The screen writer (June 1947-Mar 1948)

Other End of the Rainbow SUMNER LYON SUMNER LYON is a member of SWG, now living in New York where he has been specializing in the field of educational and commercial films. IN 1945, Col. Darryl Zanuck discovered Manhattan, and invaded. Units of other companies followed. The island was taken. . . . Mission accomplished. Headquarters: The House on 92nd Street. Victory secure, the motion picture fortress this year moved into 106th St. Even the Wall Street Journal acknowledged the invaders' success when it announced that Pathe's Park Avenue studio is "equipped to turn out a complete feature picture ... is the nation's only vertical studio. ... As many as three units can work simultaneously." But some people are beginning to wonder what's going to happen to the natives. Are they to be despoiled ; or might they perhaps participate in the fruits of success? What natives? Why, those who for years have been making motion pictures in the East. And, for your information, there is a tribe called "writers" among them. This tribe has been busy in an industry which produces what is called the short subject. Its archeology is somewhat unfamiliar because of the shadow thrown upon it by the glamour of its Hollywood progeny. Let us scrape lightly the shovel to reveal the nature of this product, and the writing headaches concomitant thereto. Arbitrarily we shall subdivide the short subject into two general categories: theatrical, and non-theatrical. You may quarrel with this classification, for often what is produced for one is found useful by the other. And often the product defies classification. Broadly however, the purpose of the film — which shapes its content — and not alone its quality, determines its status in this regard. Into the theatrical classification we shall place the newsreel, and the "entertainment" short subject; into the non-theatrical, the educational, the documentary, and the commercial. Each of these products requires a special kind of writing; each has its intrinsic problems. The perennial newsreel has a definite story to tell in very limited footage. The newsreel writer, of which there are about ten, scattered among the five newsreel companies, always under pressure, must frame his story to fit the film available, cram in as much information as possible, and time his narration so that it accents the film for maximum effect. No retakes or rewrites are possible. The recording is done to the negative, and the first composite goes right into a theatre. The Eastern production of theatrical short subjects is accounted for largely by RKO Pathe's This Is America series, and the March of Time. Fiction and musical shorts, which rest more easily in the "entertainment" classification, emerge but sporadically from the East. And certainly there is nothing novel in the writing problems aroused by these. In the non-theatrical field, such educational pictures as are made hardly deserve the category. (Let us hope that Encyclopaedia Britannica Films and Young America, Inc. may soon refute this statement.) For, were the "educational" a standard product, its creation would demand the most exacting care. The writer would be required to weigh content, language, even length of individual scenes, against the age, grade, and course of study of the given audience. The writer of the true educational picture would be a master psychologist. Since, however, visual education is still in a disorganized state, the usual classroom film is merely an adaptation of some short whose content happens to be of some interest to teachers here and there. The student audience of America has not developed a status which can demand the meticulous planning and careful production which films for its consumption deserve. On the shoulders of the so-called documentary, then, has fallen the burden of transmitting information through the medium of the screen. And it need not be limited to non-theatrical distribution. Both The March of Time and the This Is America are documentary in style, but what they have to say is certainly tempered 12