Home Movies and Home Talkies (Jun 1932-May 1933)

100 HOME MOVIES & HOME TALKIES up your mind as to tlie length you are aiming at, even if ^ou have to change your mind afterwaifls — for it is courting disaster to be vague and indefinite in film production. In all your jiroductions you should strive to think out everj'tliing beforehand, so that once j'ou start shooting you will have t;oiu comjjlete film on paper and in your mind's eye. Half the failures of the film world are attributable to insufficient preparation— and perhaps nearly all the other half are caused by insufficient time and thought in the editing. Of the three processes of creation in film.s — scenario, shooting and editing — I am almost tempted to label the shooting as the least imjiortant. How man\' times have I seen producers and directors misled by fine pei'formances on the floor of the studio or on location ; and then when they receive the sections of film back from the printers and view on the screen what we call the "rushes," again they are misled by the appeal of individual performances. It is only when they begin to join up the film that they realise how flat and ineffective it all is. But remember this — often ^-ou can retrieve the situation in your editing, but for goodness sake don't count on this. Let the Boy Scout's motto be that of tlie film producer — "Be Prepared ! " Choose Your Own Subjects Unless you definitely ask my athice about choosing subjects, I woukl rather not influence \'0u further than the warnings and general advice I have already set forth. You have such a free hand that it seems a pit\" to submit yourselves to the influences of a poor professional fllm director wliose taste mav have become vitiated \ Doi'glas Fairbanks, during tlie mailing of "Round the World in Eighty Minutes" through supposed commercial considerations. All you have to consider is " Do / like this and do I know why I like it ? " and then set about it in ^•ou^ own way. It ma^■ sound jjriggish, but I do beg of \ou to be sincere and not to compromise— -but by this I don't mean that you should be obstinate ! Let us suppose you have chosen your story ; the director and scenarist can then get together for the purpose of preparing what is called the " treatment." The final draft of your treatment will be a comparatively bulky work, .Antony Asquith (seated, centre) conferring with technicians at Welwyn Studios of British Instructional Films, Ltd. (L. E. A.) running into some 60 pages of doublespaced t\^3e-script for a six or seven reel subject, though your first and second drafts will be considerably shorter, for they aie a mere skeleton upon which you build. The treatment is an exposition of your film in more or less non-technical language. It is not till you come to writing your scenario, or shooting script, that all the technical details need be included. In writing your treatment you should try and visualise your film in chapters — or sequences, as we call them. Generally speaking, you fade in to a sequence and, as if you were finishing yoiu' chapter with a fullstop, you fade out at the end. The se<|uence will then be a compact section of your film, showing only what takes place within a certain period of time in your stor\-. How many sequences should there be in, say, a six-reel film ? It is difficult to give any safe generalisation other than that tlie fewer sequences you have the better. A dozen is enough ; a score need not be too many ; but should you go beyond that number j-our film is likely to be jumpy. It is possible to ha\-e a complete six-reel film with only one seciuence, though I should say that ten was the most usual number. (To apply my comments regartling sixreel films to, say, a three-reeler, a simple division sum is necessary.) The Russian Method The Russian scenarists favour a plan all their own in laying out the arrangement of their scripts. They deV'ise their treatments, and consequently their scenarios, so that the end of each reel closes a sequence. That is to say. they follow tlie tradition of the .stage, with its curtain at the end of each act. In view of the (Continued on page 102)