Moving Picture News (Jul-Oct 1913)

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THE MOVING PICTURE NEWS '7 editors and authors and give Captain Peacocke a cordial greeting when the show is "tried out on the dog." And now cometh Miss F. Marion Brandon who draws a deserved write-up in the moving picture syndicate lore. She is script editoress of Eclair Film Co. and is competent to perform the duties at that. She has produced a vaudeville sketch, a one-act play that will appear shortly, and a photoplay, "The Last of the Madisons," (not the "Last of the Mohicans") has just been released by Universal. In 1911, F. Marion drew one thousand "iron men" in the John Wanamaker "American Home" contest with 20,000 competitors and then some. Miss Brandon is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, and that group photo taken by Henry W. Mattoni at the Palace of Liberal Arts is the only grudge we hold against either of them. F. Marion is a comer, and she has promised to keep us right up to date on Eclair script needs. * * * * Curbstone Philosophy Matt Mereness has oiled up the machine and has started forth on the winter's coal. He writes : "The other day you had a very interesting adventure of a man by the name of Jones, and then of a fellow who was very much discouraged. How many times have I asked myself : 'Are you through with writing"' And then 'what for?" Just because a story, or two or four, or six do not sell how do you know the next one won't be a winner? Fve sworn that if that didn't sell it would be ni}' last. It wasn't the last and I'm pounding them out yet. 'Don't give up the ship,' a brave man once said. I quit school when only fifteen years of age and went to work. Never wrote a thing for publication until I got it into my head to write photoplays. The first one I ever wrote was accepted. The first five I sold were written on a typewriter that cost $2.98. That was three years ago. Sold more then than I do now. If I can sell stories under the conditions I have worked the last three years, with no education to brag of, there is no reason why others should not sell. A story that sold last year will not sell now. It must be better than last year's story. No one told me this. I found it out myself. I often receive letters from other writers. They nearly all breathe discouragement. The writers of the letters are those who have tried and think they have failed. But the secret is that they have not really tried. Some have been writing three months or a little longer. Photoplay writing cannot lie learned in three months. Write, you will always learn something. It took me over a year before I could write away from 'similar theme done before.' My greatest trouble now is 'plot too slight.' I'll get them so they will walk alone after a while." We like to publish letters like the above, for we believe they stimulate others to further endeavor. Mereness has discovered, if nothing else, that the story that sold a year ago is not the story that will pass muster to-day. Great advances have been made in Cinematography in a twelve ninnth and a higher standard has been reached. * * ii: ^ Pertinent Pointers Practice makes perfect. Keepinn everlastingly at it wins success. ."Vvoid secular plots. Keep religion out of your scripts. Try and evolve a plot that is sunny. There are too many stories released having a continuous series of deathbed scenes ami like mournfulness. Don't search for all the horr.ors of life. Try and give us something of the brighter side. It is ijossible to write a consistent three-reel plot despite opinions to the contrary so freely expressed. Because you have seen multiple reel features that consisted of just a string of incidents, is no reason that the multiple reel plot is not frequent. It is possible to have two or three full reels of plot. Only two or three persons will read your script, hence do not prepare your manuscript for reading purposes but for seeing purposes. Brilliancy of style and diction gets you nowhere. It is the ability of causing the editor and director to see and understand your action so clearly that they think others can do likewise that will readily sell your work. A publication devoted to the interests of script writers asserts that "now is the time to work out that Christmas scenario that has been stored up in your brain." You may have a Christmas plot stored in your brain all right, but our advice is to alter the plot so that it will be good any other tirne. Nothing is gained in the long run by writing the holiday scripts whether the plot be for Memorial Day, Fourth of July, or Christmas. Many of these plots come and few are chosen. Write your stories for all the year and you will in crease your chances to sell. If you write the Christmas plot and submit it to one concern the chances are that by the time it is considered and rejected that it will be too late to submit to any other editor so that it can be produced seasonably. Remember that editors are busy men. Remember that your submission is probably one among three hundred. Remember that he has no time to read long personal letters accompanying scripts, and that he frequently can ascertain that it is your very first effort without you taking up two pages of note paper to so inform him. Remember, also, that he hopes the scripts will suit his purpose as much as you and that this overworked statement sent in with scripts is not at all welcome. Let your work speak for itself, and it is the only voice that ' will command any attention in any event. "The Stolen Story" is coming to the fore once more. Above everything do not get the idea that your plot is stolen because a scene or two in some pictures seem familiar, or the title to a picture is similar to one of your own. Stories repeat. You may not know it but in nearly every mail plots startlingly similar in thought and action are received. Each writer is positive that the idea is original and cannot be made to appreciate that most plots invented are old as the hills and that it is not the plot in itself but the new angle to an old plot that sells the effort. Duplications of common themes are many and commonplace. Select an original theme, tell it in a clear straightforward way, do not send the story to several companies at once, play the game fairly and honestly, and you will be treated likewise. No one will steal your plots. Kindly leave magazine and book stories alone. Don't try and deceive film editorial departments. You can rarely do it. Despite all that has been said and done there are a certain number of writers who are persisting in revamping stories from old numbers of magazines. It's a dangerous practice. You will soon get on the company's black books, and other than this fact, you lose your self-respect and maybe some time will get into real trouble. Have pride enough to be original and do not steal the brains of another. * * * * Reading and Writing E. M. Wickes, in the Writer's Magazine, has the following: "During a recent discussion a prominent photoplaywright maintained that in order to win success one should devote considerable time to reading. Constant reading will prove beneficial provided the reading is done in an intelligent and systematic way. To merely skim over the pages without trying to analyze the plot and see how each scene and action overlaps the other, or how one is the logical effect of a certain cause, would not be very productive. Read by all means ; read good books, the masters, and learn how they worked, and then try and apply your knowledge to your task. It is pitiful to read some scripts that have been prepared by deluded persons who are unable to construct a simple sentence correctly." Yes, everyone should have a knowledge of the world's best literature. The would-be author should not only read but should write — write all the time at something or other, for this practice brings familiarity with the tools of the trade. The Sliding Scale Marc Jones took a crack in type at the correspondence schools the other day, and one "Professor" came back with an intimation to the advertising department of the publication. Jones claims to be free from all interference and he follows up his preliminary attack with the following which will do : "The quarrel in the schools is not alone over the merits of the course they offer. Of a school of this kind we demand; (1) a competent course, with instruction by a successful pictureplaywright, or, in other words, by a man thoroughly informed in the subject which he undertakes to teach; (2) absolute honesty with the pupil — which is to say that if a correspondence course in electrical engineering would not undertake to "graduate" a pupil who does not show by his work that he can become an electrical engineer, neither should the photoplay schools undertake to "graduate" every pupil that enrolls, irrespective of his work; and (3) absolute business honesty, in the sense that we have come to employ the phrase "business honesty" in the last few years. By this last is meant the holding out of inducements that do not exist, the making of an appeal to those who cannot succeed and accepting their enrollment, and the use of a sliding scale of prices and other tactics that have been employed by a number of the photoplav schools." WILLIAM LORD WRIGHT.