Motion Picture News (Oct 1913 - Jan 1914)

THE MOTION PICTURE NEWS 25 An author informed us recently that a script she had submitted to aprominent concern was kept for consideration three months and then returned as unavailable. Recently editorial changes have been made, and she asked if she should take another chance with the same concern. We answered in the affirmative. Marketing scripts is a game of chance in one sense. We sold one story twice to the same concern. A directo rliked the yarn, but he took another berth before he produced it. In the meantime we got a check. The next director didn't like the script. After six months the editor sent it back, saying we were entitled to the money, at that. We held the script another six months, submitted it again to the same concern with an account of its unusual history. Money must have been plentiful just then, because the script was taken and another check mailed. This occurs once in a lifetime, but it goes to show that the ways of the manuscript markets passeth understanding. A hundred things other than the worth of the script may interfere with its sale. All you know is that your work is returned. Length of the Play . A gentleman in Wall Street (not Sampson Rock, either) writes photoplays and he wishes to know something about the approved length. He says most beginners have no idea where to stop on the average plot. Many have no idea where to stop, but more have no idea where to begin. Not more than half the photoplays submitted start where they should. Some start over toward the end and explain back by the "vision'' and the "dream." Others start too soon and several hundred words are misused before entering upon the story proper. Tell your story straight from the shoulder. Begin at the proper beginning, when things happen, and end when the action ends. A photoplay story intended to run a thousand feet should rarely cover more than three or four sheets of 8^4x11 paper, providing it is single spaced. This includes synopsis and cast of characters. Remember you are writing action, not dialogue or word pictures. The briefer and clearer you can depict that action, the better for all concerned. Do not become worried by the number of scenes you see in some picture plays in your favorite theatre. Because the Venus Motion Picture Company is "hooking up" plays to seventy-five half-second scenes to the thousand feet is no reason why you should endeavor to write seventy-five scenes into your script. This quickaction stuff is merely long scenes chopped into very short ones. If you can tell your story in twenty or twenty-five scenes and get it across, do so. What the director may do with your script after its purchase is his business. Give him good, clear action to work upon and there your responsibility ends. But few concerns use the flash-scene method. The Hall of Fame W. E. Wing, prolific writer of photoplays, was formerly a reporter on the Los Angeles Express. Horace Vinton, former script editor for Comet, American, Shamrock, etc., is now director of production of "The Siege and Fall of the Alamo," Motion Picture Company, San Antonio, Tex. Charles Van Loan, who has been writing stories of motion picture actors for the Saturday Evening Post, was once a baseball editor. Frank E. Woods, well known throughout filmland as "The Spectator," has joined the Mutual Film Corporation. He will supervise all scenario work for the Majestic and Reliance companies. Not a Remedy The Film Man, of the Dramatic Mirror, prints an argument penned by Harry O. Hoyt that "more leaders is the remedy for the vague photoplay.'' Sub-titles may be abused and self-explanatory action can often supersede the sub-title. They take atmosphere from the play and interrupt convincing action. It is easy to stick in a sub-title; it is not so easy to so manipulate your action and characters that a sub-title is unnecessary. Along the line of least resistance will never win in photoplay writing. The Film Man, in commenting correctly, states: "Authors are working along the correct line when attempting to make their work understandable with few leaders. Knowing the stories themselves they misjudge the normal capacity for grasping a situation hurriedly presented on the screen. Hence, both the explanatory action and its alternative, words that solve the riddle, are omitted at critical moments because the need is not appreciated. Let the author place himself in the .position of the least enlightened of his spectators; then if a cloudy meaning cannot be cleared by action it is time to bring in sub-titles. Nothing is more disastrous than vagueness." An Important School If you wish to become a photoplaywriter or a writer of fiction and desire to attend school, let us here and now suggest that school. We shall suggest an institution that will pay you while you are learning — the Institution of Journalism. A script editor is quoted as follows: "Strange as it may seem, the best motion picture stories do not come from trained story-writers, although the majority of professional scenario authors come from the ranks of newspaperdom and the theatrical field." We know little about the theatrical field, but we claim to know something of the newspaper field, having been in the newspaper harness for sixteen years. This editor possibly does not mean just what he says. He is correct in his statement that many successful writers of molion picture stories come from the newspaper ranks, but the good newspaper man is also a trained story writer. That is the reason the former newspaper men succeed as literary workers. They do not wait for inspiration— they work; they are familiar with the tools of their trade, that of writing; they know a story when they see one; they can daub on local color and characterize. Kipling, O. Henry, George Randolph Chester, David Graham Phillips and the rest of the star fiction-writers were once journalists. Giles R. Warren, C. B. Hoadley and many other stars of the photoplay-writing world smelled printers' ink many years ago. To the beginner we advise joining the staff of some good newspaper. Follow Mark Twain's rule and work without remuneration for a time until a place is made for you, or you make a place for yourself. Instead of paying out money to some "correspondence" school, enter the school of journalism, which is found with a live newspaper, and not in a college class-room, or by the postal route. You will learn to know life and, best of all, to write about life. Then, if you have it in you, the rest will follow naturally. Looking Forward Next week, Editor' B. P. Schulberg. of the Famous Players Film Company, will tell our readers how he adapts famous plays into motion-picture stories. Worth looking forward to. Collier's Weekly Awakens We have heard from Collier's Weekly. The editor of that publication has awakened to the fact that most of these "Photoplaywright Correspondence Schools" are delusions and snares, and he asked us all about it. We replied. Like Micawber, we expect something to turn up. ARTHUR JOHNSON, OF LUBIN, AS A COUNTRY BUMPKIN