Moving Picture World (Jan-Mar 1914)

802 THE MOVING PICTURE WORLD THE PHOTOPLAYWRIGHT Conducted by EPES WINTHROP SARGENT HERE'S a picture of Emmet Campbell Hall, at present a staff write? for the Lubin Company and one of the soundest writers in the business. Four years ago Mr. Hall was turning out a professional, workable script, and at that time he had never seen a studio, indeed his first glimpse of a studio was nearly a year after his first script was sold and then he slopped off at Philadelphia for a look in at Lubin's on his way to New York for a talk with the Biograph. Mr. Hall has been widely quoted by the correspondence schools in a manner to suggest that he had been a pupil of that particular school, but he was doing finished work for nearly a year before the first school was started. He had come to Washington from the south to take a position in the civil service, but he found writing more to his liking and gave his attention to "fillers" for magazines and newspapers. He early turned to photoplays and, with nothing more than a form sheet as a guide, he started in and soon attracted the attention of the Lubin, Biograph, Selig and other companies, his original hits being mostly placed with the Lubin and Biograph companies. He has twice refused a position with the Biograph, not liking the idea of living in New York, but when the Lubin staff was formed he joined them as staff writer. Some of his early successes were: "Indian Blood" (the first story with that title), "The^House with the Closed Shutters," "His Trust" and "His Trust Fulfilled," the last two being practically a two-reel picture. Emmet Campbell Hall. Supplies. If you really mean to be a writer, lay in supplies in proper quantities. Do not buy a box of paper. Buy a printer's size ream and have it cut. Get your carbons by the box and not by the dozen, and do not have to run down to the store for things just at the time you feel most like writing. You*n save money and time. Classifying. Our form for cover sheets carries the three classifications, "Farce," "Comedy," and "Drama." A friend objects that this does riot include provision for melodrama. It is not necessary to classify closely; indeed, it is not necessary to classify at all, but if you do farce, farce-comedy, comedy, comedy-drama and drama is sufficiently exact. Unless you do use a printed cover it is not necessary to classify at all, and above all other things, do not call a story a half-reel. Some editors might buy it for a whole and pay you for the half you say it is. Reading. Do you read to gain knowledge or do you merely read? A novel may give you an insight into some phase of life, but not much. We got for Arabian stories out of the foot notes to the Sale version of the Koran and two more from extracts from the Rodwell version. The Ramayana gave us two modern stories and the travels of Mungo Park helped with the Zulu stuff we sold last year to Lubin. We did not find the stories themselves there, but the suggestions for stories and the local color. We've read most everything we could lay hands on, from the Bible to Rules and Regulations for the Guidance of Station and Baggage Agents on the New York Central Railroad, and we have gotten information and suggestion out of both. Using Clips. Where do you stick your paper clip, in the middle of the sheet or at one end? Put it on (and just one) about an inch from the left hand corner. Then the script can be read without removing the clip, that is, if you do not start y^ur script at the top of the page, but make the proper drop of two inches. she did so, and not only did the scripts come back more quickly than usual, but not all of her return stamps were used. If the boy who has been bringing you groceries for the past year should suddenly come around some morning and ask for the job of building the new house you planned to erect, wouldn't you be apt to regard dubiously his skill as a builder? Wouldn't you figure that experience delivering groceries scarcely qualified him as a builder? On the other hand, if the man who recently built a handsome row of houses across the street should approach you about the contract, you would give attention to his arguments, for you would know him competent and well qualified. It is the same way when an editor reads a script. If it looks like the product of an experienced workman, he feels that it probably is good. If it fairly shouts its amateurishness, he argues it very probably is poor, and past experience has proved to him that nine hundred and ninety-nine times out of every thousand he is right. No experienced writer casts his play for a certain studio. He may, now and then, suggest that a part is particularly well suited to some star of that studio, but he will convey this suggestion in a letter and not on the script. He will not write John Bunny's name on a script sent to Vitagraph, for instance. He will know that the part might suit James Lackaye or Hughie Mack equally well. He knows, too, that the director casts the play and that the editor will probably resent the cocksureness that virtually suggests that the studio will have to purchase the play. The practised writer leaves his script in such a shape that if it comes back from one studio in good shape it can go on to the next in good order and without recopying; whereas, if the play has been cast, he must write another cast sheet. It is almost impossible to get a ribbon impression that will match the other sheets and this, of itself, is a tacit admission of a previous rejection. Knowing all these things, the editor will argue that the play cannot be worth while and is apt to send it back without reading it. But the final and most positive evidence of amateurishness is the enclosure of loose stamps with the manuscript and no return envelope. The first letter of the writer's alphabet is always to send a stamped and addressed envelope with every submission and one for each script in that submission. Not to do so is to confess inexperience. Where loose stamps do come in they are appropriated to the editor's use and the script goes back with the single stamp that will move it out of the office. Don't advertise your ignorance. Try to conceal it. Casting Plays. Don*t cast your plays. Lately a woman wanted to know if perhaps this was the reason her plays came back so quickly from a certain studio, and we opined that it was. She explained that a friend suggested that she mark in the players of certain parts for the guidance of the studio and Mr. McCardell's Views. Lately we spoke of a story in the Green Book. This story started in with a pretty little paragraph about a man in a railroad car jotting down on the back of an envelope a story he would subsequently sell some company at a fabulous sum, the writer being Roy L. McCardell. Ju^ in passing it might be mentioned that the writer, Hugh Weir, is now under medical observation, having developed hallucinations, and William Lord Wright cleverly suggests that this Green Book story was one of thera. Anyway it has served to bring a letter from Mr. McCardell and he shows that even a famous humorist (and he is famous) must do his share of haul work if he would find reward. This is what he writes: I appreciated your temperate paragraph on the Green Book article. I hardly need to say that I knew nothing of the writer or the article until I saw it in print. I only wish I had known it was in preparation that I might have referred the author to you to get the right dope. However, what does it matter? The insiders know better and the boobs like to read that sort of stuff. 1 do get any amount of letters, not only from boobs, but also from people who should know better. I find it useless to endeavor to be patient or instructive to any of them. In the first place, they have not the brains, and in the second place, they will not take the pains. I suppose if they had the brains, they would take the pains. When I tell them to buy your book, they only write me more letters and send rae more deathbed junk in four, five and six scenes. Personally, it has been a good year for me with Selig, Vitagraph, Kalem, Edison, Mutual and Biograph, in order named. The end of the year finds me with but two unsold manuscripts. One of these, an outdoor skating winter comedy, and the other, a fantastic Chinese story on the Yellow Jacket order. Both have been refused with regret because concerns they were sent to were not prepared to take such pictures. Regarding Ed-Au Club; I am going to join, but I stay home Saturdays and write moving pictures with my secretary, Mr. Roese, whom you will have the pleasure of meeting. We work all day and we sometimes work all night, and Sundays too, laying out campaign for the coming week and filling what orders we have in hand, etc. I have been selling to Keystone, too. But this is the only Los Angeles studio I send to. Selig being my farthest west. I find the companies I have named to you, and in the order named — Selig, Vitagraph, Kalem, Mutual, Edison and Biograph, are now a good, strong market for me and practically take everything I write at excellent prices. I have the reputation with these good, solid, honest companies of furnishing full, complete working scripts. They tell me that while their directors may and do make changes in my scripts, yet my scenarios can be placed in the hand of new and more or less inexperienced directors, and if they follow my directions they will get a good picture. I average six or seven pages to a reel and am doing a great deal of two and three reel stories. In response to a Balboa advertisement I sent a script, which they accepted. But their copyright release blank only called for the payment of ten dollars. This I refused to accept, and had no difficulty selling the script to a good company for fifty dollars. Mrs. Brandon has, personally, been as nice as she could be and I believe her to be absolutely on the level. But the Eclair directors "stalled" on some scripts, which she had practically accepted at twenty-five dollars each; but I also had the good fortune to dispose of them promptly at fifty dollars each. I get twenty-five