Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

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358 MOTOGRAPHY Vol. XIX, No. 8 Sullivan Tells How to Write Scenarios Thomas H. Ince Chief Says Chief Trouble With Outside Writers Is That They Fail to Take Screen Seriously as a last resort, but with a feeling of contemptuous superiority; that anything will do for pictures. Until he learns that the screen demands the highest that he is able to give — and will accept nothing else, no writer will attain even the slightest success in this work. BY C. GARDNER SULLIVAN Head of Ince Scenario Department LACK OF SCREEN STUDY— that, I believe, is the chief reason why the outside writer fails to register a high percentage of sales to the producing companies. In the several hundred manuscripts which have come to my attention in the last two years, I have been chiefly impressed by the fact that the authors did not seem to be writing for the screen, but rather along short story lines. By that I do not mean plot necessarily, but rather action, or lack of action. As an example, a story depending upon brilliance of dialogue, or getting over some talking theme, possible in a magazine, must naturally fail on the screen. For, properly to bring out the author's idea, the picture would become more or less of an illustrated lecture. Another great trouble is lack of consistency, writers striving for a certain situation, but subsidizing the theme, which every good story must have, for a series of thrilling incidents held together by a badly woven thread of coincidence. If the free-lance writer of today will take his stories from the everyday life about him, not trying to make them vividly sensational, but merely tales of human people doing human things, I do not think he will have any trouble in disposing of his work, granted the writer has a certain gift for depicting the phases of life in an interesting manner. He must realize that the screen, above all other fields of literary endeavor, has a technique particularly exacting, and the only way this can be learned is by practice and by studying the screen itself. By studying the screen, I do not mean copying the ideas set forth thereon, as some writers have a particular weakness for doing, but rather profiting by the finished work, which, in nine cases out of ten, represents the result of hard, careful study. The idea must not necessarily be new, but its treatment should be new, and it should above all seek to bring out some phase of life in which we are all interested, but which perhaps we may not have noticed until brought to our attention by a keener student of humanity. Summing up, I would say that the trouble with the outside writer is that he does not take the screen seriously, and in many cases, I believe, having failed in other lines of literary endeavor, he turns to the motion picture not only The action ranges all the way from the United States to Mexico with trouble of several sorts developing in both countries. A Mexican who has fallen into the lap of the law here struggles out and finds the way opened to revenge when his American tormentors go to Mexico. It develops then that he is chief of police of a Mexican city and that he knows how to make the most of his authority. A railroad train running straight through a station is a feature of the action. New Sunshine Comedy Out Another of the Fox-Lehrman Sunshine Comedies was released February 17. It is titled "Are Married Policemen Safe?" and is reported to be a satire on human nature as evidenced in the administration of justice. A crusade against women wearing clothes which are more abbreviated than the law allows results in policemen and juries being captivated by their captives. Start New Brockwell Film Three days after she had completed "The Moral Law," at the William Fox studios on the Pacific coast, Gladys Brockwell began work on a new production. In the cast are William Scott, Bertram Bracken, Lucille Young, Georgie Woodthrop, T. A. Crittenden, Sarah Herman and Betro Buzi. Edward J. Le Saint is directing the picture. Douglas Fairbanks talking over a scene from the new Artcraft picture, "Headin' South,'' with Supervising Director Allan Dwan and Director Art Rosson.