Moving Picture World (Jul 1916)

July 22, 1916 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD 623 Necessity of Encouraging the Author si £/** wmthwp sawm A Departure from Current and Time Honored Methods Inevitable if Novelty of Ideas Is to be Obtained. ALTHOUGH in the trade and public press the manufacturers of film continue to protest that they dearly love the author and are willing to give him money for Fords and frankfurters, the press agent seems to be the only person who has much to say about real encouragement, and this in spite of the fact that unless the entire system of manuscript purchase is changed, the business will continue to sink. It is impossible to continue production with the constant recurrence of the same ideas from the same staff authors. The business of exhibiting pictures is falling rapidly. The theaters are losing their patronage. Something must be done and done promptly. The only thing that can be done is to throw oui the staff writers and give better stories a better production than is possible from a crew of directors too deeply sunk in the mire of self-esteem to realize that their very jobs are in peril. Witness an exhibitor in the Middle West; the manager of a theater in a fairly large town. He writes: I know that the public is finicky, but it has been made so by the chop suey productions. The fault is not with the public, but with the producers. They persistently abuse confidence "and outrage public intelligence too often. There is a dearth of brains in the industry — creative brains — and if they continue this erratic and uncertain bombarding of the public with the same hackneyed situations, as Louis Reeves Harrison says in a recent article — "we will be hunting new ways of eating regular." Even we benighted exhibitors know wherein the producers fail. They do not seem to furnish the point of contact with the masses. The ever-present stereotyped punch, thrill and situation is there, but the real point of contact, the point of intimacy, is lacking. "The Mating" is a fair sample of what I mean by contact. T^ere never was a prettier play — just pure entertainment, that's all. That all — but it is a very great deal. "The Mating" was a rather old theme, newly treated, but it was a heart-interest play. There were no train wrecks or aeroplane disasters, no murders or suicides — just a STORY. And stories are written by authors, not by directors. As Captain Leslie T. Peacocke says: A tailor may make a good suit, but only fools would trust him with the weaving of the cloth. You are hitting the right nail on the head in your plea for the author's continuity of his own story. I think that you, William Lord Wright and myself have taken up the cudgels on behalf of the free lance writer more than others, and endeavored to get manufacturers to see that the author and not the director or staff writer is the logical person to make the continuity. As a matter of fact, we do not plead for the free lance writer. This is a plea for the very existence of the business, because it is only through a departure from the current and time-honored methods that the business of making pictures can be saved. We are not pleading for the free lance as such, but because the free lance is the only man who can be looked to for the novelty of idea. We went through this once before around 1910. It was found that the complacent directors could not write their own stories. The free lance was turned to. From the best of the free lances, the studio writers were picked. Now they are falling short. Once more the free lance must be encouraged. And what encouragement is given him? William A. Brady has a prize contest. Scripts are to be tied up to the end of the year. The first prize is one thousand dollars. That is just about what a good script should bring without any prize-contest nonsense. From there the prices rapidly scale to $100 each. Surely no author who can write a decent script is going to be tempted by the prospect of $100 for his story. Another company conducted a contest for the photoplay class in an eastern university. There was to be a prize of a trip to California and the winning script, if found worthy, was to be purchased. The winner was asked to compromise the trip and accept a merely nominal price for the story "since it must be entirely reconstructed by our editor." This is a plain and unqualified lie. This writer saw the script and will undertake to make a production from it with merely minor changes. And probably that company thinks it is "encouraging" the author by trying to bilk him. A western writer in a personal letter expresses doubt as to the honesty of a company, having been told that the staff writer whose name appears on most scripts as "author," no matter who supplied the idea, saw all the submissions. This was told her by the editorial department. The staff author has no business reading and absorbing the ideas of others, and he will absorb these ideas unconsciously, no matter how honest he may intend to be. Surely there is no encouragement here. This studio makes a practice of "encouraging" new authors by offering five to ten dollars a reel and the promise that in time the writer will be advanced. One of the graduates of this concern has recently done thousands of dollars damage to another concern merely bv buying scripts for them and buying stuff so far out of the company's line of policy that some houses refuse the reels because of their unfitness. And as a last exhibit, one of the best known writers, a man of sound technique, strong ideas and large reputation writes in part: In the past ten months I have sold two fives, one two and a single and have made three adaptations. My last sale was $750 for five reels. If something doesn't develop soon I'll have to quit the game, and If I do it will be once for all. Here is a man who in the past has refused the editorship of the Biograph and Selig companies to this writer's own knowledge, who has written some of the Biograph's biggest hits and who has done splendid work in many other directions, but because he will not sell on synopsis and for a beggarly sum, he cannot sell in profitable quantities and is ready to turn his talents elsewhere at a time when manufacturers are announcing that they are searching the market for good material. With the exception of Captain Peacocke's letter, none of these quoted paragraphs were written in connection with the present discussion. They are all part of the average mail for a week and but repeat what others have said over and over again. Manufacturers say that they seek new stuff. If they do they are singularly shortsighted, for with dwindling bank accounts and rapidly fading prestige they are permitting their directors to do the same old stuff in the same old way. They know no other, they can understand no other. They play to the same hackneyed, time-honored and time-worn punches and exploded sensations and now and then when a story does come through that is a story and not the same old thin? they will not learn that lesson. The business is rapidly reaching the point where the manufacturer must himself worry about the regularity of his future meals. The public is reaching the point where the novelty of action and the popularity of the player can no longer excuse the absence of real story, and the author, and only the author, can supply stories. Editors must readjust their standards and no longer cater to the few low-browed boobs who can be appealed to by flash sensation and sex stuff. Clean, bright stories are needed, and these must be supplied by the authors and not by staff men steeped in the studio tradition of contempt for the public and its requirements. The author must be encouraged, but he must be encouraged with decent treatment, good production of his work and a fairly large check for a story. Prize contests do not appeal to real writers, and there are even some who dislike to see their stories botched and absorbed by thick-headed, sinRle-idea directors. There is still time to avoid a wreck, butaction must be prompt if it is to be effective. It is easier to drive patrons from the theatres than it will be to draw t'em back again. NEW WEEKLY FOR WESTERN NEW YORK. The first regular issue of the Buffalo Weekly, which will be circulated in western New York,' appeared on July 6 at the Strand theater, Buffalo. The weekly is produced by the Associated Film Producers, the offices of which are at 678 Main street, Buffalo. The promoters of the new film design to create something different from the weeklies now being shown. The Associated has been made official photographer for the forty-second annual session of the Mystic Shriners. The concern made pictures of the preparedness parade in Buffalo on June 24 and showed them in one of the local theaters three hours after the end of the parade.