Moving Picture World (May - Jun 1918)

848 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD May 11, 1918 The Photoplaywright t»iiiiiiuiiiiii!i:i;::;;;!iiiiitiiiiiiii8iii!iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiim!!iiiiini!i» Conducted by EPES WINTHROP SARGENT NOTICE. Owing: to Illness, Mr. Sargent will be unable to reply to any Inquiries whether a return envelope accompanies the questions or not. No exceptions to this rule can be made, perhaps, for several months. E Plots and Plays. VIDENTLY the synopsis only mania is confusing the writers of photoplays, for some one, writing in evident good faith, puts up a proposition that may interest others when he says : I notice in your Technique of the Photoplay that you say that the plot should concern itself with three points, the protagonist, the antagonist and the objective, and that every action should have a direct bearing upon the fortunes of the protagonist. And yet I would point out that Dickens, who, you must grant, was a great novelist, often uses two or more persons of equal interest to the reader. Don't you think that your rule is sometimes too rigid in the light of the precedent cited? In the first place Dickens was not a great novelist. But two of his works are generally admitted to approach the novel form — The Tale of Two Cities and Bleak House. He was a great writer of caricature — perhaps the greatest who has ever lived — but he was not a novelist, and even were he such the early Victorian form would scarcely be upheld as the model for the writer of today. But the writer misses the main point. Photoplay more nearly approaches the stage than the fiction field in its form, and it is play construction and not the novel that must be followed. Dickens, with a hundred thousand words and more, might, if he desired, introduce several sets of characters and make them equally interesting ; but these are merely multiple stories rather than a compact narrative, and sometimes he overworks coincidence like a novice in bringing about an interrelation of characters. Many of his books have supplied material for more than one play, and even Bleak House, perhaps the work most clearly approaching the true novel form, has been made to yield plays, in which Joe, Lady Deadlock and Hortense have been made the protagonists. But it is not so much a question as to whether Dickens is a proper model as to whether the fiction form as such is to be followed, and the reply is no. Fiction is too diffuse. It depends too often upon words rather than action for its value. Literature cannot be transferred to the screen in the form of words. There are a few directors who can get over in picture some of the psychology of an author, and when this still rare class shall be increased, replacing the old-timers, we shall more nearly approach the true photoplay. But psychology cannot replace action ; it must supplement the action story. The demand for the synopsis only — the running story of the plot — has to some extent misled the untrained writer into the belief that the fiction form being used for the relation of the plot the technique of fiction may be employed. Perhaps a more fruitful source of error is the very general use of adaptations from works of fiction. Fiction is not used because it is the best form, but because it is the most available form at the present time. Not enough authors are writing photoplay plots of the same grade to make it safe to trust to the authors for a supply, and it is deemed safer to use novels for inspiration, even though rum, novels lend themselves but poorly to translation to the screen. Photoplay really occupies a place between fiction and drama. It has the flexibility of movement of the novel. It does not require to be played In a given number of scenes, but may offer as many locations within reason as the author may call for. On the other hand, it calls for the swift movement and concentrated action of the play rather than the more leisurely progress of the written story. It calls for fewer hading characters that interest may not be too widely distributed. We believe that in time the story tensely told in two or three reels will be more general than the five to eight reel plays ; that the value of a plot will be judged by its quality to entertain or thrill rather than the number of feet into which it has been made. This by no means dismisses the five-reel story or longer lengths, but, like the average magazine of today, the balance will lie in favor of the short, crisp tale in film rather than in the heavy, padded production that goes to five or six reels partly because the average exhibitor is accustomed to having a live-reel feature to go with his shorts and partly because a five-reel story will bring in more money than one in three reels. From its very form photoplay seems best adapted to the short plot rather than the extended play. It is seldom possible to present a story in twelve reels that will not require so much interpolated explanatory matter as to kill the real interest. Now and then a story will seem to run to more than the limits of an evening's entertainment, but this is merely because the CUtters lack skill or because the story was badly dono in the first place. It must be short, sharp and dramatic or highly amusing to bo true entertainment, and to be this it must follow the drama form rather than the Action — even the fiction of the shorter lengths. There must be a clearly defined objective, and constant effort to reach that objective in the faco of obstacle. Many short stories have no objective, perhaps not even an antagonist; they are merely light character sketches, pleasing and entertaining only because they are so well told, and this telling will not get over to the screen. Literature, like art, has many forms and mediums. Each medium has its disadvantages as well as its advantages. No artist would dream of painting a heroic battle scene in water colors. The medium would not suit. He might, however, with slightly different treatment, paint a quiet landscape in both water colors and oils. In the same way some plots may be suited to both the printed page and the stage and capable of being translated to the screen, while many fiction stories are suited neither to the stage nor screen, and others may do fairly well on both stage and screen. Still others might be screened and yet not be capable of being made into stage plays. At the present stage of production we have few editors, fewer directors and a pitifully limited number of manufacturers who are competent to judge the limitations of fiction. If a book is sold through several editions then the story must be good, and it is purchased for photoplay with no greater recommendation. The story specially written for the screen and conforming to its every requirement may be passed over, unread, merely because so many previously read stories have been impossible for screen production because the fiction form has been followed. Merely because stories are bought in what seems to be a form of fiction does not mean that the technique of fiction should be followed. It should be planned as a photoplay with all the technique of the photoplay and then, and not until then, should be turned into synopsis form for the benefit of the editor who knows no better and the director who wants no better. Because continuities are not required, it does not follow that you no longer need to knew the technique of the screen. To the contrary you should be even more proficient than ever in photoplay technique that you may avoid the traps and pitfalls of the synopsis only. The motion picture is too valuable an addition to the entertainment field to be permitted to drop. It will never lapse into obscurity. It has brought good acting and good plays to the smallest hamlets and has sounded the knell of the cheap fiy-by-night stage productions. There are no "number two" companies in pictures ; no cheapened, shoddy parodies of an original. When pictures come into their own, producers will be more liberal with new copies, will no longer grind a film until it is in rags, but even the "sixty-day" man will be able to project a reasonably fresh print. In that day, too, we shall have more directors of mentality and fewer members of the I-knew-him-when club holding their positions by virtue of their past intimacy with the men at the head of things. We shall have real producers who will demand real photoplays written directly for the screen, and when that time comes it will be well to be prepared. Sincerity. Allan Dwan, in an article in the Picture Play Magazine for May, writes that a director cannot get inspiration from the choppy sentences of the continuity, adding "the author expects the director or reader to catch the thrill that he experienced when writing, but he fails to express on paper." It is the first time we ever knew that the director looked to the continuity for inspiration. We always supposed that he got that from the synopsis and then looked to the plotted action to see how the story was told. If he did that he could get the inspiration ; not from the matters of little moment, as in the example cited by Mr. Dwan, but from his own ability to reconstruct situations when fully told. Mr. Dwan makes out a singularly weak case for himself — which is more than is to be expected, but he does emphasize the necessity for presenting to the director and the editorial reader ALL of the idea in the synopsis, and present it in such a manner than even the director — who too often is too stupid to see fine points — cannot overlook its merits. You must write so good a story that you can fire the limited imagination of a self-satisfied, self-centred, somewhat ignorant third-rate actor who got into the directing end in the old days when they were careless. If you can do that, then you can sell your script, if there is a market, to the few competent men as well. No Polisher. We are obliged to several who have sent in suggestions for a new brain polisher, but there will be no more polishers for a time. Handling one of these polishers involves between 40 and 50 hours of extra work, and we have not the time to spare for this extra work at present now that illness has put a time limit on the number of hours we are permitted to work each day. Avoid Your Friends. Your worst enemy is the friend who tells you how good your synopses are. He or she knows nothing whatever about it, and merely confuses your own judgment. The picture theater manager is least of all apt to know about picture making, and actors are as bad if not worse. Rely on your own judgment, and upon that alone. It will be better even that your friends do not see the stories unless they appear upon the screen. TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY By EPES WINTHROP SARGENT A book replete with practical pointers on the preparation of stories for the screen, answering the hundred and one questions which immediately present themselves when the llrst script is attempted. A tested handbook for the constant writer of picture plots. "Straight-from-the-shoulder" information from an author with a wealth of real "dollars andcents" experience. By Mail, Postpaid, Three Dollars Published and For Sale by THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD, 516 Fifth Ave., N. Y. Schiller Bid?., Chicago Wright & Callender Bid?., Los Angeles