Palmer plan handbook; photoplay writing, simplified and explained (1919)

14. In considering the first part or exposition of your photoplay, liken it to the manner in which an acquaintance recounts something that he has just seen. He says, "Just as I was passing the corner of Twenty-second and Broadway I saw a man and woman quarreling. I knew they were engaged to be married, because I heard her mention the engagement ring which she was handing back to him. Then I heard her mutter, 'Father!' as an elderly man approached, and she hurriedly opened her hand- bag and handed a dead snake to the man with whom she had been quarreling. He smiled, thrust the snake into his pocket, she took his arm and they disappeared around the corner, followed by her father, who had caught sight of them. Well, I followed them, and—." There you have your first part or exposition. The story-teller has introduced three characters, established their relationships and aroused curiosity as to what hap- pened after he followed them around the corner. The example given is crude, and yet it is simple and clear. THE MIDDLE. 15. Having succeeded in getting the story under way we find ourselves entering the middle, or period of development. It is in this portion of a photoplay that it is most necessary to avoid disastrous departure from the unity, for having started our characters on their several ways it is exceedingly easy to allow them to wander over too much territory and to involve too great elapses of time. It is also easy to intro- duce new characters as a matter of convenience and then abruptly drop them out of the story. This should be avoided to just as great an extent as possible. Of course, incidental characters are sometimes necessary. In "Gates of Brass," the poor woman whom Blake had cheated out of her savings and who interrupted Blake and Margaret while they were busy at the Christmas tree, was an incidental character, and yet she was highly important. In fact, it was her entrance in the life of Margaret that turned its whole tide and, revealing to her the real nature of her father, caused her to leave and scorn him. But in considering the introduction of a character into a story the cause should be carefully weighed, and if it is found that the story can be smoothly and interestingly carried forward without such incidental character it is better to do so. Throughout the middle portion of the story we must realize the value of dramatic situations and the desirability of the suspense that arises therefrom. We must further realize that each situation must build logically to the next and that all must event- ually terminate in the big climactic situation that forms the final apex. What William Archer says in his volume on play-making applies with equal pertinency to the creation of a photoplay. "A reasonable audience will, if necessar\', endure a certain amount of exposition, a certain positing of character and circumstance, before the tension (sus- pense) sets in; but when it once has set in, the playwright must on no account suffer it to relax until he deliberately resolves it just before the fall of the curtain. "That is implied when we say that a play consists of a great crisis worked out through a series of minor crises but the main tension (suspense), once initiated, must never be relaxed. If it is, the play is over, though the author may have omitted to note the fact, but not infrequently he begins a new play, under the impression that he is finishing the old one." 16. This suspense may be temporarily relaxed as one situation reaches its cul- mination and another starts to grow out of it, but this relaxation serves only as a tem- porary breathing space for the audience. The main line of suspense leading to the 82