The technique of the photoplay ([c1913])

40 TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY That's not one-tenth of what you wanted to say about the scene, and it's not half what you think that you positively must say, perhaps, but it is all you need to say for you have told the whole scene in four type-written lines. You have told the director all he needs to know and that is enough. The director knows how a man and woman in love with each other will act and he knows how a cranky old father will act. You tell him that these are the three people and they do certain things. You leave how they do it to the director, telling only what is done. You see but one period used, and that at the end of the scene. Dashes are used elsewhere. There are two reasons for this. One is that you do not have to stop and consider punctuation and the other is that by using a dash instead of a punctuation mark, you can clip off a lot of unimportant words. You are not trying to write fluent phrase. You are trying to tell a story as briefly as possible and the dash not only saves a lot of connecting words, but it chops the sentence up into each action. If you will study that scene closely you will see that each dash follows some definite action. Morton enters on foot. That is one action. He sees Nell. He comes down. He speaks to Nell. He grows angry. Each division is a distinct action. It will seem difficult at first to write with such extreme brevity and it may be some little time before you can write so tersely and get everything in, but it will come with practise and after a time you will find it very easy. At the start, for the sake of prac- tice, let the action run as it will and then see how much you can cut it down without taking out a single explanation. You will feel that you should have told how John kissed Nell and how they held hands until she gently withdrew hers. You will think that "lovers' greetings" is far too little to get down the pretty little love scene you have in mind, but you'll find that the director knows what lovers' greetings are, and if he doesn't get your love scene he will have one as good and perhaps better. There is one thing you do not know and he does. He knows pre- cisely what the players of Nell and John can do and he will give them stuff that they can play. You might have had a five foot heroine in mind, a kittenish, cuddlesome little thing. His lead- ing woman may be five feet seven and that's seven inches too tall to be cuddlesome. Your business, if written in full, would have been absurd. If you had written this so that it had to be played by a five foot soubrette, you would not have sold it to a director with a five foot seven woman lead, but by leaving it more or less impersonal you appeal to either. At the same time, if you have a scene that needs ten lines or twenty or fifty to get the idea over, use the space. The measure