Screenland (Oct 1924–Apr 1925)

We'll Buy It " To begin, let me explain, the difference between the terms scenario and continuity. Nowadays an original story or an adaptation of a novel or play has come to be known as a scenario, especially if it is arranged in sequences as the director would shoot it. The continuity, on the other hand, is the technically-written script from which the director invariably works. It is not at all necessary, and the author is not expected, to write a continuity when submitting material. Let him write "a scenario," if he will — but it would be better to term it "the story." So, reduced to single terms, we have the two elements — the story and the continuity. The author, whether he has arrived or is a would-be, prepares the story. And the continuity is left to the specially trained continuity writer, who is a highly paid staff writer. Any one may write a story or a scenario, but few can write continuity. Many try to write continuity; almost always they fail, unless they have had that experience and training which is so essential. Continuity writers — good ones — are as scarce as hen's teeth. If any one doubts this statement, let him telephone the scenario department of the first picture producer that comes to mind. Ask the name and address of a continuity writer — a reliable sure-fire continuity writer — who is at liberty. I will come to continuity writing presently. First I want to tell the world and especially the interested would-be picture writers that the industry is in need of stories— strong, virile, dramatic stories, on which may be based picture plays of five reels or more for its men and women stars. But they must be good. The industry is in need of stories of modern life — the life of today — with modern settings and modern characters — which tell a human story in tense and gripping action, leading from strong situation to strong situation, and culminating in a climax that has punch and snap. These stories may embrace a wide range of sub By Hamilton Thompson ject and theme; they may deal with all classes of society and they may picture life in the open, in the crowded tenements of the poor or the gorgeous mansions of the rich — ■ but they must show life as it IS in these environments, and not as it exists in the imagination of the dreamer. This is the day of the present and the future, in which the past plays but a small part other than to make us heiirs of its traditions; stories founded on a by-gone day and generation must of necessity partake somewhat of the stilted and artificial life and manners of those times, and, therefore, have but limited power to fasten and hold attention. And these stories should be peopled with characters who live and move and have their being as do normal men and women in real life — for the mimic life on the screen must be a clear and truthful representation of actuality. The characters should laugh and cry, work and play, love and suffer, strive and struggle, endure and sacrifice, achieve and conquer — because these are the things real people are doing in every day life. We must have stories that are human and real. They must show the play of emotions in the human heart, the C[At work on a garden location making "A Thief in Paradise"; Doris Kenyon and Ronald Colman. Notice the assistant director lias the looselcaf continuity, while George Fitzmaurice directs the love scene. 23