Practical cinematography and its applications (1913)

230 PRACTICAL CINEMATOGRAPHY producers follows a similar practice. He has a staff of eight writers whose sole duty is the preparation of scenarios for production. Plots as they flit through the minds of these men are jotted down and pigeon-holed. The outside contributions which come in with every post are scanned, and those thought suitable are dissected, their ideas are torn out and re-com- mitted to paper, for filing, while the author is rewarded with payment according to the merit of his work. At this establishment no lengthy scenario submitted by an unknown writer is considered. Time is too valuable when eight or ten stages have to be kept going. The staff is fully occupied upon the work in hand, and cannot wade through pages of often indecipher- able hand-writing. The method of this particular producer in the case of an ordinary play is to have an abstract, prepared by the retained scenario writer, indicating the scenes, their sequence, characters, and other details, with a brief synopsis of the plot, the whole being set out upon a sheet of foolscap. Upon this material the producer works, explaining to the company the story of the play and the situations, as they progress step by step. Many producers, however, prefer the scenario to be submitted in a more complete form, though requirements of brevity and terseness must be