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138 MUSINGS OF "THE PHOTOPLAY PHILOSOPHER"
The more Photoplays I see, the more am I convinced that every scenario studio should possess a book of synonyms. When printed words are necessary on a film, they should be the simplest, briefest, correctest kind of words. It is folly to use such words as perfidious when faithless would answer just as well. I recently saw a Photoplay in which the following words were used on the screen, and I doubt if half the spectators knew, on the instant, what they meant : Effectual, perfidy, expiate, depredation. Some editors seem to think that big words are more ' * literary ' ' than short ones, and that uncommon words are more "classy" than familiar ones; but this is a false notion, and should be corrected. Beyond the fact that the average assembly is composed of some children, some foreigners, some illiterates and some whose eyesight is too poor to read long words in small type, it must be remembered that short, familiar words are restful to the mind, because they require less effort to comprehend. Again, care should be taken to select just the right word to express the thought. The best authors sometimes spend hours going over their manuscripts, cutting out words thak do not exactly express the precise meaning they wish to convey ; and every story that appears in this magazine has been put thru the same pruning process. How much more so, then, should a scenario, because the reader is given but a moment to read and to understand ?
There are two classes of people who enter the Motion Picture crusade. One seeks to mend it, the other to end it. Some persons cannot see anything good in that which is bad, and some cannot see anything bad in that which is good. All things are an admixture of good and evil. The thing is to preserve the good by eliminating the bad, and to correct the bad by encouraging the good. There is nothing perfect in all Nature: everything has its defects, including Motion Pictures ; but only fools will try to destroy all because some are bad.
a?
One of the hobbies of Mr. J. Stuart Blackton, of the Vitagraph Company, is to collect curiosities of literature, and the indications are that if he ever attempts to rival* Disraeli by publishing his collection, the result would be disastrous to the famous publication of the latter gentleman. Mr. Blackton has the advantage of looking over basketfuls of mail every morning, and in one of these baskets lately he found the following communication, which certainly makes the best of Disraeli 's collection pale into insignificance :
The village bell is striking 12
My lamp wick have drank the oil
Although now in darkness girl my sight
Is here from spoil
For you I see a shing like
A moving Picture star
With a face has smooth velvet
And free from cruel scars
The bell it has seease ringing
My eye lids they are cloed
Good night dear soul I am off
to dreamland off to sweet repose
Would you buy a good Picture-play that I have written for her to act?
Yours truly,
Will J. Sullivan.
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I suggest a new sign for the theaters : "Ladies will please remove their hair."