Mary turns to John who leaves host and hostess, and the couple
make their way across the dance floor.
This, of course, is but a section of a script. Moreover, it is as
technically perfect as anyone could desire. And yet here the scenario
writer has Richard denouncing Mary in a closeshot, denouncing her quite
savagely, and right on top of this, in the next scene, she is walking
serenely on with her partner, neither he nor any of the others in the
crowded room having noticed the previous scene.
This, of course, is an exceedingly obvious instance of how the ability
to visualize comes to the director's aid. Yet there are many more subtle
errors and superficially more realistic, that are ever lurking in a
manuscript, lurking so securely as to sometimes escape notice.
You may choose to say again, “Tush, the scenario writer lacked common
sense when he wrote the above sequence of scenes.”
And so he did. After all, common sense when applied to the art of
directing is none other than “picture sense,” the power of
visualization. And so we arrive back at the beginning of the chapter.
CHAPTER III
PREPARATION FOR PRODUCTION
_The routine attached to a director's task
before he begins actual production.—Also some
instances of stellar temperament, which, though
mildly amusing in their relation, are something
akin to tragedy in their enactment_
CHAPTER III
Before going further into the requirements of actual directing and the
methods employed by certain directors, the various processes through
which a scenario goes before the actual work of production starts, can
be noted with benefit.
The scenario writer finishes his manuscript and the director goes into
retirement for a day or two to study it and to put it through the test
of visualization.
In the meantime other copies of the manuscript have been placed with the
various departments of production of the studio.
The production department receives a copy. It is the duty of this
department, first of all, to estimate the cost of the picture. So a
“scene plot” is made. This consists of the description of each interior
“setting” and exterior “location” called for in the story. A list is
made as follows:
_Interiors_
Ball room
Kitchen
Living room
Cafe
Etc., etc.
_Exteriors_
Waterfalls
Open road
Large field
Etc., etc.
After the description of each interior and exterior are placed the
numbers representing the manuscript scenes that are played in each
interior and exterior.
The cost of production is then estimated. The production manager, the
head of the studio, a man who strives to combine the ability of a
business man with the feeling of an artist, perhaps sees a way whereby
the kitchen scenes can be transferred to the living room. This will
eliminate the cost of erecting the kitchen setting.
Details such as this attended to, he will then give orders to the art
and property departments to start on erecting the first setting. This is
usually the one in which the greatest number of scenes are enacted.
The art department makes plans for the setting. When these are passed
they are given to the boss carpenter who sets his men at work on the
actual preparation of the set.
When they have finished the art department in conjunction with the
property and drapery departments “dress” the set. This is the working of
fixing it up and making it look like the real thing.
In the meantime the picture is being cast. Probably the star and leading
man are already chosen. Then the casting director makes the list of all
the actors, actresses and “extras” needed in the production of the
picture.
He refers to his files and calls upon the people he needs, either upon
those in the stock company which most studios of size maintain, or from
the numerous agencies who manage the players.
His selections are then submitted to the director and the production
manager for O. K.
In the meantime the location department has secured a list of the
exterior scenes required by the picture. The location man refers to his
files containing pictures of every likely location within a reasonable
distance of the studio. He must find waterfalls, open road and a large
field.
He selects these locations, being sure that the physical action of the
story can be played in those he selects and then submits them to the
director. If the director has a reason for not liking any of them, the
location man must jump into his automobile and tour the countryside for
suitable substitutes to his first selections.
All rather hard and serious work.
Then the director starts to work. The production department must watch
him and have the next setting ready for him on time so that not a day
will be wasted. If more than one or two companies are working in the
studio there may not be room to erect the next setting. Then, perhaps,
if weather permits, the director goes out on location.
Thus he is obliged to jump from one place in the story to another. He
may be shooting scenes in the last part of the picture on one day and
scenes in the first part a few days later.
All this is the routine work that must be gone through with the
production of each picture.
Then the temperament of the actors and actresses comes in—comes in very
strongly for that matter. If the director be working with a female star
she may complain as to her leading man.
[Illustration:
TRUE AND PENETRATING CHARACTERIZATION FEATURES WIN DE MILLE'S “MISS
LULU BETT”
]
[Illustration:
“THE LOST ROMANCE,” A PICTURE DIRECTED BY WILLIAM DE MILLE, BEARS THE
SAME TRUE RELATION TO THE UPPER CRUST OF THE SOCIAL PIE AS “MISS
LULU BETT” DOES TO THE MIDDLE PART
]
“What's the matter with him?” the director will ask. “Can't he act?”
“Yes, but he is not quite tall enough,” answers the star, “why can't I
have So-and-So from my last picture?”
“Well, So-and-So is busy on another picture just now, sorry,” answers
the director.
“I won't work without him,” this from the star.
Of course she will work without him. She has to. The director knows
this. So does she. But he has to handle her diplomatically, to say the
least.
He would like to come out and say: “You _will_ work with any leading man
they give us.” But he doesn't. He knows the temperament of the feminine
star.
He summons all his reserve to his rescue and speaks to the lady in
cooing words. He brushes her ruffled fur the right way. Exasperated
husbands might take a fine example from him.
After a few minutes talk he has succeeded in convincing the lady that
Such-and-Such has So-and-So beaten eighty ways as to general ability,
furthermore, his contrasting complexion shows her off to much better
advantage.
Then the star, thoroughly convinced, cheers the director up with such an
answer as: “Oh, all right, if you insist, but I did want So-and-So.”
She wouldn't dream of giving in and showing the director he was right.
The director doesn't get such satisfaction. But if he's wise he doesn't
bother about it.
And so the work of production can go on. One day while the director is
working in the cafe setting, which may be erected to represent a
Parisian cafe an extra will come up to him and tell him that it is all
wrong.
“Because,” he will say, “I've been in a cafe in Paris.”
“Well, were you in all the cafes of Paris?,” the director will politely
ask.
“No, but this one didn't have—”
“Back to your place then, please,” answers the director if he maintains
his diplomacy and poise and retains his anger.
Another extra will have too much makeup on. The director must know how
makeup photographs, what its effects are with people of various
complexions and under certain lights.
The extra will resent being sent back to the dressing room and told to
alter his face. It is a reflection on his ability. Another case where
diplomacy is demanded.
And so finally the director gets everything working smoothly. He gains
the confidence of the star and the leading man. He shows the extras that
he knows his business and is perfectly able to look out for it, without
their assistance.
The only trouble is that just about at this point the director has
finished the picture.
CHAPTER IV
THE METHOD OF WILLIAM DE MILLE
_Facts regarding the manner in which the
majority of pictures are made.—The new order of
producing pictures “in continuity” with some
interesting remarks on the subject from William
C. De Mille, director of “Lulu Bett” and “The
Lost Romance_”
CHAPTER IV
One of the most highly publicized tasks which fall to the lot of the
director, highly publicized because of its mere freakishness, is the
routine which decrees that he must often begin “shooting” his picture in
the middle or at the end of his story, or at any intermediate point
except the very first scene. Press agents delight in harping on this
fact, calling attention to the mental agility of the director in being
able to jump from love scene to angry outburst, omitting intervening
action in the jump and coming back to it at a later date.
This is due to the fact, as has just been stated, that all scenes taking
place in the same set or exterior location must, for economy's and
convenience's sake, be photographed at once or rather successively.
The “scene plot,” compiled by the production department, lists the
number of interior settings and exterior locations required by the
picture and after the description of each scene in the scene plot a row
of numbers, each indicating a separate scene to be played in the set or
location, follows. Thus a section of a scene plot may read:
LIVING ROOM: Scenes 19, 20, 21, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 159, 160, etc.
DINING ROOM: Scenes 1, 2, 3, 4, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 175, 176,
177, 178, 179, 291, 292, 293, etc.
Of all the settings required let it be said that the living room
contains the majority of the action to be photographed. In all
likelihood, then, this set is the first one to be erected by the studio
production department and as a result the director begins his first days
work with scene No. 19 and follows it with scenes No. 20 and No. 21,
which disclose closely related action.
Let us say that these early scenes have to do with the first happy days
of a young married couple. They discover the little joys and hardships
of housekeeping, etc. Well and good. But immediately after producing
these scenes the director is forced to jump ahead to the sequence
beginning with scene No. 81. Here is a point considerably further
advanced in the story and so the director is obliged to mentally leap
the action intervening between his first sequence and his second.
Whereas Mary and John may have been perfectly contented in scene No. 19,
they may have grown two years older and separated altogether in scene
No. 81. Inasmuch as he “shoots” No. 81 immediately after No. 21 it must
be seen that the director is obliged to adapt his own mood to this
peculiar state of affairs created by the ramifications of studio
organization. He must live two years in half an hour or less. Such
procedure requires mental gymnastics that are more difficult than the
act of the vaudeville contortionist.
It is needless to add that this jumping hither and thither and back to
hither again, requires a minutely adjusted sense of continuity on the
director's part. To keep his whole story and the comparative values of
certain sequences straight in his mind, is no easy matter. Further
complications enter when it is realized that a sequence of exterior
scenes may follow immediately after a sequence of interior scenes, these
exteriors being closely identified with the interiors and requiring the
same mood. But yet again the plan of work mapped out by the production
department may postpone these scenes to the very last day of work. Thus
the director is forced to jump back into the early mood of his story
after he has rehearsed himself and become thoroughly satiated with all
the other moods, a task imposing seemingly insurmountable difficulties.
Time was when it used to be the boast of some directors that they could
produce a picture in this jumping about fashion just as well as if they
had been permitted to “shoot” their stories in actual continuity. The
method is still followed but the boasts aren't as audible.
This method of production gave a fine opening to those critics who cried
out that the motion pictures would always remain in the cheap state so
well described in the word “movie.” Really artistic results could never
be secured with this eternal jumping from 4 to 11 to 44, they said. They
added, quite rightly too, that a consistent, well developed,
psychologically ascending character was impossible of achievement under
this plan. Inasmuch as actors often had to play their climaxes first and
then go back and play a scene that led up to the climax, there was
considerable point to the arguments of the critics.
A very few directors have now managed to arrange their work so that they
can actually make their pictures in continuity, beginning with scene No.
1 and proceeding straight through, with but slight deviations, to the
end.
Among these directors and leading them all in results attained, stands
William C. De Mille, a director responsible for such artistic successes
as “The Prince Chap” and “Conrad in Quest of His Youth,” both with
Thomas Meighan, and “The Lost Romance” and “Miss Lulu Bett,” with casts
very nearly approaching the all-star state.
Mr. De Mille specializes in stories containing the true and dramatic
psychological development of character. The artificial melodramatics and
blatant heroics he subdues to unnoticeable effect or more often
eliminates entirely. His arc of emotional experience is filled, it is
more than obvious, with all the sensitive lines imaginable. In fact Mr.
De Mille is one of the few artistic directors in the field today, though
perhaps his name has not been as highly publicized as have those of
lesser lights.
Mr. De Mille states that both he and his brother, Cecil, produce their
pictures in actual continuity. “With such pictures as those in which I
specialize,” he says, “and by this specialty I mean of course pictures
such as 'Miss Lulu Bett' and 'The Lost Romance,' pictures that depend
considerably for their value on the consistent and progressive
development of character, rather than mere physical action, producing in
continuity is tremendously effective as well as a great help.”
“To jump about in character studies of this type would be exceedingly
difficult for both players and director and in many cases, suitable
results would not be obtained.”
Let it be inserted here that other directors may scoff at the De Mille
idea, but it may also be noted by students of the screen that no other
director has achieved the highly artistic results in this line of
pictures that stand to the credit of William De Mille.
Let him continue: “The method of starting with scene No. 1 and
proceeding numerically to the conclusion of the picture is of benefit to
both players and director. The players characterizations become well
sustained, they take a greater interest in their work as they realize it
growing consistently with each day's effort. And the director is able to
get a better slant on his story as he watches the whole thing grow and
take definite shape from day to day.”
Those who ask for proof need only look at one of the four pictures
mentioned above that Mr. De Mille produced. “The Lost Romance” contained
four of the most real characters ever developed on the screen. As for
the two pictures in which Thomas Meighan appeared it is safe to say that
his work in them far surpassed anything else he has done before or since
with the exception of “The Miracle Man.” And the basic success of these
two Meighan pictures was in each case, the characterization rendered by
the star. This characterization _might_ have been achieved by other
methods but it is doubtful. Certainly De Mille's method has proven
itself.
[Illustration:
WILLIAM DE MILLE USING THE MAGNA-VOX, AN ELECTRICAL IMPROVEMENT ON THE
MEGAPHONE, WHICH CARRIES HIS VOICE DIRECTLY ONTO THE “SET” AND INTO
THE EARS OF HIS PLAYERS
]
[Illustration:
“MISS LULU BETT,” DIRECTED BY WILLIAM DE MILLE, LIFTS THE CURTAIN ON A
DRAMATIC SLICE OF LIFE
]
The production of a picture after this method necessitates a carefully
prepared manuscript, for once again, the efficiency demanded by studio
organization enters into the scheme of things. “Naturally the continuity
writer must take particular care in building scripts for me,” Mr. De
Mille continues, “for it may be seen that this arrangement of production
calls for an equally careful arrangement of the different settings
employed in the picture. The studio seldom permits a director to keep
more than three or four settings standing at once for any considerable
length of time. So it must be arranged that the early action of the
picture takes place in the first three or four settings erected. In
other words, the settings of the production must be progressive as well
as the characterizations. It is a little mechanical trick that is much
easier to utilize than it is to explain.”
It may be added that Mr. De Mille himself works with his writers on
their scenarios and supervises all such details as this matter of
mechanics as well as the more important matters that come under the head
of scenario writing.
To make his method easier Mr. De Mille has evolved still another
production trick which is interesting to say the least. Many directors
after they have photographed a full scene are obliged to lose valuable
time in moving the camera and lights up to the principal players in
order to take closeups. This time may also account for the loss of the
proper mood on the part of the director and his players.
To eliminate this unsatisfactory condition, Mr. De Mille has his
settings built so that he can photograph them from different angles and
from different distances at the same time. So his players while acting
one long scene are actually photographed in full shots, semi-closeups
and closeups. The closeups cameras are “blinded” behind convenient
pieces of scenery.
This step of producing pictures in continuity is a big one and one in
the right direction. Pictures are not perfect in this day by any manner
of means but when a point is reached when all those that demand to be so
treated can be produced in continuity, the results will doubtless be
obviously better.
Naturally, however, this method would not apply to the director working
on the “action” picture such as that in which William S. Hart and Tom
Mix appear. In such cases where physical action and thrills are set at a
premium, it would be useless and an entire waste of time to insist on
producing in continuity. Imagine calling “Halt!” on a long shot of
advancing train robbers while the cameraman moved up and took a closeup
of the bad man's finger pulling the trigger! And then moving back again
and permitting the train robbers to proceed.
Such a procedure would be as foolish as to attempt to produce one of De
Mille's works in the old fashioned way.
CHAPTER V
CECIL DE MILLE ALSO SPEAKS
_In which it is noted that the more famous
De Mille, besides employing the method of
production described by his brother, places
unusual faith in the intelligence of his
actors and actresses.—“Never show them HOW
but tell them WHAT” is his formula.—A case
where an actor insisted on being shown_
CHAPTER V
Mention of one of the De Milles immediately brings to mind the other.
Cecil and William are as easy to say in one breath as Anthony and
Cleopatra, Nip and Tuck and Mutt and Jeff.
Cecil B. De Mille is one of the few directors of today whose name
carries a picture to the financial success that greets a picture bearing
the name of a great star. It appears that he first rode to national fame
when he inaugurated a series of pictures bearing such mandatory and
interrogatory titles as “Don't Change Your Husband” and “Why Change Your
Wife?”
But long before this he was cutting wide swaths in the old fashioned
method of directing by doing his work in a distinctly individual and
better way. Pictures such as “The Golden Chance” and the first edition
of “The Squaw Man” stamped him as considerably more of an artist than
the earlier pioneers in the art of directing.
Cecil De Mille was, perhaps, the first director to use the method of
producing his pictures in continuity, as outlined by his brother in the
previous chapter. Perhaps this is the reason that he early secured such
superior results to those achieved by the general run of directors in
the early days.
Or perhaps on the other hand it is his ability to handle actors and
actresses so as to get the very utmost from their efforts. For Mr. De
Mille claims that one of the primal rules of directing is “never tell an
actor _how_ to play a scene.”
On this axiom, he states, lies the secret of achieving real
characterization and absolute naturalness on the screen.
This may appear to be a perfectly natural conclusion to some readers. An
actor of ability knows his business and therefore knows how to develop a
true characterization. All he needs is a few words from the director as
regards the timing of his transition from one emotion to another.
This is becoming more and more true as the art of picture production
develops but the time is easily recalled when directors boasted that
they acted out every part of the picture so that their casts might
secure the proper grasp of the story.
I remember very well one director, a big man in his day but who has
since sunk to oblivion as far as picture production goes, who used to
take great delight in showing his players how to play certain scenes.
After a few preliminary rehearsals he would become disgusted, or pretend
to become disgusted, with the efforts of his cast and thereupon he would
act out each and every role for the cast's benefit. It was rather
ridiculous to see him affecting the coy mannerisms of an ingenue, then
jumping quickly into the role of the hero and from there to the
contrasting part of the villain. He would even perform the butler with
pompous dignity for the benefit of the extra who was playing the part.
But what effect did all this play on the director's part have on the
onlooking cast? The director's personality and individual mannerisms
were displayed in every role. Thereafter the actors endeavored to
imitate _him_ not to enact their parts. The hero merely gave an
imitation of the director giving an imitation of the hero. The ingenue
gave an imitation of the director imitating the ingenue. And so on
through all the parts.
The results, it need hardly be pointed out, were not natural. In the end
all the players gave bad imitations of the director. On top of this they
endeavored to effect his mannerism and tricks of expression. As a
consequence there was absolutely nothing distinctive about the completed
picture. It was the director's and no one else's. The director, being
conceited to a great degree, was naturally delighted with the result.
But he was the only one delighted with it as is testified by the fact
that he is not in the art today.
This method has gradually been forced out of the studio. There are few
directors who insist on acting every part out nowadays. There are some
left but not many. A few more years and they will all disappear and then
we will have still better pictures.
Mr. De Mille evidently believes that a good many directors of the
present day still adhere to the old fashioned method. It is to be hoped
that he isn't altogether right.
“Too many directors,” he says, “consider it their duty to show an actor
just how to play every scene in the picture. This type of director
insists on acting out every role and demands that his cast shall mimic
his action before the camera. The results are woefully wooden, unnatural
and characterless.
“In the perfect photoplay each character must be distinctly itself. It
must be sharply differentiated from all other characters in that
particular play. This result can only be achieved by permitting each
actor or actress to work out his or her own interpretation of a role.
“If I show an actor how to pick up a paper or a book in a scene he will
consciously strive to imitate my actions. Now, what may be perfectly
natural for me may be unnatural and awkward for him. At the best his
attempt to copy my model will be but a poor reproduction of Cecil B. De
Mille on the screen. If I carried that program through with respect to
each player I would have just as many weak versions of Cecil B. De Mille
as there are characters in the play.
“If, on the other hand, I explain to the actor what the action of the
scene is and what idea or emotion I want him to convey to the spectator
and then permit him to work out his own interpretation of the scene I
have a distinctive, natural and far more powerful piece of work from
that actor. I assume that every actor is better at creating than
mimicking me.
“My task comes in in my effort to perfect his interpretation by helpful
criticism and suggestion but not by example.
“Before beginning actual production on a picture I make it a rule to
call together the entire cast and the technical staff. At this meeting I
tell them the story with all the detail of characterization and
atmosphere that I am capable of putting into it. I do not read them the
continuity scene by scene. I try to make them see and feel the story and
the characters and, as everyone in the production art knows, the
straight reading of a continuity is an uninteresting and tedious
proposition.
“So when the cameras actually start to turn, each member of the cast has
his or her own characterization and its relationship to the others well
in mind.
“At the beginning of each scene I sketch out verbally what the action of
the scene is to convey to picture audiences. Then comes a rehearsal and
often many rehearsals before it is actually filmed. But through all
these rehearsals I make a point of never showing anyone _how_ to do a
thing. If an actor does something badly or awkwardly I try to locate the
cause of the awkwardness and remedy that. By way of example the scene
may call for an actor to be seated at a desk thoughtfully smoking a
pipe. Perhaps the actor may handle the pipe like an amateur. Inquiry may
uncover the fact that he is far more at home smoking a cigar. Thereupon
the cigar is supplied and the scene proceeds smoothly.
“A little thing, to be sure, but between the pipe and the cigar lies the
difference between a natural and an unnatural performance.
“No actor worthy of his calling should have to be shown how to play a
scene. He may have to be coached; that is part of the director's task.
But it is no part of the director's duties to furnish the acting model
for any or every character in the play. I firmly believe that attempts
on the part of the directors to show actors how to do certain things
will inevitably result in bad performances and consequent damage to the
quality of the finished production.”
[Illustration:
_Melbourne Spurr_
CECIL B. DE MILLE
]
[Illustration:
CECIL B. DE MILLE AT WORK
]
Mr. De Mille's comments are very interesting. It is to be supposed that
he does not give copies of the picture continuity to his players that
they may thoroughly acquaint themselves with the parts they are to play
before actual production work begins. Today the majority of directors
like to do this.
However, as Mr. De Mille says, “I tell the story with all the detail of
characterization and atmosphere that I am capable of putting into it.”
This appears to be an admirable course to pursue. Given the continuity
an actor may get quite the wrong idea of the role he is to play.
Listening to his director sketch the story, including in it his ideas as
to its development, must of necessity give the actor a clear idea of his
work and an idea more coinciding with that of the director's. Thus it
might appear that misunderstanding and argument are well disposed of.
On the other hand Mr. De Mille is fortunate in having players of general
intelligence and ability to deal with. Look over any of the casts he has
employed in his recent productions, “The Affairs of Anatol” for example,
and you will discover that there is hardly an unknown in the entire
cast.
It is amusing to consider what Mr. De Mille would have done if he had
had the task of producing “Cappy Ricks,” a picture made by one of the
directors that Mr. De Mille developed, Tom Forman. There was the role of
a Swedish sea captain, humorously called “All-Hands-and-Feet” in this
picture.
An old prize fighter was selected to play the role. He looked the part
to perfection. But the scenario called for the star, Thomas Meighan, to
engage in a fight with him and knock him out. The ancient fighter was
perfectly agreeable for the fight, in fact he battered his opponent
considerably but when it came time for him to be knocked out he just
wouldn't fall down.
The scene was tried over and over again and each time when it came to
the psychological moment “All-Hands-and-Feet” positively refused to fall
down on the deck after Mr. Meighan had delivered a blow on the chin.
“Go down! Down!” Mr. Forman kept repeating wrathfully.
“Down? Down?” queried the one time prize fighter, “I no understand what
you say.”
Eventually Mr. Forman had to submit to the ignominy of allowing Mr.
Meighan to land on his chin and drop him on the deck.
A broad grin crept over the benign countenance of “All-Hands-and-Feet”
as he said, “Ah, I never bane knocked down, I see what you mean. I try
to fall next time”.
Mr. Forman and Mr. Meighan started a movement to back
“All-Hands-and-Feet” for the championship of the world. But when their
subject heard of it he mysteriously disappeared. Possibly he didn't want
to be taught what “down” meant in a serious way.
CHAPTER VI
WHEN ACTING ABILITY HELPS
_An amusing incident of studio life that might
be seen by a visitor any day in the week with
the moral “Never be shocked by anything you see
in a motion picture studio”_
CHAPTER VI
No better illustration of the value of Mr. De Mille's foregoing remarks
can be found than in the case of Charles Chaplin. Mr. Chaplin as well as
being the world's greatest comedian, also directs his pictures.
Suppose that Mr. Chaplin decided to rehearse in every part of his
picture so that his supporting players might pattern his performances
after his. The completed product would show: One good Charles Chaplin
and a dozen bad imitations of Charles Chaplin.
Mr. Chaplin has imitators enough without going to the trouble of
bringing them right into his own pictures.
Incidentally the task that confronts the actor-director is
extraordinarily difficult. He not only is obliged to face the lights in
makeup and drop his own personality in the role he is playing but he
must also be able to see his own work from behind the camera, to retain
his perspective from this angle of the production as well as from the
acting angle.
His is thus a twice difficult task and perhaps for this reason there are
few surviving actor-directors. In the old days there used to be loads of
them but the pictures were then too much actor and not enough director.
Besides Charles Chaplin only a few survive today, prominent among them
being William S. Hart and Charles Ray and it may be said that each of
these stars has done his best work when directed by someone else. When
they essay the dual task of acting and directing they pay too little
attention to the supervision of the entire production and concentrate
too largely on their own performances.
Despite this criticism of the actor-director and the cry against
directors showing their players how to perform a scene no one can deny
that a knowledge of acting, or rather a knowledge of how to act, comes
in very handy from the director's point of view.
A little over a year ago I happened to visit one of the large eastern
studios when John S. Robertson, probably one of the most competent men
in the production craft was working there. Mr. Robertson has years of
acting on the stage behind him. He played in stock for a long period and
knows every role in every play of importance produced over a period of
considerable years.
However Mr. Robertson is now a director and not an actor. What was my
surprise then to discover him in the midst of a highly dramatic scene.
The setting was the dressing room of a stage star. Mr. Robertson was
half sitting, half reclining on a luxurious chaise-lounge. The
atmosphere was fairly exotic.
Marc McDermott, excellent character actor that he is, stood in the
background, immaculately clad in evening attire. He was gazing at Mr.
Robertson with the glint of evil in his eyes.
The door opened and in walked Reginald Denny who immediately rushed
madly to the couch on which Mr. Robertson was reclining languidly and
proceeded to make violent love to him.
Naturally my first impulse was to make matters known to the Department
of Health but on inquiry I soon learned that Mr. Robertson was merely
playing Elsie Ferguson's role in the preliminary rehearsal of
“Footlights.” Miss Ferguson was a little late and Mr. Robertson was
obliging for the benefit of Messrs. McDermott and Denny!
So I watched them further. A long scene was enacted with Mr. Robertson
playing Miss Ferguson's role exactly as the script called. And he was
doing it as if it were the most natural thing in the world. As for the
other participants they were so engrossed in their work that they didn't
seem to notice the absence of Miss Ferguson and the presence of her
capable substitute.
When at last she did appear the scene only needed one brief rehearsal
before the cameras started to grind.
Besides pointing out the value of the ability to act to the director
this little tale also points another moral, to wit, never be shocked at
anything you see in a motion picture studio.
CHAPTER VII
REX INGRAM ON “ATMOSPHERE”
_The director of “The Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse” and “The Conquering Power,”
two of the screen's greatest achievements,
has something to say about settings and
atmosphere.—Using impressionistic methods
to realistic ends is his forte.—The effort
demanded to achieve convincing realism on
the screen_
CHAPTER VII
Few people who closely follow the screen will need an introduction to
Rex Ingram, the young director who startled the whole screen world with
the artistry of his work in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.” Mr.
Ingram is one of those to whom the screen gave one of its biggest
opportunities. For a long time before “The Four Horsemen” was completed
the wiseacres were prowling about, shaking their beards and stating that
the young director was running wild and breaking the producing company
that was sponsoring the picture.
How he startled the world with a magnificent piece of work is still
recent screen history. And how he followed his first big success with
another great picture, “The Conquering Power,” is also still fresh in
the minds of picture audiences.
Among many others one thing distinguished both “The Four Horsemen” and
“The Conquering Power” and that was the remarkable atmosphere which Mr.
Ingram had managed to inject in both subjects. It was absolutely
startling in its effect. Those who hadn't stopped to bother about Mr.
Ingram's early studies which included art in two forms, painting and
sculpturing, didn't know how in the world he had managed it. However, it
appears from Mr. Ingram's own words that he merely used common sense and
applied the methods of the older arts to the craft of picture
production.
[Illustration:
REX INGRAM, REHEARSING ONE OF THE RACE TRACK SCENES IN “TURN TO THE
RIGHT”
]
[Illustration:
REX INGRAM DIRECTING ONE OF THE MANY MOB SCENES IN “THE FOUR HORSEMEN”
]
He has some very interesting things to say regarding the value of
atmosphere in motion picture production.
He writes: “After sincerity of characterization and directness in
story-telling, atmosphere does more toward making an audience accept
what it sees on the screen than anything else. By accept, I mean, be
entertained, engrossed in the subject.
“While good atmosphere gives an air of reality to a picture yet the most
convincing and engrossing atmosphere is often far from realistic. This
is so because the aim of the director should be to get over the _effect_
of the atmosphere he desires, rather than the actual atmosphere which
exists in such scenes as he may wish to portray, and which, if reduced
literally to the screen would be quite unconvincing.”
This principle of Mr. Ingram's is the ideal one on which to work. It is
the principle of other arts beside that of producing motion pictures. It
is the principle of creating something by implication and suggestion
rather than actual reproduction. This, however, detracts not one whit
from the credit that is Mr. Ingram's for being the first director to
apply it to picture production in a consistent and effective way.
Mr. Ingram continues: “Whether a scene is being made of a beach-comber's
shanty, an underworld basement saloon, a pool-hall, a ship's cabin, a
shoe factory or a smart restaurant, not only should the aim be to
convince the audience, but enough study should be given the subject, in
each case, to convince the habitues of any of these places that they are
in familiar surroundings.
“One of the most interesting sets that I have ever handled from an
atmospheric standpoint was the interior of a derelict ship, beached, and
become the hang-out of beach-combers, in 'Under Crimson Skies,' a
production some years old. Conrad, the master writer of the sea, never
offered a more wonderful opportunity for color than did this episode in
the story provided by J. G. Hawks, with its thrilling climax in the
battle in the surf between the white man and the black giant.
“In 'The Four Horsemen,' the basement resort of the Buenos Aires
_bocca_, or river front hang-out, furnished plenty of chances to make
colorful pictures—yet had I been literal in the way I handled it the
effect would not have been anything nearly as realistic. For I doubt if
anything just like that dive ever existed in the Argentine or anywhere
else for that matter.
“The set was a Spanish version of a bowery cellar saloon that I used in
a picture which I made several years before and re-created to suit the
episode suggested in the great Ibanez novel. The signs on the wall, the
types of men, in fact all the bits of atmosphere in the place were the
results of painstaking efforts to get “color” and local atmosphere into
the set. In one corner a sign hung which was the advertisement of a
notorious 'crimp,' a sailor's boarding-house keeper, whose establishment
was on the _bocca_ for years. An old sailor who was working in the scene
and who had lived in Buenos Aires came to me and said: 'I've been
shanghaied by that blood-sucker.'
“I have gone so far as to have my principals speak the language of the
country in which the picture is laid. Few of them like to go to this
trouble but it helps them materially in keeping in the required
atmosphere. The results on the screen are so encouraging that after they
see what it has done for them the players don't mind the extra study
that this course entails.
“I know of no branch of a director's job that is more fascinating than
getting color and atmosphere into the settings—thinking out bits of
'business,' little flashes of life which, though only on the screen for
a few moments, can give an air of reality to an entire sequence of
scenes, that would perhaps otherwise be lacking.
“In screening Balzac, as I did in making 'The Conquering Power,' fine
atmosphere and characterization are of more vital importance than
incident, for nine times out of ten it is the characters in a great
novel that we remember—rather than the plot.”
Mr. Ingram is going on his way, creating distinctly unusual pictures and
one of the chief reasons is this great attention that he pays to
atmosphere by suggestion rather than actual reproduction. Novelists call
atmosphere “background.” The terms are the same. The novelist creates
his background, his atmosphere, by painting pictures with words,
suggesting the locale and environment of history. Thus with Mr. Ingram.
He _suggests_ scenes in his pictures and refuses to _label_ them. In
this respect he is farther advanced than most any director in the art
today.
This idea of suggestion can easily be carried too far, however. The
German producer who turned out “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” carried it
to the point of alleged futuristic “art.” He aimed to suggest but
instead he puzzled completely. The producer of “The Golem,” another
German picture, came nearer the point. But it appears that neither of
them equalled or much less surpassed the work of Mr. Ingram in his two
fine productions already mentioned.
Mr. Ingram is one of the very few new directors that the screen has
developed in recent years. New in the sense that he has attracted
attention not only within the art of picture production but without it
as well. He is one of those men who have been recruited from other
fields of endeavor and who has fulfilled expectations and gone far
beyond them. A man such as Ingram will always have an opportunity. He
may have to fight for it but it's bound to come.
Mr. Ingram's remarks about building settings, so that people who
frequent such places in real life will instantly recognize them, opens
an interesting field of comment. Even if a director labors painstakingly
to achieve the proper atmosphere there are always some crabs in the
audience who are bound to take exception. If they can't find something
to criticise in the setting they criticise the way the extras play their
parts.
For a long time doctors have been grossly misrepresented on the screen.
Doctors in particular have objected that they never act as if possessed
of diplomas. A director recently resolved to put an end to such
criticism. It annoyed him particularly inasmuch as he had a friend, an
M.D., who was forever poking fun at him whenever he introduced a man of
medicine into a picture.
When the director in question completed his latest picture he took his
doctor friend to see it and after it was over asked him specially how he
liked the performance of the actor who played the doctor.
“Terrible,” replied his friend, “The man never saw a clinic and shows
it. No real doctor would act like that.”
“That's funny,” replied the director with a smile, “because, you see he
wasn't an actor but—a doctor!”
CHAPTER VIII
MAINLY ABOUT D. W. GRIFFITH
_The producer and director of “The Birth of a
Nation,” “Hearts of the World,” “Way Down East,”
and “Orphans of the Storm” works with amazing
disregard of system.—Others attempt his methods
of procedure and come more often to grief than
to glory_
CHAPTER VIII
No volume on the subject of directing would be complete without the
mention of D. W. Griffith. And yet it is utterly impossible to deal with
D. W. Griffith in any comprehensive way. The producer of the first great
picture “The Birth of a Nation,” the man who strove for something beyond
the times in “Intolerance,” the artist who made “Hearts of the World”
and the masterly technician who stands sponsor for “Way Down East,” is
singularly hard to approach from any ordinary viewpoint.
There is no doubt that D. W. Griffith at intervals gives just cause to
the commentators who place him at the top of the list of all directors.
But at the same time he often does the most ordinary of things on the
screen. In one picture he is an artist and in the next he appears in the
light of a producer of hack pieces of motion picture film.
The reason, no doubt, is that Mr. Griffith is a business man as well as
an artist. He sinks an unusually large amount of money in a picture such
as “Hearts of the World” and then realizes that, while the returns from
such a subject are slowly accruing, he must needs turn out a few
pot-boilers to keep the wolf from the door. Thus “Hearts of the World”
was followed by two or three shorter and less pretentious war pictures
of commonplace variety.
Mr. Griffith is constantly exasperating people by such mixed proceedings
and just when his long-suffering public has decided to forsake him
forever and turn to more consistent directors and producers, he startles
the world again with another masterpiece.
His latest picture, for instance, “Orphans of the Storm,” has proven an
artistic success from almost every viewpoint, and has been quite capable
of disposing of the bad taste left in the collective mouths of critical
audiences by his recent “Dream Street.”
One of the most interesting things about Mr. Griffith to the lay mind is
that he never uses the usual continuity that the majority of directors
employ. He has his story clearly in his mind before he starts work. He
has something of a subconscious realization of how many different scenes
ought to be embraced in each episode and he sets about his work
accordingly.
This might not seem so difficult as it really is if Mr. Griffith
employed the De Mille method of directing his pictures in continuity,
beginning with scene No. 1 and proceeding numerically onward. But Mr.
Griffith sails right along using one setting or scene after another
without much regard for continuity. He takes the number of shots
required in each setting and scene with but slight assistance from notes
and memoranda.
He works in the following order: A scene may represent a room in a
country home. A son is saying goodbye to his mother; he is either going
away to war or going to the city to make good. There is, of course, a
tearful parting. Now the average director will refer to his script and
note that the scenario writer has given him, say, twelve different
shots, including closeups, long shots and semi-closeups in which to get
the “goodbye” scene over and done with.
[Illustration:
D. W. GRIFFITH
]
[Illustration:
D. W. GRIFFITH IMMORTALIZED AN ANCIENT MELODRAMA IN “WAY DOWN EAST”
]
Mr. Griffith, on the other hand, will refer to no 'script of any kind,
he will merely go about taking the sequence of scenes as they occur on
the screen. There may be first a tearful closeup of the mother, then a
closeup of the boy, nervous, happy, sad. Then a shot of both of them
embracing and the son pulling away. Then a wider shot showing the son
about to make his exit, but turning and coming back to say a last
farewell to the mother. And so on and so forth. The action itself will
suggest other scenes to Mr. Griffith.
Of course there are many other directors who work in the same way in
some respects. Such a simple sequence as related above can be
accomplished by any director without recourse to an elaborate
continuity. But the majority of directors, even though they don't refer
to a continuity minutely with respect to such sequences, have one handy
so that they can refer to it in times when the complications of the
story begin to pile up.
To draw a clearer parallel, the usual director is like a motorist who
has carefully studied his road map before setting out on a journey and
who refers to it time and again during the trip, specially when he comes
to a cross roads. Mr. Griffith never studies a road map. He just jumps
into his car and starts going. When he comes to a crossing he takes the
road that seems the best to him. Sometimes this road is the wrong one.
More often it is right. But at least Mr. Griffith has had the fun of
exploring without really knowing what is coming next. As a consequence,
his experiences even though at times poor with respect to picture
technique, are never tedious but always refreshing.
Mr. Griffith explains his aversions to a cut-and-dried continuity by
saying that he doesn't want other people to think out his story for him.
Rather he prefers to think it out himself. He believes that the man who
works directly from a continuity is merely carrying out the plans of the
scenario writer. It doesn't take any great exertion, he believes, to
successfully carry out these ideas if they are good ideas. On the other
hand when he himself sets to work without a continuity he has the added
joy of creating something as he goes along. He is not working from some
other person's brain but from his own.
Mr. Griffith's method of working has its advantages and, under certain
circumstances, it would have its grave disadvantages. Mr. Griffith,
being his own employer, can take all the time he wishes on the making of
his productions. A director working on a schedule that makes some
consideration of time would be quite at a loss in working without a
'script. The chances are he would become hopelessly involved before he
got halfway through and wonder what he was producing. And this time
schedule would not permit the director to sit down and puzzle himself
out of his predicament for hours and hours the way Mr. Griffith does.
And then, even if it did permit him so to do, the chances are again that
he might not come out of the predicament with all the loose ends of his
story neatly assorted the way Mr. Griffith does. After all, there is
only one Griffith and attempting to apply his methods to other directors
is something like walking and walking around a block and wondering why
you never get farther up town.
Times were, in the days of the old Biograph and Fine Arts companies,
that Mr. Griffith had a number of directors working under his
supervision. A number of these men, notably Chet Withey, Edward Dillon
and the Franklin brothers have made marks for themselves with other
companies, working somewhat on the Griffith method but usually with a
continuity to guide them.
I know of one director who worked with Mr. Griffith long ago and who is
still boasting of his association with him (for working with D. W., you
see, grants one as much prestige in the picture world as having an
ancestor that came over on the Mayflower gives one in the social world),
but who has not yet made a good picture since he left his former chief.
Among other boasts this director includes the one that he never used a
continuity when producing a picture. I happened to be up at his studio
one day when he was involved in the production of a particularly
difficult and heavy dramatic sequence of action. There were a number of
players at work on a large setting and each one of them had an important
part.
This director worked along fairly smoothly up to a certain point and
then suddenly stopped. He was lost. Didn't know what came next. But
rather than admit it to his company he sat staring at them for fully
half an hour, then proceeded to pace the studio floor in great agitation
“seeking for the missing idea.” He then announced that he would retire
to his private office and think the matter over quietly. About five
minutes later he emerged with all his ideas straightened out. Of course,
to the gullible, his disappearing act had been the signal for a great
inspiration but in reality, as I found out afterwards, he had gone into
his office and referred to the continuity of the story which he had
carefully secreted in his desk all the time.
The director's vanity would never permit him to admit this in public. He
chose to be regarded as another Griffith. Unhappily for him his
completed picture proved that he was far from another Griffith or even a
second-rate one. Really Mr. Griffith has a lot to answer for in this
matter. Either he or the vanity of the men who formerly worked with him
has to be blamed. And as Mr. Griffith is a concrete object we might as
well blame him.
The realization has dawned on the writer that this chapter is totally
inadequate in giving any description of Mr. Griffith, apart from the
small information that he works without a manuscript. Such, however,
seems doomed to be the case. One cannot dissect Mr. Griffith, take him
apart and explain this piece and that. This because he is considerably
an artist and no real artist can tell exactly how he works and give the
processes by which he achieves certain effects.
A painter will begin work on a fresh canvass by putting daubs of color
here, there and everywhere. The layman doesn't know what in the deuce he
is up to. But in the finished product these early daubs of color count
largely in the effect created by the whole mass. Even the artist himself
cannot explain concisely and clearly the why and wherefore of every daub
he applied early in his creation.
[Illustration:
ALL THE OLD CHARACTERS OF “WAY DOWN EAST” WERE RECREATED ON THE SCREEN
WITH AMAZING FIDELITY
]
[Illustration:
D. W. GRIFFITH
]
So it is with Mr. Griffith. He probably could not explain his method of
working himself. He goes ahead on his creation, putting a stroke here
and another there. The why and wherefore of them are things undefinable.
Perhaps when his picture is finished he can give you the whys and
wherefores but the chances are that he can't. He only knows that he has
striven for something and either succeeded or failed in the achievement
of his ambition.
And so it is with other directors, after all is said and done. Some of
the methods of other directors as set down earlier in these chapters are
merely ideas, small gleanings; but in themselves alone they are no more
responsible for the successes of these directors than are their names.
CHAPTER IX
MOUNTAINS AND MOLEHILLS
_Why D. W. Griffith has been more successful
in producing spectacular features than other
directors.—His ability to step from the mountain
to the molehill with agility and delicacy.—The
futility of mob scenes that mean mob scenes and
nothing more_
CHAPTER IX
The foregoing words on D. W. Griffith have brought to mind the matter of
motion picture spectacles, those pictures telling a personal story
before a background of masses of people and monstrous settings. There is
small doubt but that the spectacle is the most difficult of all motion
pictures to produce. Mr. Griffith has succeeded most often with such
subjects, perhaps because he has attempted them more often. Rex Ingram
succeeded admirably well in “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and no
doubt will succeed again when he tries further, as he most surely will.
Many others have succeeded too, and many have failed, the chief reason
for the failures being, it appears, that the spectacle idea appealed to
the director in capital letters while he forgot all about the personal
element of the story. No spectacle, no matter how grand and glittering
and gorgeous, no matter how heavily peopled with costumed
supernumeraries, no matter how thickly smeared with money and elaborate
“art” can succeed if the director forgets about his personal story in
the bigness of his background. He must be able to step from the mountain
to the molehill with agility and with such delicacy of touch that he
doesn't smash the molehill by treading on it as if it were the mountain.
As an example of this appreciation of both the spectacular and personal
elements of story, no better picture can be found than Mr. Griffith's
“Hearts of the World,” his story of the European war. He brought before
the eye all the horrible realities of the battle field, used them to
dramatic purpose time and again. And yet in the midst of all this
spectacular action he never for once lost sight of the personal element
in the story, this element represented on the battle field by Robert
Harron who played the part of the young soldier. How many people who saw
“Hearts of the World” can forget the scene in the shell hole in which
the center of attention were the young soldier and the dying negro? This
was one of the most remarkable of the personal, intimate touches in the
picture and yet the very next moment the spectator was plunged back into
the mass horror of the tremendous conflict.
This was only an instance of many. In the last scenes which looked
forward to the armistice parade in Paris (looked forward to it with an
uncanny amount of judgment), soldiers and citizens were seen going mad
with joy in the streets of the city. A thrilling sight in itself were
these mass scenes, showing thousands of people nearly breaking their own
and their friends' necks with unrestrained joy at peace come at last.
But even in the midst of all these scenes of thrilling revelry the four
principal characters of the picture were introduced rejoicing too. And
the glimpses shown of them brought the thrills of the big scenes to a
tremendous emotional climax.
It would seem a simple matter for the clear-thinking director to produce
a spectacular picture at the same time keeping his finger on the pulse
of the intimate, personal story that gives color and reality to the
bigness of his backgrounds. But it is more often the case than not that
the director who tackles a spectacle forgets his story in the mad rush
for sweeping effect. As a consequence he loses his grip on the interest
of his audience.
[Illustration:
“THE THREE MUSKETEERS” COMBINED THE ELEMENTS OF ROMANCE AND THRILL IN
EXACTLY THE RIGHT PROPORTIONS
]
[Illustration:
DIRECTOR JOHN ROBERTSON SECURED EXCELLENT LIGHTING AND DERIVED
WONDERFUL WORK FROM HIS CAST IN “SENTIMENTAL TOMMY”
]
How many pictures could be named in which just mass scene after mass
scene appeared on the screen, containing no dramatic purpose, no
interest aside from their sheer spectacular value (an interest that soon
dies if not fostered with glimpses of the personal story), just mass
scene after mass scene until the spectator begins to wonder what in
thunder the whole thing means? It seems offhand that any number of such
pictures could be named.
But if the director keeps his senses about him he never loses sight of
the little things of the spectacle, they are as vitally important as the
mass action itself.
It might be appropriate to mention the recent German pictures in this
connection. The German picture director is noted for the production of
spectacular features. In some respects he surpasses the American
director, namely in the artistry of his big scenes and the effective
manner in which he handles large numbers of people but on the other hand
the German director has the fault of overlooking the personal story in
his eagerness to get the spectacular effects.
This fact is particularly noticeable in German pictures when they first
come to this country. Of course the pictures first have to pass through
the hands of experts. The titles are translated and revised to fit the
styles the American public has long since expressed itself satisfied
with. But more important, much that the German director left in has to
be cut out. Pictures made in Germany and shown here as five or six or
seven reel features very often run eight or nine or ten reels when they
first are imported here. And in these extra reels which the American
cutters painlessly remove from here, there and everywhere in the long
stretch of the film, are mob scenes used just because they are mob
scenes. Mob scene follows mob scene, until each scene has no particular
meaning, the mass effects grow tiresome and the spectator longs for a
glimpse of the story forgotten so long ago by the director. The American
cutter is able to eliminate much of these superfluous scenes but he can
not give the intimate story the prominence that was denied it in the
beginning by the German director.
Probably the reason why so many directors neglect this personal element
in their spectacles is because of the fact that several years ago a big
scene, that is a scene containing a few dozen or a few hundred people,
was supposed to impress audiences with the fact that a lot of money had
been spent on the picture and that therefore, because a lot of money was
spent on it, it was a work of merit.
“Here,” a director used to say when he had doubt in the value of the
story he was working on, “Give me a big ball room set and a hundred
people in evening clothes and I'll give this picture real class.”
The argument sounds particularly false and unsound today as it was all
the time. But the motion picture directors of today, a great many of
them at least, still seem to think that a picture can be made good by
throwing a lot of money away on lavish settings, and settings containing
a lot of people, even though they fail to regard the personal element of
the story in a serious light, even though they fail to make this element
convincing and real.
Some of the biggest directors in the business have this idea, strange as
it may seem. These fellows, believing themselves secure, take delight in
poking fun at Mr. Griffith because he will stop a spectacular scene now
and then to show a youngster playing with kittens. Mr. Griffith may have
been inclined to pay too much attention to kittens and puppies at one
time in his career but he was headed along on the right track and those
who laughed at these scenes of his were then and there switched off to
the wrong track.
CHAPTER X
SOME OF THE ARTS OF SLAPSTICK COMEDY
_The director of the knockabout comedy grossly
neglected in the parcelling out of praise.—The
inventive genius of Mack Sennett, king of
comedy, and a digression on the “discovery” of
Charles Chaplin, prompted by our present day
radical and liberal writers_
CHAPTER X
The usual critic of the motion picture is given to prating long and
seriously about the art and the business of it with relation to the
Griffiths, the De Milles, the Ingrams, the German Ernst Lubitschs and
the ordinary whatnots and their dramatic productions, but when
approaching the producer of the slapstick-thrill comedy, they seem to
forget that this branch of production is an art too and a very high one
and one to be taken just as seriously if not more so than the art of
dramatic production.
The picture critics of the New York and Boston newspapers, for instance,
will sometimes devote a whole column to a review of an ordinary dramatic
production and then close with the line: “There is also a Mack Sennett
comedy on the bill.” Nine times out of ten this comedy so briefly
dismissed is more interesting and entertaining than the featured part of
the program.
Aside from Charles Chaplin (Chaplin is his own director) the critics
don't regard the comedy director in his proper light—often one of high
artistic achievement plus a marvelous amount of ingenuity.
To digress for a moment, the case of the critics and the Chaplin
comedies amuses the writer and many of his acquaintance immensely. It
appears that the critics, commentators and publicists of national and
sectional standing have only recently “discovered” Charles Chaplin. The
reviewers of the daily newspapers and the magazines now hail each effort
of his as masterly, pointing out virtues in his performances, in his
attitude on life and in his inventive genius with remarkable pride.
Chaplin has become the “fashion” with those who formerly thought his
name a synonym for a vulgar, pie-throwing clown.
It was some seven years ago that a number of motion picture trade
critics and myself first saw the comedian doing a “bit” in a Mack
Sennett comedy. Somebody said his name was Charles Chapman. Somebody
else said it was Chaplain. They thought so. They weren't quite sure who
he was. But everyone in that little room knew then that, whoever he was,
he was great.
Five years afterwards, as the picture subtitle would say, some of the
newspaper critics woke up to the fact that this little man was an
artist. And a year later the liberals and radicals of Greenwich Village,
New York, and points west, discovered that Mr. Chaplin was somewhat
liberal, even radical, politically, and so made the astounding
revelation to their worlds that he was a great artist. Perhaps the above
is a little unfair but if Mr. Chaplin had voted a straight Republican
ticket it is hardly to be supposed that he would have been heralded as
such a master of his craft by these people.
But we in the motion pictures knew him in his true colors from the first
and so perhaps this little excursion into the realm of jealous
back-biting may be pardoned. However we feel somewhat as Columbus, in
his grave might feel if Marshall Foch on his recent visit to these
shores, should have announced to the world that he had discovered
America.
But to get back to the art of the director who makes a good slapstick
comedy. The directors such as Mack Sennett and his staff of associates,
such as Hal Roach who guides the destinies of the bespectacled Harold
Lloyd, and such as Henry Lehrman, who follows blindly but often quite
successfully in Mr. Sennett's footsteps. These men, laboring tirelessly
on the invention of new “gags,” stunts and fooleries for the amusement
of the picture public are deserving of immense credit.
“Slapstick” is a term that ill describes the efforts of these men. It is
a hangover from the period when motion pictures were “movies” and
deserved no better appellation. It suggests, besides the act of
employing the old stage slapstick itself, the equally worn trick of
throwing custard pies. Strange as it may seem to some whose memory of
the old days in the making of pictures overshadows their ability to make
observations in the present, pies are seldom used in a comedy studio
these days, except in the dining room for purposes of conventional
consumption.
The throwing of a pie was ceased long since as a comedy “gag” by the
high class slapstick directors. Other “gags” have replaced it. Once in a
while it is resorted to, probably just for old times sake but as a rule
the comedy directors and those mysterious men of the comedy studio, who
can hardly be called scenario writers, men whose inspiration is often
the combined effect of phonograph music and bottled spirits, are able to
hand out something newer and more amusing than mere pie-throwing.
What appears to be most interesting in the production of these comedies
is the amazing machinery at the director's control for the entertainment
and the fooling, the funny hocus-pocus fooling, of the picture going
public. Mack Sennett's studio on the western coast is probably the best
equipped in this way and every mechanical contrivance he employs in the
making of his pictures is guarded jealously by him and his staff as a
state secret might be guarded. Mr. Sennett doesn't believe in telling
people how he performs his tricks. He works on the principle that the
public is better satisfied by remaining mystified, of which more anon.
So it is beyond the power of anyone outside of Mr. Sennett's confidence
to set down the exact manner in which he causes to be done some of the
most amazing stunts on the screen. One can hazard the guess that he
makes a comedian appear to be walking on water by double exposure but,
given this information, any other director would be hard put to it to do
the trick successfully.
Mr. Sennett is often called upon to assist other directors in producing
a thrill. Most people well remember Anita Stewart's picture of two or
three years ago, “In Old Kentucky.” And those who can recall the picture
will also be able to recall the scene wherein Miss Stewart, on
horseback, urged her steed to jump a yawning chasm, rather wide and
terrifyingly deep. It was one of the biggest thrills in the picture and
it was made in Mr. Sennett's studio. Neither Miss Stewart, nor Marshall
Neilan, who directed all the rest of “In Old Kentucky” had anything to
do with this particular scene. It was further said that Mr. Sennett
demanded and received a sum equivalent to the yearly salary of the
President of the United States, for his contribution to the old
melodrama.
[Illustration:
MACK SENNETT MIXES SITUATIONS LUDICROUSLY. HERE IS A MARRIAGE SERVICE
PROCEEDING UNDER DIFFICULTIES
]
[Illustration:
MACK SENNETT NOT ONLY GOES IN FOR “GAGS” WHOLESALE BUT ENDOWS HIS
PICTURES WITH A FINE QUALITY OF BURLESQUE. THIS IS A SCENE FROM
“DOWN ON THE FARM”
]
A great part of Mr. Sennett's art lies in his inventive genius and his
happy faculty of applying some basically sound trick of mechanics to a
ridiculous comedy situation. In this respect he proceeds from the same
principle that R. L. Goldberg, the cartoonist, does. Those “easy
machines” contrived by Goldberg, involved, intricate and ridiculous,
that finally end up by scratching a man's back or slapping a mosquito,
have as a basis an actual mechanical theory. So with Mr. Sennett. In a
recent Ben Turpin picture the comedian appeared as a baker. He was shown
“holing” doughnuts with a mechanic's auger and going about his work in a
perfectly serious fashion. A little later the subtitle “testing” was
flashed on the screen, followed by the scene of the baker testing his
doughnuts by slipping them over a bar and chinning himself on them.
The effect was utterly ridiculous, uproariously funny. And what was it?
Really just an application of sound scientific methods, never funny when
applied correctly, but as applied to a bakery more or less of a scream.
Mr. Sennett and his staff will startle audiences into fits of laughter
time and again by such methods.
While on the subject of Ben Turpin it is only fair to record here that
Mack Sennett has never received the credit due him for developing this
cross-eyed Romeo. Turpin can be, and has been, quite a tiresome bore on
the screen. He proved it a few years ago by trying to star himself
without Mr. Sennett's guiding hand—and he failed. Certainly in his case
direction enters into his success largely. Ford Sterling is another who
once left Mr. Sennett's guidance to form his own company. But he also
came back to the fold.
The tricks of the slapstick producers are numerous. The familiar scene
of the automobiles skidding all over a wet pavement is sometimes
actually hazardous to those participating but more often it is filmed
with a slow camera, the cars also skidding around rather slowly, with
the result that the completed picture gives the impression of sheer and
utter recklessness. In the Ben Turpin picture already mentioned the
comedian endeavored to eat asparagus and just as he would get a tip near
his mouth it would curl away like a snake. Of course there are such
things as wires and springs.
The element of surprise enters into the making of the modern comedy to a
great extent. Harold Lloyd and his director, Hal Roach, employ the
method of the surprise laugh to admirable effect. One of the biggest
laughs that this comedian has ever been responsible for was brought on
by a totally unexpected surprise. He appeared as a youth who sought
suicide as a way out of all his troubles. He climbed on the railing of a
bridge with a rock hung round his neck and leaped into the water below.
The water was only about a foot deep and the youth came to a jarring
stop when his feet hit the bottom. The laugh that followed was really to
be described as an outburst.
Messrs. Lloyd and Roach probably scorn the tricks by which scenes can be
made to look thrilling, preferring instead to accomplish the actual
thrill, more than any other comedy producers. It may be recalled that
Mr. Lloyd once caused a variety of heart afflictions by appearing in a
picture in which he was seen walking in his sleep on the edge of a high
building. Fake? Not a bit of it! The real thing—that is the high
building, not the sleep-walking.
All the studios in California confined to the elaborate production of
slapstick-thrill comedy have their own hospitals and their own staffs of
bonesetters and doctors. And, in order that the public may have its fill
of laughs, these hospitals often have their fill of patients.
CHAPTER XI
OTHER TRICKS UP DIRECTORS' SLEEVES
_Proving that the illusion once created by the
double exposure has been completely spoiled by
giving it so much publicity.—And so the spoiling
process is begun on a number of other tricks
employed by the director to fool the public_
[Illustration:
DOUBLE EXPOSURE, DESPITE THE FACT THAT ITS MECHANICS HAVE LONG SINCE
BEEN EXPOSED, WAS USED SUCCESSFULLY IN MARY PICKFORD'S “LITTLE LORD
FAUNTLEROY,” DIRECTED BY AL GREEN AND JACK PICKFORD
]
[Illustration:
THE PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK IN “THE CONQUERING POWER” WAS ALSO AN
ACHIEVEMENT
EVERY SCENE IN “THE CONQUERING POWER” CARRIED SUBTLE SUGGESTION IN ITS
VERY ATMOSPHERE
]
CHAPTER XI
Mack Sennett's principle of keeping the tricks of his studio to himself
and not spreading them broadcast through a publicity department and
acquainting audiences with the “how” of all his thrill scenes is
basically a sound one. It is the principle followed by David Belasco
with respect to his stage productions. Mr. Belasco never tells how he
achieves a certain effect. P. T. Barnum proceeded on a like principle;
that there was “one born every minute” and that everyone of those liked
to be fooled.
Mr. Belasco goes even further and strives to prevent his stars from
appearing in public. This of course is exactly opposite in view to the
motion picture stars' idea of doing things. The more they appear in
public, the more that is printed about them, the surer they are of their
popularity.
It is a question as to whether audiences would care more for Mary
Pickford if they didn't know the size of her shoes, what facial cream
she recommends, how much money she makes and how she spends her Sunday
afternoons; as to whether they would care more for Constance Talmadge if
they didn't know the size of her shoes, what facial cream she
recommends, how much money she makes and how she spends her Sunday
afternoons; as to whether they would care more for Wallace Reid if they
didn't know the size of his shoes, what hair tonic he recommends, how
much money he makes and how he spends his Sunday afternoons, it is a
question that can never be answered. But in regard to giving away the
mechanics of picture making, whether it is a wise or an unwise course,
the question has already been answered.
The pointed reference is to the case of the double exposure. This has
been explained so many times (and often explained incorrectly) that now
when a scene appears on a theatre screen in which the same player
appears twice at one time, you can hear all around you the explanation
of how it is done.
As a result of all the publicity given the subject of double exposure
its use to create a real illusion has practically passed. Immediately it
comes on the screen an audience is snapped out of the story and
confronted with the bare and unromantic machinery of picture making.
John will thereupon say to Mary: “Oh, they do that by blinding half of
the camera lens and dividing the scene in two. First he plays the part
on the left hand side and then—”
“Yes, and then,” Mary will say to John, “they turn the camera back and
expose the other side of the film while he's playing the other part.”
And there you are. All very simple. Easiest thing in the world to
explain. But in the meantime Mary and John have lost track of the story,
the illusion has been smashed for them and for all the people sitting
around them.
Therefore having proven that it is a bad thing to give away the secrets
of the director and cameraman and cutter, I will now set down two or
three other secrets of the director and the cameraman and the cutter so
that other illusions of yours may be spoiled when you go to the theatre.
Consequently, if you desire to retain your illusions refrain from
finishing this chapter.
The fight on the edge of a high precipice waged between the hero and the
villain of the story is a favorite scene of every director's. It is
usually terminated when the hero mustering all his strength, lands on
the jaw of the villain and tumbles him off the precipice into the
nothingness below.
Now, of course villains are expensive commodities, often calling for
five hundred dollars a week and more and no director can afford to let
one drop over a cliff now and then just for the sake of a thrill.
Furthermore, they are usually happily married with large families and
these families would be inclined to feel some venom for the director if
he permitted the villains to go over the precipices.
So the following course is decided upon as the next best thing to
actually killing the villain. The first part of the rough and tumble
fight is gone through in a natural way. Then comes the scene which
begins with the hero's rush for the villain and ends with the blow that
sends the unfortunate over the cliff. The villain takes his nerve with
him and stands on the edge of the cliff and leans as far back as he is
able. The hero then places one fist on the villain's jaw and allows it
to rest there lightly. Then he pulls it back suddenly. The villain
follows him back to safety and they proceed to fight in a rough and
tumble way again.
But what has the camera been doing all the time? Ah, the camera has been
grinding backwards so that when the above scene is flashed on the screen
it looks as if the hero really hit the villain on the jaw. And just at
the point where the villain is shown leaning back to the farthest of his
ability the film is cut and a dummy likeness of the villain is
substituted for the fall, thereby saving the director's reputation and
his standing with the real villain's family.
Then there is the close shot of the hero's fist landing with terrific
impact on the villain's jaw and sending him sprawling. Naturally no
villain really wants to feel the terrific impact of the hero's fist. The
two boys may be good friends in real life. So the hero lets his fist fly
gently and merely taps his opponent.
But, of course, this wouldn't look realistic on the screen so what does
the director do or order the cutter to do? He cuts or orders to be cut
every second or every third individual picture from the strip of film
that shows the slowly moving fist. As a consequence of this cutting the
movement of the fist is given actual speed and finally when the scene is
shown on the screen it looks like the real thing!
Of course the old trick of the baby being rescued from the onrushing
train in the nick of time or the scene of the automobile just cutting
across in front of the thundering express are generally understood. The
action is usually taken backwards as in the fight on the edge of the
precipice with most satisfactory and thrilling results when shown on the
screen frontwards.
[Illustration:
“DISRAELI” IS THE PLAY IN WHICH GEORGE ARLISS WON WIDE FAME. DIRECTED
FOR THE SCREEN BY HENRY KOLKER IT STANDS AS THE MOST PERFECT
ADAPTATION ON RECORD
]
[Illustration:
WALLY REID IN THE GEORGE FITZMAURICE PRODUCTION OF “PETER IBBETSON”
]
And now that I have succeeded in spoiling these illusions for readers
who have not previously had them spoiled, is it any particular wonder
why Mack Sennett guards the secrets of his study with a certain amount
of jealousy?
CHAPTER XII
SOME WORDS FROM FRANK BORZAGE
_The director of “Humoresque” and
“Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” a born creator, an
instinctive picture director, believes there is
not enough true characterization on the screen
today.—Audiences like to see counterparts of
themselves on the screen, not highly glorified
heroes and heroines, is his theory_
CHAPTER XII
Earlier in these chapters reference was made to the number of capable
and skilled men, as yet unproven with respect to the extent of their
emotional experience, who were eagerly awaiting the opportunity to step
into the limelight with a pictorial masterpiece. In only a little over
the last twelve months two such men were given the opportunity and both
proved themselves, emerging from their experiences as directors whose
names now stand for the best in motion pictures. Of and from one of
these men, Rex Ingram, we have already heard.
The other is Frank Borzage who in the short space of a year has given
picture audiences “Humoresque” and “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” both
artistic and financial successes. Mr. Borzage is obviously a born
director, that is a born creator, a born artist. The qualities are to be
observed in him merely on a chance conversation. It is easy to see that
here is a man with a great groundwork of emotional experience to serve
him in his art. And Mr. Borzage is one of those who subscribe to the
theory set forth in the first chapter of this book; that without a full
background of emotional experience a director can never rise to the
heights of his craft.
Mr. Borzage's method of working may not be distinctly individual with
him but at least no other director has stated as clearly what he
believes to be one of the secrets of making good pictures. Mr. Borzage
believes that behind every face he sees there is some sort of a story.
Unable to find out exactly what this story is, he will draw it in part
from the face itself. The face will tell him certain things, the rest
will be supplied from the imagination.
“Characterization is what makes pictures attractive,” Mr. Borzage says,
“Sincere, true characterization. There isn't enough of it in the average
picture of today. There is too much dealing with the surface things, the
superficial things. The majority of directors don't go deep enough into
the personalities with which they deal.
“I believe in developing every character, no matter how small, that
there is in my story if that development is to prove interesting. And by
interesting I don't mean the blood-and-thunder sort of interest. A
character doesn't have to have committed a murder or betrayed a friend,
or to have won a battle in a war or politics to be interesting. It is
the commonplace little things in that character's life that can be
thrown up on the screen and made interesting, absorbing, living.
“It is my aim to develop characters on the screen that everyone in an
audience will recognize. I want a man to say when he sees a character in
one of my pictures, 'Well, that's awfully like Johnny Jones,' or I want
him to say, 'Gosh, I did the same thing myself, yesterday.' That is the
kind of a character that makes a hit on the screen. A character that
everybody recognizes and immediately loves. In every face I see I find a
story. It doesn't seem hard. The story is right there lying on top,
easily visible. You can take it and make something real, vital out of
it. And by face I don't mean face literally when it comes right down to
directing pictures. Then by face I mean the characters in my story.
“So many times even in the best of stories, written by the best of
writers and prepared by the best of continuity writers, it seems to me
that opportunities have been overlooked for the development of
character. It is probably because the majority of authors don't realize
the extent to which you can go on the screen in developing a
characterization. They are still thinking in terms of the printed page.
They don't know quite how to think in pictures.
“And so if a minor character can be developed without crowding plot
interest and the important characters (and certainly minor characters
can be developed in this fashion) why I always want to do it and do do
it.
“Again I say it is in these homely, plain, average characters that there
lies the real interest for the majority of audiences. The average
picture deals with a hero and heroine who are not average people. They
are generally very superior in everything they do. Most producers and
directors believe that audiences like such people and no other kind
because they have always gone to see them on the screen and continue to
do so. These superior people are in the majority of plays and pictures
and stories that we see and read.
“But just stop and see where the plain, average character when elevated
to the position of importance in a film or a play, has captured the
hearts of thousands, millions. I refer to the plays, 'Lightnin',' and
'The First Year' and to 'Humoresque,' the picture. Here were plain,
everyday people, just like all of us and just because they were so like
all of us we like them better than we like swashbuckling heroes in
modern adventure pictures and entirely too wide-eyed and pretty heroines
in pictures supposed to be representing life.
“Of course, a dramatic picture with average people in it is the hardest
thing in the world to write. That is, it seems to be from its scarcity.
Perhaps though the writers proceed on the idea that audiences want
fantastically heroic heroes and heroines because they believe people
like to see themselves as they would like to be. This is a sound theory
and no doubt is responsible for the popularity of the average picture
but I think people really like to see themselves as they are. There are
stories, and dramatic stories in real peoples' lives but of course they
are hard to find. It's all very well to say that there's drama in the
life of the man who delivers the milk and in the lives of those in the
apartment next door. It's there all right. But find it! That's what I
try to do and that's what I try to do in my pictures. That makes them a
little bit different from the usual picture perhaps.”
Mr. Borzage's “Humoresque” and his more recent picture from the Cohan
play and the Chester stories, “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford” bear silent
witness to his ideas on picture making with respect to character
development. “Humoresque” contained some of the keenest character
studies ever screened. Its first half, dealing with Jewish family life
in New York City's Ghetto was doted with gems of true characterization,
recognizable as representing actually the average Jewish family of the
east side. Much of this characterization was drawn from the work of the
author, Fannie Hurst, and Mr. Borzage is the first to recognize this
fact, and much more was supplied by the director himself. The manner in
which he built up the character of the Jewish father, for instance,
instilling into it the proper amount of sympathy, humor and racial
characteristic, is a lasting tribute to its work.
There is an interesting story with respect to “Humoresque” that has
often been told. The picture had cost a deal of money and was watched
with particular interest by everyone in the studio where it was made
from William R. Hearst, down to the merest property man. It was
something of an experiment.
When it was finally completed and in readiness to be put before the
public the heads of the organization decided not to put it out! They
were afraid of it! Why? Well, because it dealt solely with Jewish
characters, it didn't contain the ordinary type of motion picture plot,
in brief, it was something quite apart from the usual type of picture.
Therefore those who stood sponsor for it trembled lest it fail
financially and trembled to the point where they decided it shouldn't be
released at all.
And then someone spoke up and started to champion the picture. It may
have been Mr. Borzage. But whoever it was the picture went into a
theatre and from the first performance started to break records. And
such has been the case with a number of the best pictures produced. “The
Birth of a Nation” and “The Miracle Man” were considered by those
supposed to know as failures before they were released. They would never
make a penny. And all three of these pictures went out and cleaned up
the shekels for their sponsors!
Mr. Borzage has a few words to say on the subject of directing which
also stamp him as a man from whom greater successes still are to be
expected in the future. “Every type of picture,” he says, “whether
drama, melodrama, comedy or farce can be treated in the same way
with respect to characterization. By this I mean that all such types
of pictures are based primarily on the sincerity of their
characterizations. If I were making slapstick pictures I would pay
just as much attention to characterization as I do now. Look at
Chaplin. Characterization, true characterization, is at the bottom
of his success. It is what makes his pictures more than mere
comedies but masterpieces of picture art.
“As for melodrama, I think it a vastly belittled type of entertainment.
Of course the old melodrama, the type disparagingly referred to as 'ten,
twenty, thirty' contained little merit beside its ability to thrill.
Then there was no characterization except that which rose from the
situations themselves. Situations created character, true to the rule of
melodrama. But today in the pictures we have the old melodramatic
situations fitted out decently with true characterizations. Critics are
inclined to belittle them and call them cheap. But they don't seem to
sense the idea that life is made up largely of melodrama. The most
grotesque situations rise every day in life. Read the newspapers, talk
with your friends and see if I'm not right. Coincidence runs rife in the
life of everyone. And yet when these true to life situations are
transferred to the screen they are sometimes laughed down because they
are 'melodrama.'
[Illustration:
FRANK BORZAGE IN DIRECTING “BACK PAY” STOPS TO GIVE DIRECTIONS TO HIS
CAMERAMAN, CHESTER LYONS
]
[Illustration:
FRANK BORZAGE AND THE “HUMORESQUE” COMPANY. THE DIRECTOR IS SEATED ON
THE FLOOR. THE LITTLE GIRL IS MIRIAM BATTISTA. THE WOMAN AT THE
RIGHT IS VERA GORDON. ALMA RUBENS IS ON THE LEFT WITH GASTON GLASS
BY HER CHAIR. DORE DAVIDSON STANDS WITH HIS HANDS FOLDED
]
“If this is true then all life is a joke and while some humorists hold
to this idea, I am not one of those who believe it so.”
CHAPTER XIII
WHAT TEMPO MEANS IN DIRECTING
_The matter of tempo is strictly of the
technical side of directing. Edward Dillon
explains how comedy pictures can be “made” or
“broken” through close attention to this angle
of production, or a total disregard of it_
CHAPTER XIII
One of the most important matters concerned with the direction of a
picture is that of tempo. Tempo is a term borrowed from the music world
but it applies to pictures as accurately as it does to music. Its
meaning is simple, of course, but to put it in a more commonplace way it
means the “timing,” or rather the proper timing of the various episodes
that constitute the picture.
The value of proper tempo is at once recognizable with respect to some
of the familiar episodes of picture dramas. Anyone can readily realize
the value of an ultra-rapid tempo in dealing with a chase episode,
either in comedy or in drama, say for instance, when policemen are
chasing crooks. Here the motion is speeded up to its greatest possible
extent while still keeping within the bounds of realism and probability.
Sometimes, as is well known, realism and probability in a chase are far
exceeded in burlesque comedies. Likewise, it is just as easy to pick out
a typical sequence where slow tempo is demanded; any such sequence as a
religious ceremony or an important dramatic denunciation.
To point out one manner in which the tempo of scenes varies in less
typical sequences and to point out the value of its variation is,
however, a far more difficult thing to do. To the eye of the layman the
tempo of a picture may never vary from one end to the other.
Subconsciously, however, this variation of the tempo is in a great part
responsible for that person's enjoyment of the entertainment. Just as a
chase scene is keyed to the greatest possible tempo and just as a
denunciation scene may be keyed to the slowest possible tempo, just so
other scenes of varying dramatic calibre should be keyed to rates of
tempo of varying and relative importance. Sometimes two sequences may be
played together in which there is little more than a hair's breadth in
tempo but little as it is it is still there, exercising a subtle effect
on the dramatic worth of the picture as it unfolds on the screen.
The director who has this realization of the proper tempo down to
something approaching a practical science is the best director. To gauge
the value of a certain sequence and then to think it out in minutes and
seconds is a task of exceedingly difficult proportions. Then too, there
is the circumstance of the speed at which the cameraman is grinding to
be considered. A cameraman can manage the tempo of a picture by himself
if he knows sufficiently and likewise if he is ignorant of the niceties
of his work he may well ruin a picture through lack of proper attention
to the timing of his scenes, despite all the efforts of the director.
While it doesn't take any unusual amount of judgment to determine the
scenes that should be played in fast tempo, it does take considerable
judgment to determine those that should be played in slow tempo. Many
directors are inclined to award altogether too much film space (are
inclined, in other words, to play in too slow a tempo) scenes of little
importance. When a director has erred in this fashion a number of times
in the production of one picture, the results show on the screen in the
shape of lost interest on the audience's part. The spectator gets the
idea that the picture is padded out with scenes just to fill in, whether
this was the aim of the director or not.
Scenes that should be played in a rapid tempo are usually played at
their normal gait on the studio stages but when it comes to a scene that
is played slowly for the reason of registering a certain strong dramatic
point, these scenes are as a rule played a little bit slower than they
would normally be presented.
The question of tempo simmers down, therefore, to the question of how
skilled the director of the picture is in securing desired effects on
the screen. Tempo is so thoroughly a part of a director's manifold
duties, a part of almost each and every one, that is, that it is
extremely difficult to disassociate it from any of them. In dealing with
it, it is impossible to go thoroughly into the subject without saying
something on pictorial and dramatic detail, about the ability of the
players themselves and about the camera and its master.
But the picture properly timed and keyed is undoubtedly the best
picture. The drama that leads up to an inevitable climax that sustains
the interest of the spectator through a considerable series of episodes
before that climax is reached; the drama that, at the moment of the
climax itself, fairly bursts forth on the admiring spectator in all its
strength and force, is the drama made with close attention to the tempo
of each of its episodes.
Edward Dillon, one of the surest directors of light comedy in the
producing art who received his schooling under such present day masters
as D. W. Griffith and Mack Sennett, has a few interesting words to say
with respect to the topic.
“Tempo, the gauging of scenes and sequences to their proper time can
almost make or break a picture,” he says. “This fact is specially true
with respect to the light comedy or the comedy-drama. Audiences as a
whole, I don't suppose, can properly realize how much the proper tempo
means in the success of a comedy. In my experience in producing comedies
I have often noticed that the slightest variation from the proper tempo
in one direction or the other, often spoils the effect of a possible
laugh. A slight slowing down in tempo may throw an entire comedy
sequence out of gear, so to speak, and irreparably weaken its effect on
the screen. Too much speed in the wrong place often has the same more or
less disastrous results.
“A player can spoil a dramatic or comedy effect by taking too much time
to walk out of a room or going out of it too quickly. He can spoil it by
allowing the expression of his face to change too quickly or too slowly.
These instances are practical examples of what tempo means. A director
has to watch his players constantly in order to prevent such slips. They
demand particularly close watching when they are not experienced in
pictures, say when they have been recruited from the legitimate stage.
“If anyone seeks an actual demonstration of what the lack of attention
to tempo means to a picture, let him go to see one of the various cheap
slapstick comedies so often produced. He can find them by steering clear
of the theatres that show the well known comedy brands produced by the
leading producers. When he finds one of the others he will immediately
know it because he will see the familiar old chase scenes done in rank,
amateurish style. The people in the chase will go fast in one scene and
slow in the next. The director didn't know how to achieve the effect he
wanted. He probably thought doing a chase picture was the mere job of
telling one bunch of people to chase another bunch of people. And that
is far from all of it.”
All of which is but one more reason why directing motion pictures isn't
the easiest thing under the sun.
CHAPTER XIV
“OVERSHOOTING”—AND THE SERIAL
_Lack of proper attention to tempo often results
in a director finding himself at a loss when it
comes to cutting his picture.—The severe task
faced by the director of the two reel episode
serial and how he must make every foot of film
count_
[Illustration:
FRANK BORZAGE TALKING OVER A DOMESTIC SCENE WITH SEENA OWEN AND J.
BARNEY SHERRY. THE PICTURE IS “BACK PAY”
FRANK BORZAGE DIRECTING “HUMORESQUE.” THE DICTAPHONE WAS USED BY MR.
BORZAGE TO RECORD THE COMPLETE CONTINUITY INSTEAD OF HAVING THE
MANUSCRIPT HOLDER USE STENOGRAPHIC NOTES
]
[Illustration:
THE TYPES IN FRANK BORZAGE'S “GET RICH QUICK WALLINGFORD” ARE
RECOGNIZABLE TO ALL
]
CHAPTER XIV
Tempo is such an intricate subject that the more that is said of it, the
more it obtrudes itself on the matter of directing. If a director isn't
careful, watching the progress of the various episodes of his picture
and measuring their importance and actual length in his mind's eye, he
is liable to have too much material on hand when he comes to the task of
“cutting” his picture.
The cutting and the editing of a picture present together one of the
most difficult processes through which it goes before reaching the
public. And while cutting and editing are not exactly part of a
director's duties, he exercises a certain amount of supervision over the
process because in it his work is finished off and polished.
The cutting and editing of scenes is the process of putting them
together in the proper sequences and trimming off unnecessary footage so
that the picture approaches the proper length. Skilled cutting and
editing, carrying with it a careful appreciation of the director's work,
can sometimes redeem a picture that seems hopelessly bad. Likewise lack
of skill and appreciation in the cutting and editing process sometimes
“kills” a picture.
But when a director has failed to properly gauge the tempo of the
various sequences that go to make up a picture, there is all sorts of
trouble when the finishing off and polishing process is started. The
director may have allowed too much space for each of his episodes and
thus when the editing starts, the director or the editor finds it next
to impossible to bring the picture down to the required length without
mutilating the whole.
Of course, the ideal state of affairs would be to permit the picture to
run its natural length. Then there would be no trouble at all about
directors' overshooting. However, this would lead to pictures being
unnecessarily long as there would always be directors who would abuse
such a privilege. The length of the average feature is, however, elastic
enough to permit a director to err a thousand feet or so in his judgment
as to the length of a story and still be safe. Feature pictures run
anywhere from forty-five hundred feet to six thousand feet. The average
length is five thousand feet, hence the term “five reeler.”
And most stories can be told easily enough within the average five
reels. There is one critic who claims that no story is big enough to
consume more than five reels of film. He is pretty nearly right, at
that.
But with all these footages known before hand there are directors who
will so misjudge the tempo of the picture sequences and who will so
misjudge the importance of sequences and include in them more scenes
than are necessary (these directors are usually the ones who work
without a continuity), that when they have finished with the camera work
on a picture, they find themselves with too much footage on hand and
forced into the necessity of cutting out much of the story value of
their picture.
One of the most artistic pictures produced during the last year, a
picture adapted from a brace of novels of universal fame was to a
certain extent, spoiled because the director “overshot” various phases
of the story. When he had cut it as much as he was able, when he had
brought it down to ten thousand feet, it was quite perfect. And he was
unable to cut it down further because each further cut he made on it
would have been like sticking a knife in himself and twisting it. It
takes more than courage for a director to cut out a scene over which he
may have labored for hours at a time.
However, the public, through the theatre owners, has declared itself as
generally opposed to pictures taking more than an hour and a half to run
unless they provide some remarkably effective sustaining interest. As
this picture lacked spectacular quality and was never smashingly
dramatic it had to be cut down to average length and in this final
cutting much that was good about it was removed and discarded.
Most directors, however, can judge their tempo and their footage to be
sure not to run into such trouble. The real difficulty on this score
comes when the short two reel picture is made and particularly the
serial picture so popular in some theatres today.
In the direction of a serial, each chapter of which is usually told in
two thousand feet of film, or two-fifths as much as is allotted the
average feature picture, the director is faced with the necessity of
making every foot of film contain either plot interest or action
interest. Pictorial beauty, characterization, atmosphere, qualities
which sometimes assist the interest of a feature picture to a great
extent, are discarded from the slightest contemplation in the direction
of a serial, even as similar elements are discarded in the writing of
the magazine serial story.
So it is in the production of the ever-popular rapid-fire, thrill serial
that the matter of tempo is of the utmost importance to the director. If
he takes a little too long in picturizing a certain sequence, where does
he stand? He can't resort to the practice of the feature director, that
is cutting out a few scenes here and there that he may have included for
their pictorial quality or for their atmosphere. He can't do this
because he has excluded those scenes in the first place. Every foot of
his film is given over to plot and action interest. So it may be seen
that this question of tempo enters importantly into the director's work.
Incidentally the serial director's job is an exceedingly difficult one.
Often in the two reels allowed him he must tell as much if not more
story than is usually told in the five reel feature. He must constantly
keep the action going at a break-neck speed. He can seldom let a player
stand still for the short space of a half minute. Everyone is constantly
on the move. The plot and the action demand it. The characters of the
story must be characterized by plot and action. There is no space for
the human touches and the characterization by little details. Not in a
motion picture serial.
In addition much of the serial's action proceeds at an extraordinary
rate of speed. The rate is hardly natural at all. The director must
adapt himself to this strictly serial way of doing things. This
ultra-speed is particularly noticeable when it comes to the big thrill,
the big punch scene which usually closes an episode of a serial. Here
the action assumes almost lightning like rapidity. The director must
force his players to the limit of their capacity for speed. If in his
scenes of plot interest there was not a half minute to be lost here in
these scenes there is not a half second to be lost.