The art of sound pictures (1930)

42 THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES director this morning before this conference.” Thereupon the two staff writers were taken off the story, and the director was left in charge, with the free lance writer, of the amended story. After another set of conferences with the producer, in which the last part of the story was again totally changed, the picture went into production. The director, once he believed himself in full charge of the situation, again altered the story, and added, to the end of the picture, 1,100 feet of a new story which he himself originated. When the producer discovered this change, he took the director off the picture and put in another director, who finished the picture approximately as decided upon prior to production, under the supervision of the free lance writer. The author of the original story saw the resulting picture and failed to recognize in it any element of his own. Had this original writer taken into consideration the practical necessities of screen production and the picture values required in his story, he might easily have prepared the story, in the first place, so that it never would have been given to the staff writers to adapt. It would then have been put into continuity form by a continuity writer working with the director. Undoubtedly, the original story would have been preserved in all its essential details, and the picture would have been shot in perhaps one-third the time and at half the expense. Let us take another example of the opposite extreme in story writing. A well-known Hollywood writer was called in by the general manager of a certain studio and was asked to write a story containing certain specified elements of story, plot, and sets adapted to that par