Talking pictures : how they are made, how to appreciate them (c. 1937)

Dreams Wanted David Copperfield into a screen play. When he was shown his own card he pointed his finger to the last item. "But," he said, "the proofs of that story were struck off by the printer only a week ago." The head reader answered mildly, "We use the air mail!" Motion picture writing is definitely one of the hardest forms of composition. It requires an intimate knowledge of the essential craftsmanship of both the stage play and the novel. But it must pass beyond this, not only into an understanding of, but into a genuine subconscious instinct for, the intricacies of motion picture technique. Many amateur writers, failing to get their contributions accepted for publication in either a "pulp" or a "slick" magazine (a distinction based on the class of paper used by two distinctly different classes of periodicals), turn to the studios with the mistaken belief that the requirements of the motion pictures are less stringent. Unfounded plagiarism suits find growth in such soil. It has become the general practice for studios not to read unsolicited manuscripts wherein the writer has not given himself the usual legal protection by copyright, either directly or through publication. In 1936 there were 525 feature photoplays made in the United States. In the same year, the world around, more than twenty thousand short stories, novels, and plays were accepted, in a score of languages for magazine use, stage production, or book publication. From the publication or stage [39 J