Start Over

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

Record Details:

Something wrong or inaccurate about this page? Let us Know!

Thanks for helping us continually improve the quality of the Lantern search engine for all of our users! We have millions of scanned pages, so user reports are incredibly helpful for us to identify places where we can improve and update the metadata.

Please describe the issue below, and click "Submit" to send your comments to our team! If you'd prefer, you can also send us an email to mhdl@commarts.wisc.edu with your comments.




We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.

Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.

WRITING THE SCREEN PLAY 183 2. A shot of a woman lying dead in a coffin 3. A shot of a little girl playing with a Teddy bear Although the reaction close-up shots of the man were all the same, the audience reaction to each of the different cutaways was such that they associated their own responses with those of the actor. The Russians also tried an interesting experiment in juggling varying shots. When the following three shots were assembled in 1, 2, 3 order, 1. shot of a man smiling, 2. shot of a revolver pointing, 3. and a shot of the same man looking frightened, the effect was that of having the man frightened by someone holding a gun and ready to shoot. But when the sequence was juggled, so that the order of shots was 3, 2, 1, he was changed from a coward into a brave man! Build dramatically. Thus, it can be seen that a picture can be endowed with predetermined meaning and with the smooth flow of continuity if each shot is built up dramatically in the scene, if each scene is built up dramatically in the sequence, and if each sequence is built up dramatically in the entire picture. In the shot, this building of dramatic effect is created by character action and dialogue, as they are presented by an appropriate use of camera distance, angle, and movement. These separate elements have been discussed in their various sections. In building the shots within the scene, however, it is essential to be conversant with certain other techniques. These facts must be remembered first: 1. If the story is to move forward, each shot and scene should add to the forward movement. 2. As the story progresses, every situation and event must be presented more interestingly and more attractively. 3. The characters of the people in the story must grow— either for better or for worse; but some growth must be evident to carry forward an integrated sense of movement which will tie in with the flow of filmic continuity. 4. The emotions of all the people involved must grow in intensity, so that the decisions they are forced to make will, in themselves, become more important to themselves and hence to the story.