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FILM INDIA
October 1940
he had analysed and which he had found wanting? It was certainly not the collection of dialogues and songs> for these had individually won enough praise for their writer from both independent critics and the public alike. It was not the story itself, for he had seen pictures with far inferior stories putting up definitely better shows at the boxoffice. What then was it that he had examined so minutely".' We repeat it was the script — a word that is perhaps the most abused in motionpicture studios to-day. Well it was this script or if you will,
the plan of the future building that were to be his photoplays, that this particular executive found defective. And how indeed could his final structure hope for any amount of success if the plan itself was full of flaws? He took his director to task, only to meet with a spirited protest— "For years I have worked in the foremost studios of Europe," said this individual "and today you find the fault with my work."
THE SCRIPT COMMITTEE
But the executive refused to listen or be otherwise cajoled. He insisted that a proper script be written, and because the director refused to co-operate or (possibly because he was not qualified enough to do so) the executive set about to form a script committee with himself as the chairman. In it he in
cluded the story writer, the dialogue writer, the director himself and at least one technician. In two months the committee produced the perfect script so perfect in fact that had the Director's third assistant wanted to try a hand at direction he would have found no difficulty.
We all know the results of this and the other scripts that followed. By now probably the name of the studio to which I refer is no more a secret. You must have seen the productions that it has given to us
Beautiful Radha Rani, after her triumph in "Diamond Queen" comes again in "Manthan" a VVadia picture.
and you can form your own conclusions. In these there is never an exaggerated display of camera acrobatics or subtle directorial touches — just simple straightforward work and yet so ingenious and precise, the continuity that never for an instant does the interest of the audience lag or waver. I have been privileged to view these workers from very close quarters and I have found them no better than other workers. I should say that they are even amateurish in their efforts. But every worker from the script writer downwards is as precise
. as the watch-maker,
precision such as only the
skilled scientist can
give.
Since then the executive has passed away, the story writer has changed the dialogue and song writer has given place to other men, but the technician has remained. Of them at least one has made a special study of the problems inherent to the production and direction of pictures and now applies to them the scientific methods to which he had been accustomed. He went ahead and proved to all that even in the realms of production and direction it is the technician that ultimately wins — for it is nothing haphazard this business of picture making but the assured result of intensive study into the basic principles of a new and fastly advancing Science.
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