Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 31 ;» jhile, and prefers to keep his big themes >r a play or novel is indeterminable. "Based on long experience, the averse photo-play author does not under , ;and or grasp the meaning of the word ig' as applied to the photo play. He is parly always apt to translate the word b 'size' and scope of action, rather than ze and scope of theme. "Ask the average author, even the neon author of experience, for a really ig picture story, and what do you get? ». picture story containing shipwrecks, a rain wreck, an aeroplane battle in the ky. and vast armies battling o'er the lains ! "He thinks it is big because it has large nasses of people in it ; because it will jost a lot of money, and because there re 'big' wrecks and suchlike sensaions. "That the 'bigness' of the story should ie in its theme, its subject, and the noral it teaches is apparently far be7ond him, and the only time he does .ubmit a really big theme it is such that he cost would be far beyond what it is vorth. And, furthermore, nine out of ;en of the 'big ideas' he submits are idaptations of a biblical story ! This nay sound unjust to the author, but it is a fact. "Name me a number of really big original photo plays that have been produced to date — big in theme, moral, et cetera. I dare you ! " The Clansman,' biggest of all to date, was original in treatment, but mostly historical facts — the bigness was \not in the tremendous battle scenes — in the assassination scene, but in its ■ftheme — and its treatment by the master director. But its theme was not original for the screen. "'Cabiria'? A spectacle, big only in that sense, and an adaptation, at that ! "'Quo Vadis'? An adaptation! "'Judith of Bethulia'? An adaptation, original only in its masterly direction j and treatment. " 'The Battle of the Sexes' and 'The I Woman and the Law," by Griffith, are the only really big original screen dramas so far produced. " 'The Clansman' has proven that people will sit through twelve reels of a really big subject and pay two dollars a seat, and stand hours in long lines day and night in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco for the privilege. Thus it has at last been shown that there will be a market for big original themes for pictures, and that the screen is worthy of the highest possible effort to supply it with subjects and stories worthy of the newer literature. "For the really big thoughts, written solely and entirely for the screen, the screen and the public are waiting. Who will write them ? . "Can't our present-day photo-playwrights do it ? Or are they written out, or have they been forced so long to grind out mere "plots," with no reason for being except to tell a story that they cannot think big thoughts, and big has come to mean only size? "Are you going to let the fiction author beat you at your own game ? Has the average photo-play 'plot' been so easy to evolve that you have been lulled into a sense of security from invasion? "Isn't it a fact that very few plots on the screen would be strong enough, original enough to sell as first-class short stories? Isn't it a fact that the fiction author has not given his best to the photo play? That he has saved his best stuff for the magazines, which pay him better and advertise his name? "But isn't he going to beat you at your own game, now that the photo play has reached the best theaters and has begun to be accepted as the newer and better literature? "Now that it will be worth his while financially and artistically, isn't he going to use his trained mind — trained to think big plots and themes — for the benefit of the screen? And will he do better than the average photo-playwright, once he gets the grasp of picture needs, or will the photo-playwright be forced to develop a sense of bigness in theme? These are questions to be thought over in your own mind, and not for me to answer for you. But it is gospel! One more question for you to worry about : How many present-day photo-playwrights ever wrote a plot longenough for a salable four-act play or a ninety-thousand-word novel? "We await a list." All that Mr. Smith says about the average photo-playwright being unable to write big ideas carries a great deal of weight, but, as we said before, we think there is an opportunity for some manufacturer to get in on unbroken ground. It would not require a great many writers with big ideas to enable a concern to turn out original features, written especially for the screen, and we are pretty sure that there are enough authors of this kind willing to write exclusively for the screen if the proper financial inducement is offered. RATHER IMPORTANT. A correspondent recently wrote us saying that he believed it was rather important that a play should suit the wants of the producers. Apparently he had not been reading our department very closely, or he would have known that writing plays that are eligible for sale and sending them where they are likely to sell was the only profitable style of photo-play writing. If you write a script of the desert and send it to a company who are miles from any stretch of sand, and who do society plays exclusively, you haven't got a chance in the world of selling it. The same scenario might be bought in an instant by a company working on the edge of a desert. A general idea of what American producers want must be acquired by the beginner, and the only thorough way to do this is to watch the subjects on the screen. After this general idea has been gained, the writer must learn the more particular wants of each of the companies, and, if he is writing for the open market, he must write the kind of scenario which is likely to sell to any one of several companies, thus guarding against having to discard the script after a rejection. NAMES OF REAL CITIE«. While it is not advisable to use the names of real people for your characters, we think the interest in a photo play is increased by using the names of real cities wherever such names are required. You all know it leaves sort of a disappointed feeling in you when you see a real lifelike modern drama in which some city's name has been invented as the locale of the play. It would be ever so much better if a real city's name had been used, for we would then feel that it had something more substantial to the plot. The objection is that people in the neighborhood of the city named know the scenery to be false, but this is really a trivial matter when we consider how many thousands of other persons see the picture who know nothing about the country near the place named. Then, too, many plays could be laid in the locale where they were filmed.