Motion Picture News (Apr - Jun 1927)

M ay 3 0, 1927 V)U T 1 1*, c 111 1 iicnt i)i"(i The Week in Review Comment on Passing Affairs duccr (iircctor, Cecil 11. IX'Mille, speakin^ hcforc the Graduate School of Business Adniinislration ol Harvard University on "Directing ]\h)ti(>n Pictures," said in i)art: "To begin with, the director is in the ])ositiuii of the leader of an orchestra, lie has to \\a\e a baton in order to get the right teniixi. lb has to see that the bassoon does not come in while the \iolin is playing its solo. He has to hold together all the Next one callin the art direc tor, the man w ho d e s i g n s or has designed the sct-^. \\ e will say you have a great scene called for — the vision of temporal power in "The King of Kings," which Satan shows t(» Jesus, where the power of the world is dei)icted. bOr instance, in the scene I ha\e just mentioned, the \ision of temporal power, we changed the Temple of Jerusalem into a vision of Rome, and because it was an imaginative thing, we had to show departments and he has to see that they all function Rome even more magnificent than it was; in other on time, to see that everything meets in this little set words, a hundred Romes piled one on tojj of another, where he is going to turn a camera for a few minutes. Then comes the costume department. If it is a cos The months of preparation to bring about that mo tume picture the research department must start nient I will cover first. months before. The next ])oint is the camera. The "The first thing is the idea. What idea are you selection of a cameraman is vitally important. In going to produce? The sales department will always painting, if you were going to do a painting of the name to you the last success, whatever it was, and say battle of Waterloo you would not employ Corot to •Produce that because it was a success.' Had you paint it, because he paints a different type of thing, named that idea to the sales department before it was So with motion pictures — certain cameramen are ex a success they would have thrown uj) their hands in cellent for the pastoral scenes, while other cameramen horror and would have said, 'But nobody wants to see are better fitted for drama, that.' That has been my experience in blazing a trail * * * practically from the beginning of pictures, that nobody was in sympathy w ith the subject I wanted to do until after it was a success." Mr. Kennedy (the chairman of the meeting) kindly 'HE next point is cast. enough to be made without using a star' Is your story strong Or is it so weak that you must have a great, well-known personality? We \\ ill talk about "The King of Kings'' mentioned "The King of Kings." At a time when for argument's sake, and say that this subject is big everybody is producing melodrama, when such pic enough, so that it requires no star. We send for the casting director and we say, "Here are the types that we want. I am going to require Twelve Disciples ; I am going to require Mary the Mother ; I am going to require Mary Magdalene ; I am going to require Simon the Cyrenean — not just people who are merely capable of playing these parts but people who will sit in the frame of such picture, not just actors or actresses but types that are psycho right." The theory of casting a picture is a very important logicallv tures as "Crime" and "Broadway" and "The Spider'' are intriguing the public, I felt that the world was ready for the life of Christ. When I suggested it, we almost had to artificially resuscitate the financial department. They said, "Xo, what they want is melodrama." But that is the time to do the other thing. * * * T^HEX comes the matter of the treatment, the treat ment at least as to whether the subject is big enough to carry on what we call a super-special. When that point is decided, the amount of money to be ex and very subtle one. You have got to make a com pended comes next, whether the idea is big enough to bination that the public wants to see and that will give carry $150,000, $200,000, $300,000, $500,000, or you the highest point in artistry for the amount of Si, 000,000 as the case may be. In the case of "The money expended. The direcor has to fit his cast ac King of Kings" the cost was $2,300,000. cordingly. He has to consider the general frame of Your first treatment resembles the plan of a house, the picture, and by frame I mean the atmosphere. You do not sit down and have a waiter write a see If possible, select from the screen first before you nario. You draft a treatment, that is, a plan. You see the individual, so that you get the screen personlook for a foundation on which to stand your story. ality. That is a very, very important point. The same If your treatment is as strong as you can make it, is true in acting a scene. You cannot judge it with then comes your continuity, the scene for scene the eye. You should see it that night on the screen, scenario. before deciding whether it is good or bad.