The cinema as a graphic art : on a theory of representation in the cinema (1959)

THE CINEMA AS A GRAPHIC ART scenario should, also, contain the chief technical instructions applying to tr various stages of the production process. In actual practice we come across cases of a scenario being put into pre duction before its treatment has been completely worked out. Taking for grante that such methods are in principle wholly impermissible, we shall consider onl the fully worked out form of scenario treatment, in other words the productio scenario. Considering the production scenario from the aspect of the camera-man participation in its creation, we can distinguish the following forms of camera man's treatment : ist form : The shot script. This system is employed in Western Europe, the equivalent term in German being ' Drehbuch '. The shot script gives the details of the technical method to be employed on each shot. Problems of compositional construction ar< completely ignored. znd form : The set-ups (camera viewpoints) are indicated for each shot on the basis of plans of the sets supplied by the art director. yd form : In this system a compositional scheme is set out for each shot \ih form : For each compositional scheme is set out the means of its technica realisation. We must distinguish two further forms of construction of the productior scenario, which have been established in foreign and Soviet cinema practice onl) during the past two or three years. In Germany the initiator of a novel form of scenario method was the youn£ director Frank Wysbar, who is noteworthy for his endeavours to improve the process of production, and also for the realistic tendencies observable in his work Wysbar does not believe in the various members of the production group working in isolation from one another, and insists on the necessity for the collective creative activity of all the participants in the production process, basing his method ol scenario treatment on this standpoint. The main features of his scenario construction are the way in which the entire group is brought into collective creation, and his emphasis on the preparatory period. Shooting begins only when all the essentials of the future film are completely in draft. From the primary scenario sketch (or from the literary scenario) a kind of intervening form is prepared. This is on scenario lines, but more developed. Wysbar regards this form, which he calls ' the film on paper', as a new link in the process of production, and is inclined to consider it the basic and most important stage of the whole process. The ' film on paper ' is a roll of paper on which are entered graphs corresponding to the various sections of the work of production. The first graph entered is the director's solution for each shot. The next is provided by the camera-man, and gives the compositional scheme of each shot and the technical methods of carrying it out. Then come the graphs of the sound-recordist, of the art director, and, finally, photographs of tests. The entire paper roll is a skeleton form of film cut in its editing succession and with the approximate indication of its length. In the course of unrolling it one obtains a thorough idea of the method of making the future film, and can consider in advance all the measures necessary to the process. The Wysbar system provides an essential link between the production scenario and the so-called (daily progress) report sheets, and so is a very valuable form of preparation for the film. 122