Moving Picture Age (Nov-Dec 1919)

44 MOVING PICTURE AGE MANUFACTURE of MOTION PICTURE a B RAWSTOCK B B People who are interested in the manufacture of Motion Picture Rawstock, and who have EXPERIENCE, IDEAS and CAPITAL to invest, should communicate with the undersigned. Definite propositions from responsible people who are prepared to become financially interested in a sound corporation will receive serious consideration. The Necessity for Trained Motion Picture Writers By Frank E. Woods {Supervising Director of Paramount Productions) The day of the trained author who will write almost exclusively for motion picture presentation will come ; is coming, in fact. It should arrive in about two years from now. I say two years because already a few gifted writers are studying the needs of the photoplay and are learning the art of motion picture authorship. Writing photoplays is emphatically an art apart. It is just as distinct as the art of the stage dramatist is from that of the novelist and short-story author. In fact, the relationship of the novel and the spoken play is closer than is that of the book and the screen drama, for the reason that dialog is as essential in a stage play as plot, and more so than action, whereas action and expression are the outstanding characteristics of the screen play. A "school" of photoplay writers has not yet been definitely created, and when I say "school" I use the word in the same sense that we speak of a school of dramatists or of artists. Such a school is forming now, and several recognized writers are turning their attention to writing photoplays. One well-known dramatist is now with the Paramount company because, as he puts it himself, "I am content to learn from the ground up, because I find that writing motion picture stories is a vocation distinct from anything else, because it is intensely fascinating and because it is going to be one of the best-paying vocations for the trained and talented writer." I believe with this man that wc have to gradually establish writers who are trained to write for the screen as apart from any other branch of the writers' profession, and that this will take time, but that when that time arrives these trained writers will become as famous as Sir James Barrie, Sir Arthur Pinero, Clyde Fitch, Henry Arthur Jones or the many other writers of stage plays, but not until the school of screen writers has firmly established itself. Until the screen has bred its own craftsmen in the same way the stage and fiction has done, its writers will never rank with the recognized authors. We have pood trained adapters already, but we want more than this ; we need men of big mentality — thinkers, men of genius. We are using copyrighted material, adaptations from books, stage plays and short stories largely because the stories are better than the original material submitted to us. The printed stories have a more definite plot and are more carefully thought out and written, and are therefore more desirable. The time is coming when the available copyrighted material will be more or less exhausted, and motion picture producers will be dependent on current literature and original stories, and principally the latter. Demand always creates the supply, and that is why several far-seeing men are training themselves now, training for a certain big future, when producers will make the labor worth while to students and recognized writers. Million Dollar Film Company to Produce in Porto Rico The Million Dollar Motion Picture Corporation, Porto Rico Motion Picture Productions, incorporated to engage in the production of moving pictures in the island of Porto Rico, began work on its first production early in November. The first picture is to be an adaptation of a well-known American novel and artists are now being engaged by cable for this production. Mr. F. Eugene Farnsworth is the managing director of the enterprise. He has been in the island for several weeks completing arrangements for the formation of the corporation. Mr. Farnsworth is a well-known picture director and producer. For many years he has traveled more than three hundred thousand miles taking pictures. He has visited every corner of the globe and he found in Porto Rico more favorable conditions for producing of pictures than anywhere else. It is planned that the pictures produced by the Porto Rico Motion Picture Productions, Incorporated, shall be distributed throughout the world. The Collins Studio Company has been formed in Cleveland, Ohio, to produce pictures for the home and for advertising purposes. E. Mandelbaum is president of the company, which is chartered with a capital ization of $115,000. Mr. J. F. Coufal, general manager of the Standard Slide Cornoration, says that they are having a large demand for slides of "Community Singing." That is, the words of popular and old-time songs, as well as patriotic and religious hymns. These slides are being extensively used by schools, churches, lodges and at community gatherings.