The film till now : a survey of the cinema (1930)

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II THE PRECONCEPTION OF DRAMATIC CONTENT BY SCENARIO ORGANISATION A film is essentially characterised by a unity of purpose and a singleness of idea which is present from the first to the last visual image projected on to the screen. This unity of idea or central purpose is unfolded shot by shot, sequence by sequence, and may be called the theme, or in the case of the cine-fiction film, the thematic narrative. It is strictly necessary for an entire film to be preconceived in almost exact anticipation of every detail, except in such cases where sudden conditions (such as rain or mist) should occur during shooting, when some alteration in the scenario is justified in order to take advantage of natural occurrences. No single shot or individual sequence may be regarded as an isolated fragment, but must be reckoned as part of the moving pattern of shots and sequences out of which the film is built as a unity. Every shot of the one, two or three thousand that go to make up a complete full-length film vibrates in harmony with the preceding and succeeding shots, so that the complete film vibrates rhythmically. A film is built, and the process of building has well been called montage.1 This act of montage is present in the cinema in three forms, being bound together into a whole by means of cine-organisation. The process of film construction is arithmetical in its precision. It may be compared to building with a box of bricks. The unity of a film is achieved by the combination of the three acts of montage. Montage may be understood as the inclusive, creative, and constructive unity that is present from the birth of the first gleam of idea in the mind of the scenarist to the final act of assembling the film strips by constructive editing and cutting. A film is brought into being by the development of the 1 Literally = putting together, mounting. 253