Technique of the photoplay (1916)

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.

258 HISTORICAL AND COSTUME PLAYS ing, sees them. They run and he gives pursuit, overtaking them and compelHng the wife to return to their home. This would not be dramatic because it would strongly suggest comedy. Instead, play the scene in the parlor. The pair are about to leave the room when the husband enters. Here is a more dramatic approach to the moment, and a slight pause will raise a suspense until we see whether the hus- band will shoot or sue. We get the same general effect, but one action is humorous, where the other is dramatic. Naturally the latter is more helpful to the story as a whole. 32. You must plan your story to give a succession of blows, but between the blows you must permit time for recovery. If you make dramatic a scene that does not lend itself to the dramatic, you will fail of your effect, just as you will fail if your punches come too close together or are too evenly matched. If you fire a sixteen-inch gun twenty-one times, the last shot is far less effective than the first. On the other hand, if you begin with a cap pistol, follow with a revolver shot, a gun shot, a small field piece, and so gradually come to the big gun, you will gain in effect with each shot, since each will exceed the previous ones in force. Plan your drama to get a gradual rise to the climax. Plan your story so that all interest lies in the chief character. Offer a clearly marked struggle and suspense that rises naturally from the telling of the story and does not depend upon trickery. Give a new plot or an old plot with a new twist and you will have a drama that will he acceptable. (3.XX:1 LV:3) (4.IX:12 XXV :2) (6.XXXVIII:12 XXXIX: 7) (8.XIV:4-5) (1LIX:9 XIII :10 XXXV :9 XXXIX :13) (13. LVI:26) (16.XII:4) (17.XX:10) (18.XVIII:1) (20.XVIII :4) (22.XVIII:5) (26.XVIII:11) {27.IX:15 XXXIII :11) (29.1X: 17) (30.LIV:10) (32.XIV:8 XLIII:11). CHAPTER LI HISTORICAL AND COSTUME PLAYS PRACTICALLY all historical plays are costume plays, but not all costume plays are historical. Historical plays are those based on the recital of historical events and which either follow history closely or at the least do not offer facts contradictory to the history they purport to represent. Costume plays are those of any period other than the present; plays of the present but of a people whose mode of dress is unlike our own, or plays of mythical lands either past or present. In the purest sense, however, by costume play is understood a play of some other period presenting a romance not in the guise of history. In the studio a more comprehensive single classi- fication groups as costume plays any play for which the costumes must be supplied by the management.