We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
12
THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES
could see and tell stories through the medium of such motions. This is equally true of the story writers, the directors, and the actors.
Now, a few attempts to affix talk to pantomime will speedily convince the stubbornest mind that the scheme will not work. Language introduces changes of appalling subtlety. The entire structure of the original pantomime has to be torn down, and something new erected in its place. Likewise with the old titles and the primitive musical accompaniment. So we find ourselves back again to elementals. We must start afresh with the story itself and build from there.
Stories suited to pantomime may prove ill-suited to sound pictures, and vice versa. Hence, we must attack the new art at its foundations, which are the story and its human appeals. More clearly than ever before do we realize that “the story’s the thing.” All the rest is mere technique. This is why we must go over what may, at first glance, seem to be old ground. We must inquire briefly into story values as they are affected by the factor of sound.
A complete survey of story values cannot be made here. The subject is too large. If you wish to consider it at greater length, you may profitably read The Art and Business of the Short Story (Macmillan), and How to Write Stories (Harcourt, Brace), both by Walter B. Pitkin. The first book handles the subject from a cultural point of view somewhat broader than the second, which is especially adapted to the craftsman.