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CHAPTER LIX FEATURES FEATURE is a most elastic term. It is applied to auytking over three reels on the argument that anything exceeding that length should be important enough to be made a feature, but the same argument was applied to two reels in the not very remote past, and some managerial geniuses have succeeded in making features out of one reel stories. Feature, as applied to photoplay, is more a trade term than an exact definition and the word is sadly misused. 2. Properly a feature should not be a story in three or more reels but a story in that length because it is worth the footage and will repay in charm and appeal the additional space. To the author his feature story should be something so much superior to the general run of one and two reel plays that it is worth not only the footage but a proportionately larger check. It does not pay merely to write a story in three reels or five. It pays to write stories that are so much better than the majority of pictures in the same footage that they stand above the average and command a ready sale. A story may require five thousand feet for its telling and yet not be worth the five reel length. Aim to make your stories worth not only that length but more, and there can be found a ready market. 3. It should not be sufficient that your story is as good as those you see on the screen. In the first place the story you see on the screen is seldom as good as the manuscript from which it was made. Practically all stories suffer some shrinkage in value in their transla- tion to the screen through poor cutting and weak direction. More- over, the author with a proper spirit will not be content merely to be as good as the others. He will desire to be better than others, not alone as a matter of pride, but because he knows that it will be to his financial gain. Certain names stand out on the list of writers because their owners lead the way. Some of these authors are of the old guard, while others are of comparatively recent arrival, but all of them are constantly striving to better their work, to develop along new lines, and their work is in demand. It was they who made possible the two reel stories and then the three part plays. It is they who are now offering original five part stories in competition with book and play rights. It is they who will lead the way to other discoveries. They strive constantly for the best and are not content with it when they achieve it, but immediately set a new and higher standard. 4. Feature work should be approached in this spirit. There is plen- ty of room among the stars, but few are rising that high, either through laziness or lack of ambition, and yet it merely means a proper concentration on one's work and a refusal to offer for sale a story that is not evidently equal to the author's standard. 5. To write a real feature of four or five parts is no easy task. The 294