A practical manual of screen playwriting : for theater and television films (1952)

The shots ™*L *! Up to this point we have dealt only with literary aspects of the motion-picture story as they relate to the writing of screen plays. The writer who is interested only in producing master-scene scripts denuded of all camera directions can cease reading from here on in and can settle down to writing only what is expected of him, and no more. But if he aspires to being more than merely a screen-writing journalist, if he believes that the screen-play writer should be exactly what the title signifies— a screen-play writer— then he will read further. For in the following material he will find the vital substance of the screen play. He will find detailed discussions of almost every element necessary to the fashioning of a shooting script— a scenario a film editor may use as a basic outline with which to put together the bits of film shot by the director, who may well have followed the script word for word in its entirety. The writers of television films will find themselves confronted with a number of problems that do not ordinarily concern the writers of films for theater presentation. These problems will all be discussed in their proper places. But a general discussion of the television film in relation to live television production and theater feature-film production might be appropriate at this time. There is no doubt that televised film plays can be far superior to live television dramas. This is so for the following reasons: 1. Whereas the live show is transitory, the film is a concrete record that can be shown again and again. Although live show definition is superior to that of filmed shows, at the present time, the 93