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.
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32 TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY This is not required, but it gives the Editor some idea of what is needed in the way of settings. You might amplify this a little and say: A farce comedy in 19 scenes; 5 in 3 interior sets; 14 in 8 exterior locations. Now turn up four spaces, or lines, write the word Synopsis, turn two more spaces and start the synopsis. But first let's get a clear understanding of just what the synopsis is and what it should not be. When you pick up a newspaper you see in large type certain lines that give you at a glance the real meat of the article. It's a synopsis of that news- paper story. It says perhaps "Twenty persons killed." It doesn't give their names unless one or more of the victims are of un- usual prominence. It just says that twenty persons are killed. If you wish to know who they are, you must read the story. The fact that twenty persons were killed makes the story more in- teresting than if there had .been no loss of life. Now that's just about what your synopsis should be, but since you have 250 words instead of perhaps 50 and do not need to break up your heading into sections or "decks," you can make it more of a running story, but you plan your synopsis on the same lines. You say that twenty persons are killed, but you do not use just that line. Perhaps Jim gets in a tight place and gets out again in a clever way. You do not give every detail -of how Jim gets out of trouble. You have not the space to tell all the de- tails. You say instead: Jim gets his father to pretend to make love to Nell and by pretending to be jealous brings about a quarrel that makes Nell forget her suspicions. That's the big fact. You don't have to tell in the synopsis just how Jim goes about it and precisely how the father makes love. In a word your synopsis is not a fiction form of your action story. It is just a sort of advertisement of that story so briefly told that the Editor can get the idea in a minute or two. If he likes the idea he'll read the action and if the action bears out the promise of the synopsis, he'll buy the story. Make it snappy, point to all the good things, but don't make it windy and draggy. Make it short and attractive. Word it to get the interest of the reader, whether he is Editor or producer. Some writers make a sort of synopsis of the synopsis. They start off with a couple of lines, something like this: