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126 TECHNIQUE OF THE PHOTOPLAY place. We cannot move Christmas over into May or bring Easter down to the Fourth of July. Having arrayed these facts in proper sequence, throw out all that do not actually advance the main plot and see if you have enough action left. See also that the main plot is not too de- pendent on the side action. If more action is needed, add some of the other material. Do not try to get in all that the author got in merely because he did get it in. Make your great aim to get the story down complete without regard to the padding or the literary style. You are concerned only with the main story. If you can get that all down it is sufficient. In adapting plays the process is much the same. The action is divided into scenes and acts, but it may be that a single sentence in the dialogue of the last act will indicate a scene in the early part of the photoplay or even a succession of scenes. In the earlier version of this book we used the hunting scene, spoken by Lady Gay, in London Assurance, as an example of the fact that the visualized drama presents greater opportunities than the stage play. This time we can point to the Reliance production in support of the statement. Poems and songs lend themselves to broader treatment as a rule and permit or even require the interpolation of other scenes and incidents to supplement the rather meagre plot that can be conveyed in brief verse. The Selig production of Sally in Our Alley, adapted from the song of that name by Miss Hetty Gray Baker, is a case in point. There was little to the song-poem. Miss Baker supplied her own plot and sold it to Selig from the outside. To all practical purposes it was her own play, though carrying a song title. On the other hand the same company's The Vagabonds was a straight adaptation of that poem and probably would not have been purchased from an outside con- tributor. Each studio employs one or more men whose knowledge of classic and current literature is at least as extensive as your own. Do not try to sell your literary knowledge to them either as adaptation or original work. If you do Romeo and Juliet in modern dress, give it some modern twists to go with the new dressing.