Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

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Hints for Scenario Writers By Clarence J. Caine It is assumed that the majority of those who follow this department have had some experience in preparing scripts for the market, but for the benefit of beginners even the most simple questioning pertaining to photo-play writing will be treated at some time or another in the future. Any scenarioist who is in doubt as to anything which comes under the head of script writing is welcomed to write in and state his trouble. Questions will be promptly answered through this department or personally. Address all correspondence to Scenario Writers' Dept., Picture-Play Weekly, Street & Smith, Publishers, New York City. UNITY. ONE of the greatest delights of a creative mind is to turn out a' piece of work which can be looked upon as a complete unit, every part of which has some bearing on the rest. This is especially true with writers, since it is so much easier to write a story whose incidents wander hither and thither without restraint. Unity of conception and development, however, is as difficult to achieve as it is enjoyable to behold. First of all, the idea which the author chooses to build his play upon must be one which easily lends itself to a single line of development. It is conservative to say that about seventy-five per cent of the ideas which come to an average writer are not in this class. Whether he is skillful enough to work it around to a point 1 where it will have but a single angle, or not, depends on his own ability. Granted that it will lend itself to single development, the writer still has to contend with the problem of working it out along this line. Perhaps it will seem to him that if he could switch off onto another course at some point of the plot, the story would be benefited, By looking over the idea carefully, however, he will discover that if he varies from the course he has chosen, he will spread the interest. Therefore, he must apply the acid test to everything which he puts in the plot to see if it is really a part of the whole. By following the chosen line of development religiously and rejecting everything which threatens to spoil the single effect, the writer may turn out a script which is certain to hold the audience's interest when it is shown upon the screen, because it is a perfect example of unity. PICTURES BEING RECOGNIZED. In a recent New York interview, Rex Beach, the noted author, was quoted as saying that he believed motion pictures were benefiting literature. A short time later, Robert Mantell signed a contract with an Eastern producing company, "because he. had been convinced that the present-day motion pictures were fully as artistic, if not more so, than the average stage production." Those are two examples from the many which daily come to the attention of those in filmland, and which go to prove that motion pictures are at last being recognized as the important factor that they really are. It is probably because the screen has never been really acknowledged at its real value, even by those whose hearts and souls are in motion pictures, that the photo-playwright has never risen to the position he should hold. There is no reason why a person who writes photo plays for the masses — and the masses who see the motion-picture play are truly cosmopolitan— should not receive fully as much credit as his brother and sister writers who turn out plays for the speaking stage or literature for the magazines. True though it is that it may be easier to write a photo play than a stage drama, that is no reason the author of the former should be slighted, for his work certainly reaches more people, and will probably do more good than that of the latter. We are considering now not only the writers of features, but also the author of single and double-reel stories, for all have their place in the film world. Roy L. McCardell, author of "The Diamond From the Sky," the big serial now running, and a veteran photo-playwright and novelist, touches on this matter in an article dealing with past and present coditions in the photo-playwriting field recently published in The Moving-picture World. We present Mr. McCardell's story here in part, without comment, as the viewpoint of one writer who has gained the top of the ladder: Manufacturers have ignored the value of a good story written for the screen by men and women of the highest literary ability. These leading fiction writers of America could not and would not write moving pictures for the reason that the pay was pitiful, and the treatment they experienced at the hands of the average scenario department of even the largest companies disgusted them. I have fought the good fight in moving pictures for fifteen years. In these fifteen years I have clamored at the studio doors, and have had experiences that would have dismayed and discouraged all save a few of us of the faithful. I have written hundreds of screen stories, many of which have been butchered by bad and stagy direction, and some that have been greatly helped by good direction and capable and sincere acting. At this point I wish to state that the moving-picture art industry would have long ago collapsed had it not been for some fifty most able and intelligent directors. I cite Griffith, Ince, Sennett, Powell, Taylor, and Baker — there are many more whose names will readily occur to those who love and know good pictures. For years I would not do feature films of four or five reels because the money offered was beneath contempt. Finally, William Fox offered me a price commensurate with the careful and painstaking way I write a scenario. As a result, I adapted 'A Fool There Was" for the screen in live reels, and Frank Powell directed it like the genius he is,