption for the combined purposes of identity and relationship. These captions usually appear early in the play—before the second or third scene: (1) GEORGIA WANTS TO BE A LEADER OF HER SEX AND NOT A DRUDGE; (2) ANNIE’S WIDOWED MOTHER LEFT PENNILESS; (3) COLONEL FARRINGTON FORCES HIS DAUGHTER ON MARSTON, HIS SUPPOSED BENEFACTOR; (4) MALCOLM DECIDES TO WAIT AND MAKE HIS PROPOSAL TO ROSALIE AN ARTISTIC OCCASION; (5) SHELBURNE, HARD HIT, TURNS AGAINST HIS IRRESPONSIBLE LIFE; (6) ARCHER DURAND AND HIS WIFE ARRIVE IN THE MINING DISTRICT HALF STARVED.

The letter insert can be employed with equal effectiveness. The characters once introduced effectively, their future actions are easily understood—providing they are logical and natural. The relationships, as they are established by the first appearances of the characters, form the premise of the plot and the argument of the story that are readily followed, if the scenes are well-knit and the story interesting.

In conjunction with the caption or letter, then, something occurs immediately to grasp the attention and offer insight into characters, their relationships and motives. Furthermore, both vocation and character may be indicated by environment, make-up, costume, tools, manner and culture. 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.

In order that the character may exhibit the motive underlying the action, the writer must visualize it, and the actor must realize it. There must be mimetic harmony, sympathy and naturalness.

We are cautioned by some savants never to tell the actor how to act a line, but tell them only what to do. We disagree. Providing the writer has become an expert in the writing of business and dramatic expression, he can scarcely infringe on the director’s right, the actor’s profession, or injure the prospects of his play by offering an analysis of the construction of the characters he himself has created. Co-operation is too often lacking from the fact that the actor seldom knows exactly what he is trying to do. The director extricates a jumbled part from the inseparable whole of the play, recites it extempore for the actor and drills the requisite action into him. How, then, can the actor be expected to interpret things and put them in that were in the mind of the writer? He must guess at the harmony of the composition, surmise the relationships, and consequently lose all the nice touches that the true artist would incorporate in the well-made play. It is the actor’s sole business and art to interpret ideas. 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. The prick of a pin will make a strong man jump spasmodically a foot in the air; a sharp word will make the noblest soul sink deep into gloom. We actors, directors and playwrights are seeking the artistic expression of the life of the soul; the existence and agency of the body are merely means to that end. We should be striving to capture the soft lights and shadows of mental impressionism; and not be struggling to imprison the bold sunlight and harsh lines of physical photography. Deep emotion and its characterization lies not in the bold step forward, but in the shrinking half-step backward; not in the brazen eye, but in the shy, drooping eye-lid; not in the defiant word, but in the silent, quivering lip; not in the blow of the fist, but in the gentle, stroking hand; not in the violent embrace, but in the tender caress; not in the sudden turn on the heel, but in the shrug of the shoulders—one is a matter of physical mechanics, the other emotional art. If emotional art is put first in our endeavors, all the range of physical mechanics will follow logically, but secondarily.

Our writers have been frightened away from suggestive artistic detail, and have fallen upon the evil way of bald physical mechanics that leave nothing to the imagination. The gentle gesture, the poise of the head, the trembling lip, the downcast eye, of the story vision are usurped by the over-emphasized action. Decisive action is essential in the photoplay, but the producer’s version is too often another story.

Characters should tend to personify and visualize the tender twilights of pathos; the soft shadows of pain and sorrow; the gentle glow of goodness and nobility; the serene surface of happiness. They should build the lives of the audience anew; inspire them to noble deeds; let them touch the hem of the garment of sublimity and teach them life’s lessons of humility, forbearance and faith.

The playwright should never take advantage of his audience’s moral weakness to display “strong” scenes of character depravity; but rather he should employ a character’s weakness to strengthen his audience’s morality.

CHAPTER VII

Theme, Treatment and the Censor

MORALS AND ETHICS; CRIME; NATIONAL BOARD OF CENSORSHIP; TASTE; INSPIRATION AND INFLUENCE.

WHAT shall we write about, and how shall we write it?

Here the playwright must pause and look his fellow men, his friends, his parents, his children, his wife, and his conscience square in the eye. They are one and all his intimate audience. They will be influenced by his product, be pleased or offended in its production, and thru it see his heart with all its strength and weakness laid bare.

Broadly, our theme shall be Life—Life in all its aspects: the gorgeous and the threadbare; the noble and the sordid; the happy and the sorrowful; the righteous and the sinful; the healthy and the ailing; the youthful and the aged; the strong and the weak. But it must be the life that we know—not necessarily thru experience, but possibly thru study, observation or intuition.

Choice of theme is a matter requiring, chiefly, a respectful observance of the general popular demand and the particular needs of the studios, unless you are genius enough to initiate and lead the popular tastes. But the subject of treatment is one requiring a far more delicate exercise of judgment. Any conceivable theme may be spoiled by an indiscreet or injudicious viewpoint.

The playwright conveys powerful personalities to his characters, but remains passively impersonal himself. He immovably records truth, never interposing himself, his opinions or his bias. His characters pursue their own lives; they are neither automatons nor marionettes; they live according to their individual natures and have provokingly free wills.

The photoplaywright has but to remain on the side of right and justice, good citizenship and decency. He communicates nothing thru the symbols of his play that he would hesitate, refrain or be ashamed of telling those nearest, dearest and most sacred to him. Public audiences are daily made up of millions of people, who are highly impressionable, of tender age and of simple susceptibilities. Providing our play is effective, it contains a very positive influence, that means either a rise or a fall in moral values in every community wherein it is exhibited. The playwright must be the figure of justice that shows no mercy to the wrongdoer; the sword of retribution he carries in one hand, in the other he holds the scales of just rewards. There simply must be a moral ending.

It is more essential that the villain be vanquished, than punished. Our story is not vengeance, but is usually concerned with the victory of the good element—or hero—and the incidental adventures of circumventing the villain and misfortune. Stories in which the good element is overcome by the bad, thus placing a premium on the bad, are unmoral. Stories or plays showing the delights to be gained from illicit pleasures or pursuits, followed or not by adequate punishment or retribution, are immoral.

(EXAMPLE 37.) Thus the so-called “white slave,” “drug terror” and underworld plays, reeking with depravity, leering with lasciviousness and groveling in intemperance, are actually immoral. Their symbols of vice are all-powerful, and any symbols of virtue introduced are usually wishy-washy in comparison. The hero or heroine is usually a weak character, instead of a strong one. We see vice exercising a baneful influence, robbing its victim of will, health and life. Vice conquers. We do not need “examples” of what not to do. We should be inspired by the nobility of good, and not cowed by the fear of evil. The countless throngs that crowd the exhibition of these so-called plays for the most part are craning to get a view of gleaming flesh quivering in pools of forbidden passion, rather than seeking a glimpse of a tortured soul—neither one being an edifying entertainment.

At first thought, it would seem as tho crime were the most frequent factor among the sources of dramatic construction. As a matter of fact, accomplished crime does figure powerfully in more than two-thirds of all dramatic productions, including the highest class. Active vice, the venial and deadly sins and potential crime occur even more frequently thruout the course of our dramatic development. It would seem as tho we should have no little difficulty in making our good characters walk the straight and narrow path among such a network of pitfalls.

But even the writer of the most moral plays should glory in the omnipresence of sin and crime, tho never glorify it. Good would be colorless as dramatic material, were it not for evil. Evil is the foil for goodness; it is the contrast that delivers goodness from monotony; evil is the shadow that gives the highlight of goodness its chiaroscuro; it is the salt that saves it from saccharinity. When evil, misfortune, or bereavement oppose us, they oftentime bring to the surface and develop our otherwise hidden virtues, making them illuminate the lives of others and add a ray of undying nobility to the world’s fiction experience.

(EXAMPLE 38.) Five produced plays selected at random reveal the following facts in relation to the employment of crime: (1) THE COMING OF THE REAL PRINCE—An immoral, flashy man of the city attempts to seduce an innocent, visionary country girl. He is thwarted by the rousing of dead mother-love and of a sublime nobility in a country yokel; (2) THE LOST MELODY—The memory of his sweet, innocent dead wife, brought back to him thru hearing a forgotten melody, stays a man’s hand from robbing his best friend; (3) UNTO THE CHILDREN—A boy inherits the vice of gambling from his father, but it is burnt forever out of his nature, by the sublime heroism and sacrifice of his mother at the critical moment; (4) THE STRUGGLE—The brutal assault of strikers on a strike-breaker, brings the capitalist and laborers face to face on a common plane of pity and nobility; (5) BRANDED FOR LIFE—An ex-convict, striving in vain for reinstatement in the eyes of society, is enabled thru a noble and inspiring sacrifice to win the respect of all men.

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 life of his character creations must keep within the bounds of decency, be amenable to the laws of the country and subject to the rewards and punishments gratifying to the best impulses of the wholesome minded.

Tragedy is an exception, in that we often see a good character overwhelmed by circumstances, environment and nature. But tragedy should conform to inspiration, in that we behold the doomed character revealing unguessed sublimity in the unequal struggle.

Together with this question of treatment comes that of, “How real do we want our realism?” It is answered indirectly by saying that just so much of any of life’s experiences as we may disclose or relate in promiscuous company, in the presence of innocent—not necessarily puritanic—understandings and quick perceptions, may be delineated on the screen. Each age has its own broadnesses and limitations in this respect, of which every refined and intelligent person is cognizant. Drama is not dependent upon frank discussions of revolting or lascivious subjects; entertainment is its prime function. A searching analysis of either vice or virtue is contrary to the principles of dramatic action.

The actual commission of crime is not as important as the cause and effect of it. Morbid curiosity is the only excuse for the sight of a deed of murder, suicide, or other vicious crime. How a crime is committed is an element of criminology, not drama.

We have to thank the National Board of Censorship for the exclusion of actual deeds of crime. This censoring body, unfortunately, has been composed almost wholly of persons who are theoretically the very antipodes of crime and naturally intolerant to its employment at all. Time may bring us a less biased exercise and a broader view of their powers.

(EXAMPLE 39.) Criminal deeds are easily and effectively handled in photoplay. For instance, murder—we see the culprit and the victim in separate scenes: a man at his desk in one scene; the murderer breaking into the office, in another. Another scene brings us to the instant BEFORE the deed—the weapon poised, or culprit and victim in mortal combat. We may here interpose a scene of someone registering a pistol shot, or hearing the scuffle. In another scene we return to the crime and find it has just been committed. Any crime may be effectively delineated in this manner.

In the matter of casting characters, no character can properly be cast a villain unless his actions comprehend a conscious knowledge of guilt. Our hero oftentimes commits a crime or misdemeanor unwittingly, or in that stage of his character development before the elements of the story itself change him from weak to strong. The thoroly bad character must remain bad, just as he would in life; the good character may be bad temporarily and become bettered, but we must make him suffer from his misdeeds. 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. There are potent commercial reasons, as well as the dogma of good taste, for not caricaturing races, ridiculing creeds, satirizing politics and making fun of physical deformities and mental infirmities.

Occasion, occupation and environment each has it own propriety and convention that must carefully be observed by the photoplaywright. This is not a matter of delicacy so much as it is one of producing conviction thru naturalness.

(EXAMPLE 40.) The seashore is an occasion for women wearing extremely abbreviated costumes that would be improper in the street; the occupation of the doctor is one that permits women to enter his quarters alone with propriety; the environment of the Orient makes it a convention for women to smoke and guests to sit on the floor.

In summing up this most important phase of the photodrama, we may say briefly: Let your sympathies ever be found with the purest, best and noblest there is in life; make your story show your condemnation of the low and evil. But don’t be a prude or a preacher! Do not permit yourself to be accused of trying to teach better things, but let your work inspire them!

Technique is the Training School of all organised knowledge; Art is its Life: Technique is a matter of Rules and a space of study; Art is one of principles and eternity.

CHAPTER VIII

Rules of the Game

DURATION AND NUMBER OF SCENES; PERPETUAL MOTION; THE “NOW” ELEMENT; EFFECTIVE FORM; NATURAL LAWS; SCENE PRINCIPLE.

IN no literary effort is technique more important or essential than in the construction of the photoplay. There are arbitrary rules that must be followed and conventions that cannot be ignored. We must cater to the manufacturer’s possibilities; we must conform to fixed mechanical limitations; we interpret our art thru “business”; we must gather the world-wide vision within the narrow focus of the camera’s eye. Our play-form and technique must be sufficiently potent, suggestive and revealing to enable competent co-operators to discern, interpret and manufacture an effective concrete and vividly alive reproduction of our abstract vision, so that it may be readily recognized and emotionally realized by independent audiences the world over.

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.

The matter of bare photoplay form is but the slightest move in the direction of perfect effect. It is the subject of effective photoplay form and how to produce the effects that really count.

We may set down as one of the first principles of photodrama, that the playwright must make his rule of construction: People go to the theater to see a deed and not to read or hear about it. There are several ways of construing a breach of this principle. The first is that of telling the story indirectly by means of captions and inserts, instead of directly thru consecutive action. This is the method of the poor plotter and shallow artificer who sticks in a caption or insert whenever he encounters an obstacle, oftentimes skipping the climacteric situations and showing the trifling details.

(EXAMPLE 41.) AFTER THE RIOT JOE KEPT IN BED WITH BROKEN ARM .... Audiences simply will not accept that broken arm as convincing unless their reasons can vouch for the violence that led to it. But riots are more easily skipped than successfully delineated. All climacteric scenes must be shown and not merely referred to. We always take the commonplace for granted; but never the extraordinary.

Next we deal with an offending heritage from short story fiction, the story within a story or, as we shall here call it, a story within a play. It should never be resorted to; it need never be done. It breaks the thread of one story to insert another that in nearly every case is stronger than the original, forming an anti-climax instead of contributing to one. Its use means that the play has not been carefully plotted, that it has not been begun early enough, or in the right place, and that it is trying laboriously to explain something that would not stand by itself.

(EXAMPLE 42.) In the Vitagraph’s “A Million Bid,” the quasi-hero is picked up again after having been absent for more than a reel, and sets in to tell what has happened to him while he has been away! Most of it was entirely “another story,” but much of it might have been effectually interwoven with the progressing action of the play. As it was, it was most difficult to grasp the fact that we had been hauled months back in point of time. In the mental melée we lost sight of the main theme altogether, and most of us never quite got back to it. All of us were befuddled to some extent. It was intended, no doubt, that the audience should not know the identity of the narrator until the heroine herself found it out, which would have made it worse in thus having an entire stranger break into our story and consume nearly one-third of the entire play!

The most common form of a story within a play is the one in which the hunter, or the veteran, or the old person blighted in love, or some such character sits down, with a younger person usually, and in the end there is a laborious effort to make the experience of the older person play a part in the younger’s career. There may be exceptions to a hard-and-fast rule of avoiding these devices, but usually it will be found that there is a remedy in the principles of the photodrama itself that say begin your action back at the very beginning and always go forward.

The third pitfall, is that of trying to record speeches—dramatic tho they be—by supposedly visualizing what the speaker is referring to; of trying to tell the story of a crime, for instance, thru the trial of the culprit, rather than by showing the events preceding and causing the trial in their chronological order. Here, as in the former instance, the vision is resorted to. The vision is apt to be employed in dramatizing the detective story that is primed with a surprise in the climax in which the method of its revealment is disclosed by going back and showing the steps. Let it be a rare exception that makes you ever turn backward; for neither time nor drama can do it without violating a natural law.

To be explicit, the photoplay is a now play! The now may be a thousand years ago, but it must be relived again, now. All of which should warn us to avoid long lapses of time, occurring especially in the one-part play.

Nothing quite emphasizes the “now” quality of the photodrama as the invariable practice of employing nothing but the present tense in writing the photoplay. Synopsis and scenario are seemingly conscious of the things they are engaged in doing now. Past deeds and future prophecies—employing their respective tenses—frequently occur in captions and inserts, however.

(EXAMPLE 43.) From a letter: “I have never seen you take any interest in anything.” Caption: “In fifty minutes your child will be on the scrap heap, too!”

The laws of natural movement and action should never be violated by the characters themselves. Any character who is to appear in the next scene must always be seen to leave the present scene, disappearing from view in that action, and again be seen to come on the scene that follows. It is unnecessary to accompany the character thru the various and uninteresting steps between his leaving one scene and arrival on the next. If something dramatic happens to him en route then we should see it. Contrary to fiction construction, scene precedes character in presentation. We are carried to the new scene and meet the character at the door as it were, and the illusion is complete. A preliminary fragment of action transpiring in the following scene, before the appearance of the character, will lend a further contribution to naturalness.

(EXAMPLE 44.) In scene 27, of “All Power for a Day,” we find Alice hurriedly leaving the crowd when she has seen the face of the man she hates. In scene 28, the room, in her boarding-house is shown, her landlady—her enemy’s confederate—snooping for a bit among her things before she enters.

Characters must not be left in one scene and be discovered in the next following. They are not clothing dummies or marionettes, to be picked up bodily and helplessly and placed in set poses for the inspection of the audience. If another scene intervenes in which the same character does not appear, then it is not necessary for him to “come and go,” since we presume he has had time and freedom for the necessary action while we were engaged with the alternate scene.

The scene principle in the photoplay is one of reflective power. One scene reacts, rebounds, reflects, reverberates from the scene that precedes it to the scene that follows it; all bear a cumulative relation toward the climax.

(EXAMPLE 45.) In “The Master of the Lost Hills” we have six scenes all different, yet showing the reflective power with tremendous force: (1) Mary aims gun out of window and tells brother to step back or she will shoot; (2) Brother hesitates in his advance; (3) Close-view of Mary taking aim; (4) Just at edge of woods Mary’s desperate lover is taking aim at her; (5) Portion of dense forest showing sheriff and posse, who have come to rescue Mary, lost; (6) Exterior of shack shows mob drawing closer.

Another scene principle that we have learned is that every time the camera is shifted an iota we have a new scene. Theoretically, the eye of the camera never moves, excepting in the disillusioning practice of some operators to follow the movements of energetic characters by “panoram-ing.”

Our rule for length, duration and number of scenes is governed by the unalterable unit of the reel, or 1,000 feet of film. A short play—one reel—may consist of from 25 to 50 scenes; according to the directness, tone, treatment by the author and the method of the director. The exciting play of comedy, adventure and peril moves along rapidly, with short, quick scenes and many “returns,” just as in fiction we use short sentences and employ words and phraseology that remind us of and constantly revert to the hero’s imminent peril. The duration of a scene is in direct ratio to the vital relationship of its action to the climax.

(EXAMPLE 46.) In “The Salt of Vengeance” the grief-crazed father of an injured child sets a bomb under the rails that will blow to atoms the child of the man who is responsible for the injury. The lunatic pens up the guilty man, taunts him with the swiftly approaching fate of his precious child. This scene endures for several minutes. The next is a mere “flash” of a speeding railroad train occupying several seconds.

It is a natural law of drama that demands the establishment of identity almost the moment that a character appears. This is especially requisite in photodrama because of the rapid panorama of scenes that hurry on and off, at the rate of 75 to 200 an hour. One moment’s doubt on the part of the audience—so incredibly swift and fleeting is the hurry of photoplay events—may mean the misunderstanding or losing of a year of the hero’s life.

Learn and follow rules always with a willing mind; but never let them lead you around by the nose. The man who cannot take a single step without consulting his rules will become a wooden worker. “The way to make rules really valuable is to thoroly learn them, then literally forget them by perfectly practicing them.” Now and then we see something in a play that is superior to rules and technique; something that would have been cramped and crushed by rules. At present the photodrama has many superficial rules and a technique that is often archaic and lacks the element of futurity.

All said and done, we are not teaching technique, or laying down rules; rather, we are trying to interpret the laws of human conduct, the science of being natural and the art of entertaining effectively.

Real success is not as likely to come to the man who grinds out a play a day, year in and year out, as it is to him who writes “the play of the day” once a year; film footage is not the measure of photoplay fame.

CHAPTER IX

Bromides Worth Repeating

THE VIRTUE OF ECONOMY; PRODUCING POLICIES; PERIOD AND COSTUMES; ANIMALS; COPYRIGHT AND CARBON COPIES; RELATION OF AUTHOR’S WORK TO HIS AUDIENCE; TO THE MANUFACTURER; TO HIS MANUSCRIPT.

SO many volumes have been written merely describing the photoplay, representing it primarily as a manufactured article and larding the treatises with an appalling number of “dont’s,” that the author of the present work has made an especial effort constructively to analyze photodrama, to embody it as a new and complete form of drama-literary art, and show the student not only what to do but how to do it. Hitherto, photoplay inception and construction have been carried on chiefly with a view to facilitating its manufacture. It is about time that we took the profit-yielding audiences into consideration by supplying the artistic entertainment for which they are crying. The manufacturing end is well able to take care of itself; the actor has demonstrated in a vast number of instances that he is able “to deliver the goods”—if he is supplied with them; a large number of directors have demonstrated remarkable ability in assembling and directing the material elements that perfectly interpret and visualize the story of the playwright. All that is needed is the trained writer in adequate numbers to supply the infinite demand. By the trained writer, is meant the man who needs the artistic co-operation of editor, director, actor and manufacturer, and not the mechanical collaboration with them.

It takes, then, a knowledge of the things that enable you to do your good idea effectively; a negligence of the don’ts will not make for the flawless play, yet alone would not succeed in smothering the great idea.

There are three relationships of the writer that will bear repeated cautions and dont’s: (1) The Audience; (2) The Manufacturer—(a) editor, (b) studio, (c) photography, (d) manufacture; and (3) The Manuscript—(a) technique, (b) preparation, (c) sale. We shall discuss these considerations in the order named.

1. THE AUDIENCE.—Your audience in general is world-wide. Because of the brevity of the plays, the cheapness of admission to the theaters, and the quick and universal appeal to the emotions our first and most numerous patrons are the lower classes and especially the children. For these reasons alone, suggestiveness, the portrayal of crime in such a way as to show how it is done, or as to inspire its commission, are not to be exploited. Taking sides with either the masses or the classes; with labor or capital, or with the white race versus races of color, is not only inartistic but dangerously incendiary. Politics are too local as play material, as we must always bear in mind that our play is to appear in Timbuctoo as well as in Tonopah. Religion is too delicate, too cherished and too sacred a subject for anything but dignified and unprejudiced treatment. Films that in any way reflect upon the Roman Catholic Church will be barred out of many Catholic countries. The European market is a most profitable source of income to many American manufacturers. In this connection we have but to remember that the human heart has the same strength and struggle, the same weaknesses and tragedies the world over. Difference of language, however, raises a few minor pitfalls. For example, placards of warning, ransom, rewards and other matter which play a part in the story thru the audience’s reading it in the picture, should be eliminated. These points are easily circumscribed—and made more effective—by the use of the insert. Just as captions have to be made in the language of each exhibiting country, so do the proper inserts.