The Moving picture world (November 1925-December 1925)

526 MOVING PICTURE WORLD December 12, 1925 OF the Screeuy BY the ScreeUy And FOR the Screen By William J. Reilly AN intense pride in the motion picture and a great jealousy for its success have always been a part of our makeup since we first became identified with it. Not even the task of reporting— in one day — for a city newspaper eight different picture showings— winding up with a Lyman Howe program at night dulled our appetite for pictures or their success. It is with pleasure, therefore, that we begin here to present to the industry the plan which Hrolf Wisby has perfected for the SUPER production of BETTER pictures. The production of BETTER pictures is by no means a LOST ART. Within a week "Stella Dallas" and "The Big Parade" fired a broadside under which New York and points west will reel for a long time to come. Mr. Wisby is not posing as the Liberator of the Screen. Nor do we rate ourselves as his "discovered." A couple of years from now we may stick out thumbs in our galluses, wag our head, and join the chorus, "Always knew that Wisby boy would make good if he had a chance." But that's as far as we will go. Wisby is not a "nut" who thought up an idea LAST week and who is rushing around THIS week to tell the world it is the ONLY thing in picture production. He has spent seven years of his own time and $50,000 of his own money in creating and in perfecting an ideal of production which makes for ORIGIN.^L creative work OF the screen, BY the screen and FOR the screen EXCLUSIVELY. To work out anything on your own time and your own resources is vastly different from running an experiment station on somebody else's bankroll. And with Wisby, tiis plan has not been a hobby. It has been, and remains, his life work. "OF the screen, BY the screen, and FOR the screen" may sound like the first lesson in the kindergarten production school. As a matter of fact, it is the FIRST and LAST lesson in ANY picture production school. In any business, we are likely to get away from FUNDAMENTALS. The stage gets away from fundamentals when it attempts to do something which belongs to the realm of the novel. The picture swallows a came! •when it tries to do something which belongs to the stage and to the stage alone. So with ALL of the arts. Just how does the Wisby Plan differ from anything in usage today? Mr. Wisby calls his Plan "The Hrolf Wisby Cinema-Regie," a heavy weight for such a good idea to carry around. Out where we came from they had an eight-sided school house which some people called the Octagon School House. But we plain folks just called it the Eight Sided School House. So we'll just call "The Hrolf Wisby Cinema-Regie" the "Wisby Plan." It is built around the idea of the Regisseur. There, again, is one of them trick furrin names, for which we will later substitute our own better known, if not technically correct parallel. Supervising Director. The Regisseur is the director plus. On the continental stage the Regisseur initiates everything which goes into a dramatic production, from the performance of the actors to the mounting of the play, the lighting, and stage effects. He is more than a dramatic coach. He is schooled in every department of the theatre. He has around him a staff of men skilled in their work, connoisseurs who plan WITH and FOR the Regisseur along original lines. Perhaps the most famous of all Regisseurs was Max Reinhardt, producer of "The Miracle," whose school has left an indelible imprint on the stage. And Reinhardt's staff, in the beginning, was made up of UNKNOWNS. As Wisby says, "No art becomes respectable until its principles are acknowledged, methodized, and housed in a system." Mr. Wisby, as said elsewhere, was Regisseur for Mme. Oda and for Mile. I'Aerolia. He knows what the job means. "In picture production," says Mr. Wisby, "Regisseur supervision means not only thorough-going advance preparation affecting every detail of the production before the crank starts, but intimate co-operation with every member of the technical staff in the performance of his work. It makes the performance fool-proof, technically speaking, and it weeds out the inconsistencies, the absurdities, and the stock routine." Under the Wisby Plan, not ONE or TWO but EVERY unit entering into the production contributes something ORIGINAL and in CAMERA harmony to the picture. Every member of the cast is given a complete script of the part and the fullest opportunity to study that part and bring to it an original interpretation that will blend into the picture as a whole. So with the continuity itself, the scenic effects, the camera work. Five scripts, under the Wisby Plan, feed into a sixth — The Master Scenario. These five script sources of individual interpretation of the subject involved are: 1 — The Scenario Script ; 2 — The Supervising Director Script; 3 — The Continuity Script (completed); 4 — The Scenario of Scenic Effects; 5 — The Scenario of Special Cinematography. The Scenario Script, according to Mr Wisby, "is the usual thing in the way of scenario," which is handed to the Supervising Director. (Continued on page 537) DO YOU RECOGNIZE THIS SCENE?— Here is the "Pardon Came Too Late" scene, one of a series of panels in which Hrolf IVisby takes well-known picture scenes and treats them along lines of creative interpretation. The rider, above, is racing with the message which came too late. Out of the dust from the horse's hoofs a wraith horseman appears, galloping beside the living rider. The race see-saws. Then the wraith horse creeps ahead. As he passes by the unseeing human rider, the wraith turns, his mask drops, revealing the head of Death. The human rider charges on. dramatically, unaware that he has lost the race with Death.