Do not write a scene into your scenario that will necessitate too much

work for scenic artists, carpenters, and property men. A truly big

theme is, of course, entitled to careful, and even elaborate, staging;

but it is usually only necessary to set forth the big theme and

describe the setting in a general way; the producer will do the rest.

Do not be extravagant in your requirements. This should be one of your

first considerations when you start to write a scene: could it be

played as well in some other setting that would not require so much

"staging?" Perhaps, in the setting that you thought of first, it might

be necessary to use several extra people, thereby adding to the cost

of production. No doubt it would be very pretty and effective to have

Ralph make up his quarrel with Dorothy as she sits down close to the

camera in the crowded ball-room; but, if the play did not already

contain a ball-room scene, could not the reconciliation be shown just

as well in the library or on the street near her home or in a

drawing-room scene where only a few guests are assembled, the guests

all being regular members of the stock company?

Some pictures calling for special properties and extra people fully

justify the additional expenditure; others do not. He is a wise writer

who knows his own script well enough to be able to judge.

_3. How Some "Too Expensive" Scenes Were Taken_

In a great many cases, pictures containing aëroplanes, burning oil

wells, railroad wrecks, houses that are completely gutted by fire, and

other exceptionally spectacular features, are the result of the merest

chance. For example, a few years ago the Thanhouser studio at New

Rochelle, N.Y., caught fire and burned to the ground. The fire was a

spectacular one, as the chemical contents of the building burned like

powder, and there were several explosions. The fire occurred at 1.30

o'clock in the afternoon, and many of the players were at lunch at

their hotels when the alarm was turned in. But the players, the

cameraman, and the director quickly got together, and even before the

fire was well out they had produced a thrilling fire picture, "When

the Studio Burned," in which was shown the rescue of the "Thanhouser

Kid" by Miss Marguerite Snow, then leading woman of the company. Thus

advantage was taken of an unfortunate happening to add to the fame of

the Thanhouser company.

Again, it may happen that several scenes of a big fire are taken while

it is in progress, and the film laid aside until a suitable photoplay

is either written by a staff-writer or sent in by an outside author.

Then the picture is completed, the fire scenes previously taken being

inserted between other scenes showing the action of the plot.

One of the most thrilling and realistic fire pictures ever produced

was "The Incendiary Foreman," released by Pathé Frères early in 1908.

It had a well-developed plot that kept the dramatic interest keyed up

every moment, but the features of the film were the many thrillingly

realistic fire scenes, in which the Parisian fire department battled

with the flames while several enormous buildings were being destroyed.

One of the earlier scenes depicted the yard of the Pathé factory, and

showed a quarrel between the foreman and one of the workmen. The

ensuing action led one to believe that this was the factory that was

consumed by the flames, but one or two of the later scenes made it

plain to those who could read French and who watched the picture

closely that the actual fire scenes had been taken during the

destruction of an immense oil refinery. Yet the combination of the

rehearsed scenes and the views of the real and disastrous

conflagration made a picture that drew record-breaking houses to every

theatre where it was exhibited.

Again, whether or not the producing concern releases a weekly or

semi-weekly current-events reel, every company at times makes use of

portions of such pictures, either made by themselves or procured from

other firms. In the same way, educational pictures of every kind are

made use of--certain parts of them, that is--to provide fitting and

convincing atmosphere for original stories. When the Whartons put out

their very fine patriotic serial, "The Eagle's Eye," written and

produced with the intention of exposing the plots formed in the United

States by agents of the Imperial German Government, the first episode

was called "The Hidden Death," and showed on the screen exactly how,

in all probability, the sinking of the _Lusitania_ was brought about

by Count von Bernstorff and his various agents. The actual

advertisement placed in New York City newspapers by the German Embassy

at Washington, warning all travelers that they sailed on steamers

belonging to Great Britain at their own risk, as a state of war

existed between that country and Germany, was shown on the screen, as

were several photographs of newspaper first pages with news of the

crime after it had been perpetrated. Also, the _Lusitania_ was shown

sailing down the North River toward the Upper Bay, starting on her

last voyage. This picture, of course, was at least three years old at

the time the film was shown in the theatres, and may have been much

more than that, since many pictures of this and other great ocean

liners have been made in years past, and at times when no one could

possibly have guessed their ultimate fate.

Practically every photoplay of the Great War that has been released up

to the present time has been made up in part of scenes taken on one of

the fighting fronts, at the American, British or other training camps,

or during street parades and military reviews, these pictures having

first been made for news weeklies, official war pictures, or for

patriotic propaganda purposes. Fitted in as a part of a war story,

they greatly enhance the effect of those scenes which are entirely the

creation of the author's brain.

On one occasion, a certain Edison director was putting on a feature

which showed--as originally written--the sinking in mid-ocean of a

great liner. While rehearsing the scene on deck which showed the

passengers taking to the life-boats, he made repeated experiments with

certain lightning effects, none of which quite satisfied him. He also

had some trouble with one of the made-to-order life-boats. Finally,

rather disgusted with the way things were going, he decided to cut out

the lowering-of-the-boats scene and to have a fire at sea instead of a

mere foundering. In a very few minutes, with the aid of "smoke-pots"

and "blow-torches" a thrilling burning-ship scene was made, with the

people scrambling toward the life-boats. Later, several long-distance

views of the burning of a real ocean vessel, made by the company

several years before, were introduced with most convincing effect,

while the action of the story was in no way interfered with on account

of the change. The scene described, of course, was made in the studio,

with a specially built deck scene. Had there been other scenes aboard

ship needed in the story's working out, the director would undoubtedly

have secured permission to take all the scenes needed aboard one of

the ocean liners always to be found in the port of New York.

So it is that hundreds of pictures released every year contain

thrilling, unusual, and beautiful effects which the author has never

dreamed of writing into his scenario, but which have been supplied by

a careful director with a memory for what the company has made in the

past. And the thing to be remembered, of course, is that while it is

very easy for a director to use something which is already made and in

the company's possession--or readily procurable from another

company--it is not so easy, at times, _to make_ the big scene or

effect that the novice introduces into his story.

Leaving aside the staff-writers, in almost every company[24] there are

one or two photoplaywrights; in many cases the leading man is also the

director of the company, writing and producing a great many of the

plays they turn out. Where this is so, that company is in a position

to take advantage of any unforeseen happening or accident. Being in

the vicinity of a railroad wreck, they hurry to the place and take the

scenes they need. Then, probably many miles away, and on an entirely

different railroad line, with the permission of the company and

possibly at a slight extra expense, they take the other railroad

scenes--perhaps a week after taking those at the scene of the wreck.

[Footnote 24: "Company," as here used, refers to the group of players

working under a certain director, several such groups making up the

stock company maintained by the film manufacturing concern.]

Thus the unthinking amateur writer, seeing the result of the

producer's efforts on the screen, takes it for granted that the

company has gone to the expense of buying up several old coaches and

an engine or two and producing an actual wreck merely for the sake of

supplying some thrilling situations in a railroad drama. True,

head-on collisions have been planned and pictured, box-cars have been

thrown over embankments, automobiles have been burned, aëroplanes have

been wrecked, and houses have been destroyed, to furnish thrilling

episodes in the pictures produced by various companies, but unless the

story itself fully justified the additional expense and trouble, it is

safe to say that the company, having the opportunity to purchase some

old engines and coaches cheap, took advantage of this to write and

produce a picture in which their destruction could be featured--that

is, the photoplay was the result of the special scene, and the scene

was not made specially for that particular plot.

To repeat, in introducing scenes that call for additional expenditure

on the part of the manufacturer, the question to ask yourself is,

_will the resulting effect really justify the added cost of

production_?

As a striking example of how unusual and--from the standpoint of what

may be artificially arranged--seemingly impossible scenes may be used

in photoplays, consider the following--and then avoid the introduction

of such scenes unless you know _absolutely_ just how your effect may

be obtained.

The Vitagraph release, "A Wasted Sacrifice,"[25] more fully described

in the next chapter, contained a scene in which a young Indian woman,

stepping upon a rattlesnake, was bitten, and died. One scene showed

her walking along, with the papoose on her back, all unsuspecting of

the danger that threatened. Then came a close-up showing the rattler

coiled with head raised. The next full-sized scene showed the woman

just about to step upon the snake concealed in the grass. In the

second close-up which followed, showing only the snake and the woman's

moccasined feet, the reptile struck with startling swiftness and

savageness. The whole effect was thrilling in the extreme--and we do

not doubt that more than one young writer was tempted to write a story

with a similar scene. But how often would a producer be able to obtain

such an effect? It seems obvious that the scene was in stock and the

play built around it, but the truth is that the scene was specially

made. The snake was caught, and its poison extracted, and then the

scenes were taken. In the close-up scene the snake was inside an

enclosure stretched on the ground. The first close-up showed the

snake, coiled. In the second, the girl was in the enclosure with the

snake. But the close-up did not show the enclosure, of course. And

rattlesnakes are not readily obtainable "props"!

[Footnote 25: The synopsis of this photoplay is given in Chapter

VIII.]

_4. Animal Actors_

Another mistake frequently made by the beginner is in writing stories

that require the assistance of trick animals. We know one

motion-picture actor who, at the time when he was on the extra list of

a well-known Chicago company, wrote to a New York producer that he

would furnish the working scenarios for two or three plays in which

his trick dog could work provided that he himself were allowed to

direct the scenes in which the animal took part. He was told to go

on, and carried out his part of the contract as offered. The result

was several very exceptional pictures in which his dog's clever work

was featured. But how many writers are prepared not only to write the

script but also to furnish the dog and direct its acting? It is better

to leave the writing of such stories to some member of the company

owning the trick animal.

The Selig Company maintains a large menagerie, as does also the

Universal Company; and a script in which caged animals are used might

be accepted by them. Even a story requiring animals that were

unconfined might "get by;" but it would be advisable, in either case,

first to try to find out whether the director who would take such a

picture considered the story worth while writing. That is, we think

the photoplaywright would do well--although no such suggestion has

been offered by either company--to send a _short_ synopsis of the

story he intends to write, showing just how the animals would be made

use of. We have no doubt that the editor would let you know if he

considered the idea a good one; and if he did, you could complete your

script or detailed synopsis. It would be understood, of course, that

his approving your idea would in no way guarantee the acceptance of

your script. But of one thing you might be sure: if your idea were not

purchased, it would not be used at all, as every reputable company

pays for everything they use.

_5. Child Actors_

What applies to animals applies equally to child actors: it is always

best, before submitting a story in which a child plays an important

part, to be reasonably certain that the company has such a juvenile

player, or that they can procure a child with the necessary ability to

perform the part. Several concerns have as members of their stock

companies child actors of marked ability. In some studios, however,

the director finds it necessary to "send out" for clever children of

whom he may know--sometimes the child has acted under his direction

before; sometimes he has heard the reports from directors of other

companies--and if there is doubt in the director's mind that the child

can handle the part, your story may be rejected as a result.

_6. Costume Plays_

In the chapter on "What You Should Write" we discuss the question of

writing historical dramas, which come under the head of costume plays.

It should be said here that, merely as an economical consideration,

you should always avoid sending scripts calling for special--and

therefore expensive--costuming to any company unless you know that

they are in the habit of producing plays of that nature. By studying

the pictures you see on the screen you can easily learn what companies

go in for costume or historical plays; such companies are always glad

to receive really strong and interesting stories of this character

from outside writers.

_7. Lighting_

We have already touched upon the use of special lighting arrangements

in special scenes, but it is well to say again that it is best to let

the director decide how a scene shall be lighted. He will consider the

matter from the standpoint of practicability and expense; you are very

likely to think only of the effect. Don't be too ready to write scenes

calling for verandas hung with electric lights in supposed night

scenes, Japanese lanterns at garden parties, unique moonlight effects,

and similar things that will make for expense--even if they are

practicable.

Finally, economy should always be the guide followed by the author in

writing his story. If, after it has been accepted, the director

chooses to stage it with more than ordinary care and expense, so much

the better. But the director and not the author will be the one to

decide how it is to be staged. If the story is good, it will not be

slighted in its production.

CHAPTER XVI

WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT WRITE

_1. The Work of the Censors_

From the time that you begin to write moving-picture plays, one

important fact must be borne constantly in mind: The National Board of

Censorship inspects and passes on all films before they are permitted

to be released, and this Board will not pass any subject it considers

objectionable. It is not our province to discuss the methods of the

censors in making decisions, though in some sections the local board

carries the censorship idea to extremes, even barring some subjects

that have already passed the National Board. It is safe to say,

however, that the folly of hacking to pieces a film portraying

Shakespeare's tragedy of "Macbeth," on the ground that it contained

too many scenes showing murder and other crimes, will soon become

apparent even to over-zealous police and other censors of certain

cities. As Mr. W. Stephen Bush writes in _The Moving Picture World_:

"A very small and a very short-sighted minority of motion picture

manufacturers, together with occasional lapses of National

Censorship," are responsible for the exceedingly silly and

presumptuous system now existent in some localities.

It is because of this "small and short-sighted minority" that we offer

this advice: Write as your conscience and a sense of decency as an

individual and as a good citizen dictate. The chances are that then

your photoplay will meet with no serious objection. Do not introduce a

crime-scene into your picture simply because when you saw a similar

scene in a photoplay it aroused a moment's thrill among the

spectators. The fact that it passed the National Board and the local

censorship committee--if your city has one--does _not_ mean that it is

the kind of picture the better class of theatre patrons want, and the

better class ought to be set up in your mind as the judges of all you

write. A bad example will not justify you in writing a play containing

objectionable scenes. The safe ground is the best ground because it is

right.

The following list of features disapproved by the National Board of

Censorship gives a good general idea of the things that may be

regarded as under the ban, not in one or two special cities, but

throughout the country. It is not a copy of an official list, as, to

the best of our knowledge, none such is sent out; it is merely a draft

prepared by Mr. John F. Pribyl, then with the Selig Company, after he

had had a conversation on the subject with the Secretary of the

National Board, Mr. Walter Story, and courteously transmitted by Mr.

Pribyl to the authors of this volume.

DISAPPROVED BY THE NATIONAL BOARD OF CENSORSHIP

_The Unwritten Law:_ The Board does not recognize the so-called

unwritten law as a justification for the killing of any being.

_Crime:_ 1. When crime is the obvious purpose of the picture--that is,

when the whole story hinges on the perpetrated crime.

2. When the crime is repulsive and shocks the spectator.

3. The shooting in "cold blood" of any being.

4. Any crime that portrays a unique method of execution.

_Suicide:_ The Board will not pass a picture in which there is a

suicide or any suggestion of a suicide, with incidents leading

thereto. The purpose of the Board is to prevent all suggestion of

self-destruction to those who are morbidly inclined.

_Burglary:_ There is no objection to a burglary scene in a picture so

long as there is no actual demonstration of the act of burglarizing;

for instance, the burglar may be shown entering through an open

window, but must not be shown in the act of "jimmying" the window. He

may be shown with his back to the audience, opening a safe and

extracting therefrom money or papers, but he must not be shown opening

the safe by any means known to the art of burglars.

_Vulgarity:_ All vulgarity and suggestion must be avoided. For

instance, flirtations with women who are unmistakably of easy virtue.

Letters making appointments with such women are objectionable, as is

any "rough-house" conduct with them.

_Mischief:_ The Board objects to pictures that will suggest to the

mind of youth acts of mischief, such as mutilation or destruction of

property for the purpose of perpetrating a joke on someone, especially

playing jokes on invalids or cripples.

_Lynching:_ Lynching is only permissible when the incident happens in

the days when Lynch Law was the only law, i.e., in the early days of

the Far West when the Vigilantes were the only effective means of

enforcing order.

_2. Other Objectionable Subjects_

The foregoing, of course, is not a complete list, as points are coming

up continually. For instance, scenes showing kidnapping are forbidden

by the police of many cities, and the introduction of that form of

crime into a film story is frowned upon by the National Board. The

point is that scenes of crime and violence are not absolutely barred,

nor are offenses against the moral law, but where permitted these must

not be presented offensively, and they must be _essential_ to the

story, rather than the _purpose_ of the play. This is a difficult

point which nothing but common sense and experience can perfectly

interpret.

As an example, a story written about a murder or a robbery will not be

passed, but such an incident may be allowed in a story in which it is

not the leading feature. In any event, the incident must serve to

point a moral and not serve as a spectacle.

Another thing to remember is that--aside from the moving-pictures

exhibited in the various "regular" theatres--dozens of incidents

which are shown on the regular stage without being questioned in any

way, would never be allowed on the screen. This is partly due to the

fact that such a large percentage of the attendants of moving-picture

theatres are children and undiscriminating adults. The writer of

fiction entering the field of photoplay writing will do well to bear

this further fact in mind: the very incident that might be the means

of selling a story to a certain magazine might be the cause of a

rejection if introduced into a moving-picture plot. The photoplay has

standards all its own.

"One type of the unpleasant drama," says a writer in the _Photoplay

Magazine_, "is the kind showing scenes of drinking and wild

debauchery, where some character becomes drunk and slinks home to his

sickly wife, beats her, and then, finally, after reaching the last

stages of becoming a sot, suddenly braces up and reforms." The same

writer also remarks: "The only time that murder should be shown, _and

that very delicately_, is either in a detective drama or else in good

tragedy, where the removal of some character is essential to the

plot." "Every one of Shakespeare's tragedies tells of crime," says an

editorial in _The Moving Picture World_, "but does not exploit it, and

never revels in the harrowing details to produce a thrill."

It is not to be denied that careless and unthinking directors are

responsible for a good deal of what is objectionable on the screen. At

the same time--and this is especially true of comedy subjects--the

director is merely, as a rule, carrying out the author's

_suggestions_, if not his actual directions. The best way is not to

give the director the opportunity to adopt objectionable

features--leave even questionable incidents out of your photoplay.

For example, the elopement is legitimate moving-picture material,

provided it is not introduced in such a way as to instill mischief

into the minds of young men and women. At least one picture was

produced a year or so ago which showed two high-school girls eloping

with a couple of young rakes who in another part of the photoplay

"registered" that they were by no means the kind of young men who

would ever have received the sanction of the girls' parents to marry

their daughters. Such a picture may have been conceived innocently

enough, but as a subject that would be shown to thousands of young

people all over the world it was decidedly deserving of censure. And

yet some of the very incidents that served to make the picture doubly

objectionable in the eyes of grown people, especially fathers and

mothers, might have been the result of the director's unthinkingly

adding certain scenes that served to portray young men in a bad

light--incidents which were not even thought of by the author when he

planned his picture of a youthful escapade. We sympathize with the

lovers when Dorothy's father refuses to let her marry Jack, to whom

she is plainly devoted. But when, in another scene, we see Jack

wasting his time in pool-rooms or lounging in a saloon, we give the

father credit for being a good judge of character, and not simply a

harsh and stubborn guardian.

Writers should remember that even though a film is passed by the

National Board, if it gets into a city in which the local censorship

board objects to one or two scenes, these scenes will be literally cut

out for exhibition in that city. Afterwards, they may be put back; but

if this happens in several communities, the film is likely to be

shortened by many feet, since in cutting and re-splicing each cut

means the loss of at least two "frames," or pictures, and even more if

the operator does not know his business--not to mention the loss of

the actual scenes cut out. Suppose that two or three of a writer's

"strong" scenes are cut when his picture is shown--in Detroit, for

instance--the result on the screen is more likely to become an

illogical and incoherent jumble than the powerful "drama with a punch"

he had intended it to be. But "Censorship realizes," says Mr. A.W.

Thomas, in the _Photoplay Magazine_, "as does every editor and author,

that morality is to be desired, and to this end, crime or suggestion

of crime is presented, as a rule, to convey the moral. 'Crime for

crime's sake' is to be condemned. Sensationalism and forbidden themes

are seldom seen nowadays."

Aside from murder and suicide, why is it that so many young authors

imagine that to be strong a story must have at least one violent or

tragic death-scene? That there are hundreds of gripping stories,

pictures with the biggest kind of "punch," in which no death or

suggestion of death is shown, is well-known to every photoplay patron

whose mind and heart are in good working order. And yet editors are

every day returning scripts in which a murder, a suicide, a death as

the result of a duel, or a death arising from disease or accident, is

shown--all for no other reason than that the writer imagines he is

thereby producing a strong drama.

_3. Depressing Dramas_

Death in a picture is neither undesirable nor out of place--_provided

it is necessary to the proper and inevitable development of the plot_.

But the mistaken idea that to snuff out a human life in a thrilling or

a heart-rending manner, when there is really no logical necessity for

it, makes a picture either strong or dramatic is responsible for

scores of unaccepted scripts. Yet it would not be well to try to apply

to all picture stories Mr. George Cohan's motto, "Always leave them

laughing," for, as every intelligent exhibitor knows, and as a certain

producer once said, "they come to weep as well as to laugh." The point

that seems to have escaped many young writers is this: There is very

often a more decided, a more convincing, and a far more welcome,

"punch" in a scene which shows the saving of a human life than there

is in one which shows a death, even of the most unworthy character in

the cast. To have your villain nursed back to life by the man whom he

has so persistently and cruelly persecuted, and then to have him show

the change of heart that one would expect in him in the circumstances,

will be far more dramatic and gripping in the eyes of an intelligent

audience than to have your hero "hurl the black-hearted ruffian to

his doom" over a cliff a thousand feet high.

There is a distinction, with a very decided difference, between the

picture that fills the spectators with gloom and the one that simply

allows them to have what many women would call "a good cry." "It is a

great thing to be able to lift the spectators out of their seats with

a big, gripping melodrama," remarks Mr. Sargent, "but it is a far more

creditable thing to send them home with a tear in their eyes while a

smile hovers about their lips."

_4. The Use of Deadly Weapons_

It is understood, of course, that the use of guns, knives, and other

weapons is seldom objected to by the censors when they are employed in

a historical picture, or one that shows pioneer life. The trouble is

that some young writers, knowing that they are granted more license in

this direction when doing "Western stuff," make the mistake of abusing

this liberty. Mr. R.R. Nehls, of the American Film Company, says: "The

most noticeable fault with manuscripts dealing with Western life is

the natural inclination to run too much to gun play, stagecoach

robberies, etc. Please remember that we do not wish to distort

conditions in the great West--rather we seek to portray it as it

really exists today."

Mr. Nehls, it will be noticed, says "the great West ... as it really

exists today." It should be apparent to any writer that in turning out

stories of the present-day West there is even less excuse for

promiscuous gun-play than in a story, say, of California in the days

of the Forty-Niners. But Indian massacres, soldier warfare, Indian and

cowboy fights, usually come under the head of "historical" subjects

and are therefore permissible.

_5. Plays Offensive to Classes of Patrons_

It seems scarcely possible that any intelligent photoplay writer would

introduce into one of his stories an incident calculated to offend the

religious or political faith of any patron, and yet in the past

different pictures of this kind have been the cause of more than one

unthinking moving-picture theatre manager's losing some of his best

patrons. People as a rule have no objection to being preached to in a

mild and entertaining way when they go to a picture show, but they do

object to having their feelings hurt. A man who is over-fond of drink

may sit through a play on the screen in which the evil results of

intoxication are depicted and come away filled with a determination to

reform his way of living, but the man who after paying his admission

is asked to sit through five or more reels of film almost every foot

of which is a shock to his religious or his political sensibilities

will come away filled only with the determination to avoid that

theatre in the future, if not, indeed, to eschew moving-pictures

entirely.

During 1911 and the early part of 1912 several pictures were released,

both by European and American manufacturers, which were so objected to

by Roman Catholic picture-patrons that not only were they suppressed

but the whole film-manufacturing industry was aroused and put on its

guard against producing more pictures of this kind. Here is a rule of

photoplay writing that you must not violate: Do not offend the

religious beliefs of a _single patron_ if you wish to retain the good

will of the editors and manufacturers. And have you stopped to think

how broad that statement really is? Have you taken into consideration

the many different nationalities, with their widely different creeds

and religious convictions, which see the pictures daily put upon the

market? As one critic says: "The photoplay film goes to Europe and

Australia and South Africa. Some of them even get to China; so you can

realize that what may seem foolish to you may be sacred to someone

else, and exhibitors have to be careful."

To say that you must be careful not to write stories that will be

likely to arouse the ire of certain photoplay patrons because of the

way a political theme is handled does not mean that you cannot

introduce political themes at all. If, for instance, you have a

particularly good suffragist story--one which contains both heart and

human interest--there is little doubt that it would sell. Several such

pictures have been shown in the past year or two. Or if you have a

story in which the leading male character is a Socialist, it may be

appreciated by many photoplay-goers without giving offense to those

whose views do not coincide with the hero's. But, to quote the editor

of _The Coming Nation_, stories are not wanted "where the hero arises

and makes a soap-box speech on Socialism, converting all by-standers."

And at all times you must keep in mind that, no matter what political

theme you exploit in your story, heart-interest must predominate if

you wish it to sell--another way of saying that unless you are sure

that you have a very strong and unusual story, it is best to leave out

politics. That form of journalism which is best known as muck-raking

is also out of place in the pictures.

Few films, however, outside of the sectarian subjects which were the

cause of so much disturbance a year or so ago, have given displeasure

to so many people as those--fortunately, they have not been

many--which revealed and held up to the public the secret and dark

sides in the lives of famous men and women of history. "There are some

things that are sacred," says a writer in _The Moving Picture World_,

"even from the hand of the most circumspect of picture makers." It is

a source of regret that even a shadow of reproach should be cast upon

distinguished men, particularly when the question of blame is

debatable, as when, for instance, a picture portraying the love affair

between Sir John Millais, the artist, and Ruskin's wife, was actually

produced by a well-known company.

No matter what the opportunity to produce what seems to you to be a

strong or interesting story, never offend against good taste. "Plays

that antagonize the finer element in an audience," says Mr. Louis

Reeves Harrison, "had better never be shown at all. There is nothing

funny in what is cruel, though vulgar brutality in a play may get a

laugh from a few who have not yet emerged from primitive egoism."

That last sentence should constantly be borne in mind.

A certain film, "Adrift," released back in 1912, showed an incident

that in real life would have been impossible. The rejected suitor of a

woman who is afterwards seen on the downward path seeks to relieve his

lonely existence by the adoption of a child. Because a certain little

girl in an orphan asylum bears a striking resemblance to the woman he

has loved and lost, he decides to adopt her. And he does; they are

seen leaving together, the child being turned over to its new guardian

in the most off-hand way imaginable. Of course, later, the child,

having grown to womanhood, falls in love with and marries her

guardian; but in real life how little chance there would be of a

foundling institution's giving one of its girl charges over to a young

bachelor in this informal manner, if, indeed, he were allowed to adopt

her at all. Of course, it is not always possible to say whether the

script for such a picture was the work of an outside writer or whether

it was written by the director himself. But it sometimes happens that

a picture _is_ produced _because_ it was written by the director

himself, whereas the same story, sent to the editor by an outside

writer, would be returned with a warning to avoid similar scenes or

situations in the future.

The difference between the photoplay and prose fiction, or even the

regular drama, is illustrated by the so-called problem plays and

novels. These are acceptable mainly because their themes can be

explained from every point of view, and treated in a manner that

renders them less objectionable, when skillful dialogue and discussion

are used in telling the story, than if they were to be acted in

pantomime. Besides, to give the same story in motion pictures would

necessitate the use of more leaders and other inserts than would be

practicable, even in a feature picture, unless the director were to

risk offending the public, if not the Censorship Board, by putting on

scenes that, insufficiently explained, would be far too risqué for the

photoplay stage. Furthermore, when there are so many good, pleasant,

and interesting themes to choose from, why elaborate what is

unpleasant or morally objectionable?

_6. Themes Unsuitable to the Producing Company_

In the chapter on the limitations of the photoplay stage we have

already said something about the inadvisability of calling (in your

scenario) for elaborate snow-and rain-storm effects. But of course it

is another matter to plan stories with winter or with summer

backgrounds. Take into consideration that most of the Eastern

companies, once the winter season is at hand, look for stories that

may be done mostly in the studios, with interior settings. If the

company has a branch studio in California or in Florida--facts which

you can easily learn from the trade publications--they will very

probably take suitable stories calling for outdoor scenes. As the

winter season approaches its end you begin to offer scripts that call

for exterior scenes, though, of course, there are some scenes which

it would not be possible to do until summer is well advanced.

It is impossible here to lay down any exact rules for submitting to

any company; you must be guided by your good judgment and your

acquired knowledge of how the company to which you submit your scripts

has its field-forces distributed. But in order to make scripts

acceptable for production by a company that has a field-force working,

say, in the Adirondacks, it is necessary to get your stories to them

in good time. Therefore, post yourself concerning the movements of the

various companies, and when you learn that a certain concern has a

field-company in the West Indies, send them the best script you have

or can write, suited to the locality in which they are working. If it

is accepted, you may be sure that the editor will be very glad to keep

you informed as to how long they are going to stay. In that way you

will avoid sending to a company a story with a Jamaican background

when the field-company has been moved to the Delaware Water Gap

region.

_7. Hackneyed Themes_

Here is a list of subjects no longer wanted by the editors--unless the

theme is given a decidedly new twist--because they have become

hackneyed from being done so often. Many such lists have been printed

in the various motion-picture trade-papers and the different magazines

for writers. We give the tabooed themes that have so far been listed,

and others drawn from different sources. A careful study of this list

may save you from wasting your time writing a story that has already

been done--perhaps two or three times, in one form or another--in

every studio.

(1) The brother and sister, orphaned in infancy, parted by adoption

and reunited in later life. They fall in love, only to discover the

blood relationship.

(2) The little child stolen by gypsies, and restored to her family in

later life, generally by means of a favorite song.

(3) The discharged workman who goes to do injury to his former

employer, but who performs some rescue instead and gets his job back.

(4) The poor man who attends a fashionable dinner. He conceals in his

clothing delicacies for his sick wife. A ring or other valuable is

lost. He alone of the party refuses to be searched. The valuable is

found and his story comes out.

(5) The man who assumes his brother's crime for the sake of the girl

he loves, and who, he thinks, loves the brother.

(6) The child who reunites parted parents or prevents a separation.

(7) Baby's shoes. Edison, Vitagraph, Universal and other companies

have worked out all the sentiment attached to them. Bannister Merwin,

Robert E. Coffey and other authors have reunited separated couples by

means of baby's shoes. Don't do it any more.

(8) Two suitors for the hand of a girl. They go to one of the parents

to decide, or she gives them a common task to perform. One wins by

foul means. He is found out, and she marries the other.

(9) The convict who escapes and robs an innocent man of his clothes,

thereby causing another to appear temporarily as the jail-bird.

(10) The story of the girl's name and address written on the egg which

is relegated to cold storage for twenty years, then to be discovered

by a love-lorn man who seeks out the writer, who by this time has at

least one unromantic husband and a brood of children.

(11) The pathetic "Mother" play in which Thanksgiving and pumpkin pies

tug hard at the heart-strings.

(12) The play in which the rich crippled child is contrasted with the

poor strong child, and in which the two are brought together and

exchange confidences--and money.

(13) The husband jealous of his wife's brother, whom he has never

seen.

(14) The burglar who breaks into a house, to be confronted by his own

child, who has been adopted by the family.

(15) The policeman who calls on the cook and removes his hat and coat,

which are used by another.

(16) The child who reunites parents and children separated through an

unapproved marriage.

(17) The child who redeems the criminal or who saves the discouraged

from the downward plunge.

(18) The employee who gets an interest in the business, and his

employer's daughter, either with or without opposition from the

foreman or the junior partner.

(19) The bad small boy.

(20) The sheriff who is rescued by the outlaw and who later allows him

to escape, or prevents his being lynched.

(21) The revenue officer who falls in love with the moonshiner's

daughter, and who is forced to choose between love and duty.

(22) The Southern boy who enlists in the Federal army, and is cast out

by his father for so doing. Or the young Northerner who, acting as a

Federal spy, falls in love with a Southern girl, the daughter of a

Confederate officer. There are dozens of variations of the Civil War

"brother against brother" plot, but all have been done so often that,

unless you can give such a theme a decidedly new "twist," it is much

better not to send it out. And note that merely to give the old theme

a "Great War" setting is _not_ to render it more acceptable.

(23) Stories requiring too much trick photography, and stories based

upon "love pills," "foolish powders," and other "influences."

"Editors and public tired long ago of the poor boy whose industry at

last brought him the hand of his employer's daughter; the pale-faced,

sweet-eyed young thing whose heroism in stamping out a fire enabled

her to pay off the mortgage; the recovery of the missing will; the

cruel step-mother; answering a prayer which has been overheard; the

strange case of mistaken identity; honesty rewarded; a noble revenge;

a child's influence; and so on to a long-drawn-out end."[26]

[Footnote 26: J. Berg Esenwein, _Writing the Short-Story_.]

In avoiding trite subjects the surest teachers are common sense, a

wide reading, the constant study of the photoplays seen on the screen,

a friendly critic, and the printed rejection slip. _And do not forget

this most important point_: It is not so much the time-worn _theme_

that makes a story hackneyed as it is the threadbare _development_ of

the theme. A new "twist," a fresh surprise, coming as the climax to an

old situation, may redeem its hackneyed character. But when you can

combine a fresh theme with a new treatment you have reached the apex

of originality. Time spent in working on unhackneyed lines will save

you many later heartaches.

_8. Inconsistent Situations_

A word or two concerning inconsistencies in film stories. While the

inconsistencies and absurdities occasionally seen on the screen are

often traceable to the director alone, the writer must do his share

toward eliminating what is incorrect or out of place. Take for

instance the Red Cross in war-pictures. The introduction of the Red

Cross into American Civil War pictures was something that one of the

present writers had commented upon and criticized two or three years

before Mr. Herbert Hoagland, of Pathé Frères American company, wrote

his helpful little book on the technique of the photoplay[27], but,

since Mr. Hoagland puts it so comprehensively in that work, what he

says is quoted here:

"In a Civil War story the scenario called for a field hospital with

the Red Cross flag flying from a staff. Well, the Red Cross wasn't

organized until the closing year of the war, and then it was done in

Switzerland. The Southerners and the Yankees never saw this emblem of

mercy _during the whole four years of strife."_

[Footnote 27: Herbert Case Hoagland, _How to Write a Photoplay_.]

Following the foregoing paragraph in his book, Mr. Hoagland speaks of

another script in which an officer in Confederate uniform is informed

by a courier--in Confederate uniform--that war had been declared

between the North and the South. "But," the Pathé censor of scripts

remarks, "there was no gray uniform of the Confederacy before the

C.S.A. was formed!"

As one critic has remarked, "Screen credit for the author may not

bring him the credit for which he is looking." In other words, if the

director bungles a scene or allows some historical or other inaccuracy

to creep into the picture, the blame may be placed by the unthinking

spectator on the author--or even, in case of the picture's being an

adaptation of a novel, on the writer who prepared the continuity, or

scenario. Thus, while what Mr. Hoagland wrote was written in 1912, the

Red Cross flag was seen waving bravely in Paralta's "Madame Who?",

produced in 1918, and we feel sure that neither Mr. Harold MacGrath,

who wrote the novel, nor Mr. Monte M. Katterjohn, the staff-writer

who wrote the scenario, was responsible for the error.

So it will be seen that the photoplaywright may easily find himself

under the fire not only of the professional critic, but also of the

lay patron and of his brother writers. Do not, therefore, risk

anything that may, so to speak, make it easier for the director to "go

wrong." To quote Davy Crockett's motto, "Be sure you're right; then go

ahead."

As an example of what may happen if you fail to observe this warning,

consider the Vitagraph release, "A Wasted Sacrifice," referred to in

the previous chapter.[28] The big "punch" in this story, as already

pointed out, was where the young squaw steps on the concealed

rattlesnake. Women in the audience screamed; men felt the proverbial

"cold chill" run down their spines. Then came the climax, in which the

young Westerner, hoping to save the life of the papoose, takes it away

from the dead mother and hurries back to meet the doctor-sheriff who

is pursuing him with the posse. The doctor tells him that the child is

dead; his sacrifice--from which the story derives its title--has been

unnecessary. The poison, drawn from the breast of the stricken woman

by the nursing child, has killed the baby. A real "punch," indeed! But

wait. A prominent physician in an Eastern city writes to the producing

company protesting that it is impossible for a child to draw poison

into its system in the manner described. And the physician _knows_!

In other words, what happened in the picture could not happen in real

life. The backbone of the plot has been broken! Seven in ten people

might not know the difference; they would never question the

probability of the scene. The other three in ten _would know_, and,

seeing your name on the film, would put you down as a first-class

"nature faker," or else as a very careless and badly informed writer.

And remember that even though the director may be the one most to

blame for not taking the trouble to verify the action introduced into

your story before putting it on, _you_ will be the one blamed by those

in the studio, and your next story will undoubtedly be looked at

askance, and probably rejected.

[Footnote 28: See synopsis in Chapter VIII.]

CHAPTER XVII

WHAT YOU SHOULD WRITE

"With inventiveness and imagination the most commonplace, the

everyday-life subject, such as the ills and cares we have to bear,

becomes, by a proper exposition of human nature under those

conditions, a story both entertaining and instructive. But

_entertaining_ first, instructive second; to _try_ to be instructive

is to cease to be entertaining.

"The strength of a story consists in the eloquence, vividness,

and sincerity with which a given problem in human life or

character is presented. Human nature is made up of all sorts of

traits--selfishness, cupidity, self-sacrifice, courage, loyalty. All

life is made up ... of a compromise between elements in the struggle

for happiness. These elements make for the story, happiness being the

chief factor for which humanity is searching."

Though written for short-story writers, these words from an article by

Mr. Floyd Hamilton Hazard are so true, and so applicable to the

writing of photoplays, that we reproduce them here.

Substantially similar ideas were advanced by Mr. Daniel Frohman, the

theatrical impresario, in an interview in the New York _Sun_, and no

one will doubt the close relationship which exists between the

general principles of plot-structure as applied to the "legitimate"

drama and to the photoplay.

We may now see the first big element in all vitally dramatic themes:

_1. The Human Appeal_

"Your script," wrote a certain editor in returning a young writer's

photoplay, "needs to be introduced to the 'H.I.' twins--Heart Interest

and Human Interest. Those two elements are responsible for the sale of

more manuscripts than anything else with which the writer has to do."

In choosing a theme for your photoplay, then, constantly bear in mind

the great truth that, no matter how original, how interesting, or how

cleverly constructed your plot may be, it will be sadly lacking unless

it contains a goodly percentage of one or both of these desirable

qualities. The frequently-quoted formula of Wilkie Collins, "Make 'em

laugh, make 'em cry, make 'em wait," simply sums up the proper

procedure when you set out to win the interest and sympathy of the

spectators. "The greatest aid in selling scripts is the injection of

the human-interest bits. Every effective bit of business concisely

told helps the sale because it helps the editor," Mr. Sargent remarks

in one of his criticisms. "Reach your readers' hearts and brains,"

says Arthur S. Hoffmann, editor of _Adventure_, in _The Magazine

Maker_. And then, after citing the dictum of Wilkie Collins, he adds:

"Make 'em hate, like, sympathize, think. Give them human nature, not

merely names of characters."

When all is said, you can hope to reach the minds of the masses only

by first reaching their hearts.

_2. Writing for All Classes_

Notwithstanding the great advances in the art of moving-picture

production during the last few years, and the corresponding

improvement in the film-stories shown, the great mass of photoplay

patrons are still, as they always were, of the middle class. Better

pictures have gradually drawn into the picture theatres a more highly

educated type of patron, but very few exhibitors would stay in

business if the middle-class spectators were to discontinue their

attendance. The average working man can take his little family to the

picture theatre, say once a week, for fifty cents, whereas it would

cost him about that sum for one poor seat in a first-class regular

theatre. Hence the immense popularity of the picture theatre, and

hence too the necessity for effort on the part of the theatre manager

to please _all_ his patrons.

First, of course, he must please the majority, but he must by no means

overlook the tastes of the minority. Every man, as the wise proprietor

knows, enjoys most what he understands best. The plain people are not

necessarily the unintelligent ones, for the working man can both

understand and enjoy pictured versions of Dante's _Inferno_ and

Sophocles' _Oedipus Rex_, but he will feel more at home while watching

a picture of contemporary American life; and who shall say, provided

the photoplay be a good one, that he is not receiving as much profit

therefrom as from the film version of either of the classics!

The really successful photoplaywright is nothing if not versatile.

Unless he is content to have a very limited market, he more than any

other type of professional writer must be able to write for all

classes.

Furthermore, he must be able to write on a variety of themes. The

photoplaywright who can produce only Western dramas, or stories

dealing with slum life, will find his sales averaging very low as

compared with the author who can construct a society drama, a Western

story, a photoplay of business life, a story of the Kentucky

mountains, or still other types. To be able to write photoplays that

will appeal to every class of photoplay patron is the supreme test of

the photoplaywright.

These words of a celebrated French novelist and playwright, Ludovic

Halévy, are worthy of attention:

"We must not write simply for the refined, the blasé, and the

squeamish. We must write for that man who goes there on the street

with his nose in his newspaper and his umbrella under his arm. We must

write for that fat, breathless woman whom I see from my window, as she

climbs painfully into the Odéon omnibus. We must write courageously

for the _bourgeois_, if it were only to try to refine them, to make

them less _bourgeois_. And if I dared, I should say that we must write

even for fools."

_3. A High Quality of Imagination Demanded_

Another well-known French dramatist, Marcel Prevost, who is a

photoplaywright as well, in a recent issue of the Paris _Figaro_

replied to a question whether motion pictures are harmful to the

legitimate theatre, by stating that, while he likes the pictures,

their authors are lacking in imagination.

That there is a great deal of truth in what M. Prevost says seems to

be proved by the fact that when famous playwrights and best-selling

authors have supplied photoplay plots to the manufacturers, they have

been exceptionally well paid. We refer, of course, to stories

specially written for the photoplay stage, for when a film

manufacturer produces a story by a well-known fiction writer, which

originally appeared in novel or in short-story form, the manufacturer

does business with the author's publishers, unless the author has

specifically reserved for himself all dramatic rights--a practice

which, by the way, is becoming more and more general.

[Illustration: Arrangement of Electric Lights in a Photoplay Studio]

[Illustration: An Actor's Dressing Room in the Selig Studio]

An editorial in _Motography_ says: "The best motion picture dramas

produced today are reproductions of literary classics. These films do

not achieve immortality; they merely further assure the immortality of

the original work. Why cannot a photodrama be produced that is fine

enough to live on its own merit--why must the picture always seem to

be secondary while literature and the drama continue to furnish the

primary motives?

"The answer lies in the peculiar requirements of photoplay

authorship. The writer of printed fiction is a master of _words_. He

revels in artful phrases and unique constructions. He woos immortality

not by his plots, but by his clever handling of words--his 'style'."

And then the editor goes on to say that the photodrama will become

great when it has developed its own great men. "The photoplay author

of fame," he says, "must be a specialist."

This also is true; but at the same time he must, as in any other

profession, first of all be a student. He must serve his

apprenticeship; and while he _is_ serving his apprenticeship he must

cultivate the imagination which M. Prevost declares to be so

essential.

Imagination cannot be developed by remaining in a rut. Experience is

not only the best teacher, but the very finest developer of thought,

and of a vivid and facile imagination. Thus constant practice causes

the building of plots to become a sort of second nature.

Granting that you have the technical skill to develop the plots you

evolve, the question which you have to answer is: What are the most

suitable themes for photoplays?

No one can give you such a list, though he may do what has been

attempted in another chapter--furnish a moderately full list of what

_not_ to choose as themes. Some general positive principles, however,

are important, and these are now to be considered.

_4. Write of What You Know_

The fact that the market is wide makes it the less excusable when a

writer courts rejection by attempting themes with which he is not

familiar. If you live on an Eastern or Middle-West farm, or in a small

town, remember that--especially between the months of May and

September--the film companies almost without exception are looking for

good stories of country life. Then why try to write stories of

business life in a large city, of society, of theatrical or circus

life, or even of the far West, until you have succeeded with a few

stories that might easily be set within a short distance of where you

live? Correct and faithful local color, at times, has much to do with

selling a story, though you always need a good idea and a clever plot.

The same rule, naturally, should be followed by the young writer whose

home is in a large city. If you can turn out a good, original story

truthfully portraying New York's East Side, Broadway, or Wall Street;

Chicago's "Loop" district; the social and political life of

Washington, or any other such background, there is an editor waiting

to purchase that story.

All this is _not_ to say that you must write only of things which are,

or have been, within the range of your personal experience. Many a

writer has successfully built his story on well-verified second-hand

knowledge. If you are not familiar with the subject at first-hand, and

cannot get direct, personal information, get the knowledge from books

and periodicals, _but get it exactly--squeeze the last drop of

information_ from the subject. If there is no library in your town,

search your own as well as borrowed books and magazines until you find

at least enough correct data to enable you to turn out a script that

will not betray second-hand knowledge. Jules Verne had only indirect

knowledge of most of the countries which he depicted, yet to read his

books one would believe that he had travelled everywhere. Because he

had read up on and investigated his subjects he was able to produce

such thoroughly convincing, and always interesting, books as "A Tour

of the World in Eighty Days," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea,"

and "The Clipper of the Clouds," in which he wrote, and apparently

authoritatively, of almost every country on the globe.

Until your work is pretty well known by the editors, it is just as

well not to attempt to write historical dramas. But if you do write

them, the greatest care must be taken to adhere closely to facts,

especially in composing scripts in which famous historical personages

figure. Three or four years ago a certain company that made a

specialty of two- and three-part historical, Western, and military

dramas, was called to account by an army officer in Washington for

having brought out a photoplay of pioneer life which held up a

well-known officer of the United States army in a rather bad light by

making him responsible for an act of great injustice to a famous

Indian chieftain. The author of the photoplay--whether a staff-writer

or a free lance--was doubtless unaware that he was doing an injustice

to the memory of a gallant and kind-hearted American soldier; but,

however the picture came to be written, it elicited the strong

disapproval of someone _who knew_, and who did not hesitate to tell

the makers that a mistake had been made.

Manufacturers have to be careful; they cannot afford to offend anyone.

Moreover, the motion picture has come to be looked upon as a great

educational factor, and no picture can be truly educational that is

not strictly accurate. If you want to write historical photoplays

after you have become known to the editors, very well; but be sure

that you adhere closely to historical facts. It is far better to spend

a week in the reference room of the public library than to have to

suffer a rebuke from a manufacturer, even though the director be also

to blame for not being familiar with the subject before attempting to

make the picture. And the loss of your prestige may prove harder to

bear than the rebuke.

_5. Write on What Interests You_

Next in importance to writing on a subject with which you are familiar

is to write about that with which you are in sympathy. You cannot

interest your audience unless you yourself are interested in your

theme when the story is written. If you would arouse fire in your

spectators you must first feel fire within you. To write a story

merely because it is timely is not to do yourself justice. Suppose,

for instance, it is about time for a new president to go into office.

It may occur to you that to send in a script bearing upon that timely

subject will be a sure way of "coaxing a check from the editor." You

have some slight knowledge of politics and of Washington life, but

you are not particularly interested in either. You are, however,

anxious to sell a script, so you read up on the subject and work up a

photoplay. The chances are that you will continue to own the script,

for you did not put the snap into it that you would have done had you

been both familiar with your theme and genuinely interested in it.

_6. Write on Unusual Themes_

Many a writer is deterred from developing an unusual theme for fear

that no company will be found to produce it. Enough has been said on

this subject to warn the photoplaywright against writing impracticable

scenes. But with this limitation in view every effort should be made

to strike into untravelled fields. In a day when most of the big

manufacturers have two or three, or even more, field-companies

operating in different parts of the country, when almost every maker

of films has an Eastern and a Western organization, and when several

companies have a "globetrotting" troupe working in some distant part

of the world, there is very little chance of a thoroughly good and

desirable photoplay plot's failing to find acceptance, provided it is

intelligently marketed. No matter where you may live, no matter what

you may write of, if it is good it will sell--_some_ editor is waiting

for it. But you must find that editor.

_7. Write Stories Requiring Only Action_

In selecting your theme, ask yourself if either dialogue or

description may not be really required to bring out the theme

satisfactorily. If such is the case, abandon the theme. The

comparatively few inserts permitted cannot be relied upon to give much

aid--the chief reliance _must_ be pantomime.

For this reason it is inadvisable to write detective stories, unless

you have a plot that can be easily and convincingly told in action.

The average fictional story of this class depends more upon dialogue

and the author's explanation of the sleuth's methods of deduction than

upon rapid and gripping action. In a fictional detective story, the

crime usually has happened before the story opens. In a film story,

this would be impracticable, unless a long explanatory insert were

introduced either before or after the first scene or two. But long

inserts are not wanted, even in multiple-reel stories. Since events in

a photoplay must appear in chronological order, you cannot depict

murder without showing the murderer in the act, and that will soon

bring you counter to the censors.

Aside from the consideration of the censorship is this point: in a

fictional detective story the real murderer is not revealed, in most

cases, until the last chapter. In the photoplay, on the other hand, it

would be necessary to show the spectator almost at the first who the

real murderer is--the other characters in the picture, and not the

spectators, being the ones in doubt as the story progressed.

This is a difficult condition to bring about effectively. Still, it

can be done, and there is a chance for a writer who can produce

logical and interesting detective scripts, as there is always a

market for any uncommon theme that is both original and handled with

technical correctness.

An author who is anonymous has said "While the story may have for a

plot a subject involving complication, or mystery, each scene must be

easily understood, or the audience, taxed by trying to fathom motives

or emotions with which it is unfamiliar, or with which it is not in

sympathy, loses the thread of the story, and consequently pronounces

the photoplay lacking in interest. Remembering the brevity of the film

drama, compactness and simplicity in every feature are to be desired.

It does not require a great cast of characters nor unusually

spectacular scenic work to produce the big idea. The depths of human

woe and suffering, or the very heights of joy and attainment, can be

pictured in a flash. The dramatic story should consist of a strong and

preferably unique plot, simple and direct in its appeal to the heart,

and expressed or conveyed to the audience by a logical sequence of

episodes or incidents, all having direct bearing on the story, and

each one of sufficient strength to hold the attention of the

spectators. The story must be human, the characters and their motives

and actions human and true to life. _The drama is perfect as it

reflects a correct imitation of nature._"

_8. Write Mainly of Characters That Arouse the Spectator's Sympathy_

Each hero must have his opposite, as each great cause must have its

protagonist and antagonist. Indeed, as we have seen, it is this

warfare that makes all drama possible. But it will not do to glorify

the doer of evil deeds and thus corrupt the sympathies of the

spectators. The hero and not the "villain" must swing the sympathies

of those who see. Be certain, therefore, that pity for, and even

sympathy with, a wrong-doer is not magnified, through the action of

your play, into admiration by the onlookers, for in the photoplay as

in the legitimate drama the leading character may be a great offender.

This way danger lies, however, and you must walk with extreme caution,

or the censors "will catch you--if you don't watch out!"--to say

nothing of the lashings of your own conscience.

Without repeating what was said in Chapter XVI regarding the

introduction of crime into film stories, we would impress upon the

photoplaywright the necessity for always having a fully sufficient,

though not necessarily a morally justifiable, motive for any crime

that is introduced in a story; besides, the introduction of a crime

must be necessary to the action and not a mere spectacular scene. But

remember that it is not sufficient to avoid "crime without motive;"

the motive must be one which will, after the crime has been committed,

leave no doubt in the mind of the spectator that the crime was

virtually inevitable, if not absolutely unavoidable. If it is the hero

of the story who commits the crime, the very greatest care must be

taken to show that he had a really powerful motive for his act, if he

is to have the sympathy--though not the approval--of the audience

after yielding to temptation.[29] This, of course, does not refer to

deeds of violence which are really not only excusable but actually

right, in the circumstances--like the killing of an attacking

desperado in self-defense.

[Footnote 29: To make this basic motive clear, natural and unforced is

what we call good motivation in fiction and drama.]

As an example of the point we are trying to emphasize, take a story

like "The Bells," the play in which Sir Henry Irving appeared so

often. Mathias the innkeeper, who later became the Burgomaster, was a

character, who, by reason of Irving's superb art, won and held the

sympathies of the audience from the start. Yet after Mathias had

murdered the Polish Jew and robbed him of his belt of gold, even the

art of Irving could not have made us sympathize with the character had

we not been shown that Mathias was urged on to his crime--a crime for

which he was constantly tortured ever afterward, and which occasioned

his tragic death--by two very compelling motives. His primary motive

was the urgent need of money. But he had a two-fold need of money: he

had been notified by the landlord that he must pay his over-due rent

or be turned out of his home; and he had been told by the doctor that

unless he could immediately remove his sick wife to a milder climate

she would certainly die. Thus, impelled by the thought that only by

the speedy acquisition of sufficient money could he hope to save the

life of his wife, he commits the deed which he would never have

committed had his only motive been the necessity for raising money to

pay the rent. Mathias was esteemed by his neighbors as an honest man;

he was a man whose conscience smote him terribly when he was

contemplating the murder of the Jew; and after the crime had been

committed--fifteen years later, in fact--that same guilty conscience,

wracking his very soul, drove him on to his death.

Shakespeare's Macbeth is a character with whom we are forced to

sympathize measurably, because we know that he is not naturally a

criminal. Yet, after all, Macbeth is a man who--as Professor Pierce

has pointed out--"has been restrained in the straight path of an

upright life [only] by his respect for conventions." Mathias, on the

other hand, is not held in check by conventions; he is _essentially_

an honest man. He commits a crime, but what stronger motive could a

man have than the one that drove him on to its commission? And

yet--and this is the mistake that we wish to point out to the young

writer--seven years ago a certain company released "The Bells" as a

two-part subject, in which, according to the synopsis published in the

trade journals, Mathias's only motive for committing the most

detestable of all crimes was that he was behind in his rent! Even the

magazine that gave in fiction form the story of the picture failed to

mention what is brought out so strongly in the play--the innkeeper's

distress at the thought that his wife's life depended upon his being

able to raise the money to send her to the south of France without

delay. The author _mentioned_ that Mathias had a sick wife, but that

was all. The whole treatment of the story in fiction form, moreover,

was farcical, such names as "Mr. Parker" being intermingled with those

of the well-known characters, "Mathias," "Christian," and "Annette,"

while the wealthy, dignified Polish Jew was turned into a typical

East-side clothing merchant. The real fault lay with the producer who,

ignoring the great and pressing necessity that prompted Mathias's

crime, garbled the original plot to the extent of allowing the

innkeeper to murder the Jew because (according to the fiction-version

in the magazine) he needed one hundred and seventy-five dollars to pay

the rent! First, last, and all the time you must remember that your

story _is not_ a good story if the leading character is not, at all

times, deserving of the spectator's sympathy, even when his action is

not worthy of approval.

It is a matter for real regret to have to be compelled to state that,

in spite of the many artistic advances made in motion-picture

production during the past six or seven years, this most important

point was deliberately overlooked when the Pathé Company made its very

fine feature-production of "The Bells" in the Fall of 1918. We say

"deliberately overlooked" because the writer who prepared the scenario

for this modern five-reel version had the same opportunity as had the

scenarioist who made the other adaptation, years ago, to read the

original stage-play and to introduce this most compelling motive for

Mathias's crime. If anything, the fault is more glaring in the Pathé

production than in the older picture, for the wife is shown as a woman

in apparently perfect health, although naturally worried by the fact

that her husband's inability to raise the required amount of money may

result in their losing both their home and their means of livelihood.

All the fine acting of Mr. Frank Keenan as Mathias, and all the

wonderful scenic and lighting effects, were not sufficient to make us

lose sight of the fact that the ones responsible for the picture's

production had not given proper thought to the necessity for showing

that the innkeeper had an unusually compelling motive for taking the

life of and then robbing his guest. And, make no mistake, no matter

how fine the production may be in other respects, this sort of thing

is not overlooked by the intelligent, right-minded spectator of the

photoplay.

_9. The Theme and the Market_

With regard to what are known as "costume plays"--and what we say is

intended to apply to original stories, since it is never wise to

attempt an adaptation of a popular book or play, even though you are

armed with the right to do so, unless you have previously taken the

matter up with some producing company--there is, perhaps, as was

pointed out in Chapter XV, twice as much chance to sell such stories

as there was a few years ago, since today every company is doing

things in a much bigger way than in former years. But this must not be

construed as meaning that the different companies are simply looking

about for new ways to spend money. On the contrary, economy--sensible

economy--is becoming more and more the keynote of film production. In

every department, unnecessary expense is done away with. This applies

to both the purchasing and the producing of photoplays. Better prices

are being paid, yes; but stories calling for what appears to be

unnecessarily expensive settings or costuming are usually rejected.

That is why you may rest assured that no costume plays will sell

unless they have a strong and unusual story back of them. Again, by

"costume" plays we mean stories ranging all the way from Bible times

down to American Civil War times. What is regarded by the editor as a

costume play, also, may not be wholly that; it may be a story in which

only a few of the scenes are laid in a past age, as when, in the

Paramount production of "The Devil Stone," the heroine, in a series of

"visions," sees herself as the wicked Norse queen of centuries before,

and learns how the fatal emerald first came into her possession.

There is absolutely no way of knowing what company will be most likely

to buy a so-called costume play. If you honestly believe that you have

the material for an unusual story calling for settings or costumes of

other days--or even of our own day but of foreign lands--go ahead and

write a comprehensive synopsis of it. If you send it to a company

which asks for synopses only, you will be playing safe whether it

interests them or not. If, on the other hand, you plan to submit it to

a concern which likes to pass on a full script, with both synopsis and

scenario, you can send in the synopsis alone and explain that if they

are at all interested in _that_, you will submit the continuity of

action.

As might be expected, stories of this kind are usually written in the

studio, because the staff-writer has the opportunity of finding out

just when and where the picture can be made, what types of male and

female players will be able to take part in it, and what special

effects he may include. Still, to repeat, many of the bars against

costume plays and stories calling for foreign and other hard-to-get

settings have been taken down in the last year or two; but the demand

for only strong, interesting stories is more insistent than ever, and

you must still observe the rule--which, it may be added, will never

change--of acquiring a thorough knowledge of the different markets if

you wish to sell your stuff regularly and to the best advantage.

Themes! They are everywhere. The pathetic, the tragic, the

humorous--countless admirable photoplays are to be drawn from these

sources. And the most encouraging thought is this: Given the same

basic idea for a plot, no two people will work it out in exactly the

same way. Individuality will make a difference. "Happiness," as Mr.

Floyd Hamilton Hazard has said, "does not always mean the same thing

to everybody. It means many different things to different people. It

is a theme upon which many varied tunes can be played."

In conclusion, we quote and warmly endorse this advice from Mr.

Herbert Hoagland, censor of photoplays for Pathé Frères.

"Select for your theme an idea which embodies _good_ things. Avoid

anything coarse or suggestive. Make your stories clean, wholesome,

happy--a dainty love story, a romantic adventure, a deed

gloriously accomplished, a lesson well learned, an act of charity

repaid--anything of a dramatic nature which is as honest as daylight.

Good deeds are just as dramatic as wicked deeds, and clean comedy is

far and away more humorous than coarseness. Keep away from scenes of

brutality, degeneracy, idiocy or anything which may bring a poignant

pang of sorrow to some one of the millions of people who will see your

story in the pictures, unless the pang will be one of remorse for a

bad deed done or a good deed left undone. In a word, help the

film-makers produce films which will help those who see them, and make

the whole world a little better for your work."

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TREATMENT OF COMEDY

Let it be remembered that the lines of division between the several

sorts of comedy are not sharply defined, for one often overlaps the

other; nor is a rigid adherence to type insisted upon by either

playwright or public--for example, on the regular stage we have

farce-comedy, and other hybrids.

_1. Types of Humorous Plays Distinguished_

_Comedy_, strictly, is a lighter, more refined, type of humor than

farce. It deals with those amusing situations which do, or may, happen

every day, without the introduction of the extravagant and the

unnatural. True comedy is distinctly probable. Its humor is the humor

of reality, however laughable it may be. It may press humor to an

extreme, but that extreme must never strain our credulity.

_Farce_ is essentially extreme. It deals with the absurd, the

ridiculous, not with the physically impossible. Though not in itself

probable, all its actions proceed just as though the basis on which it

is worked out were probable.

To illustrate both types, we may recall an extremely humorous comedy

situation which was worked out by Miss May Irwin some years ago in

"The Swell Miss Fitzwell." One of the characters had conspired with a

physician to deceive the former's wife by pretending to break his leg.

As a matter of fact he tumbles down stairs with an awful clatter and

the leg is actually broken. The doctor comes in, according to the

scheme, and, not knowing that the leg is broken, begins to twist it

with fine professional vigor. The victim howls and protests that he is

in agony, but the doctor merely whispers in a cheerful aside, "Keep it

up, you are playing your part beautifully!" And so the play goes on.

All this might easily have happened in real life, and the audience is

tickled--not to see a man apparently suffer, but at the humor of the

biter being bit. The very incongruity is the foundation of the

humor--incongruity, mingled with surprise.

But farce would not be content with twisting the leg, it would go to

any absurd extreme imaginable. Suppose, for example, that the doctor's

twisting of the victim's leg should so enrage him that he would leap

upon the doctor and bite the torturer's leg in the manner of a dog.

The wife, coming in, might think that her husband had hydrophobia, and

a whole train of farcical results might follow. We have all seen

unnatural yet uproariously funny situations to which such a

complication might lead in farce.

_Burlesque_ takes a well-known and often a serious subject and hits

off its salient points in an uproarious manner. One might burlesque

"Hamlet" by causing a red-nosed Prince of Denmark to do a juggling

act with "poor Yorick's" skull.

_Extravaganza_ deals with the unnatural and the impossible. The

super-human antics of the acrobatic buffoons in Hanlon's perennial

"Superba," and those of the Byrne Brothers in "Eight Bells," are

familiar examples.

_2. Comedy a Difficult Art_

A writer in one of the photoplay journals, advising writers who are

struggling to succeed, concludes by admonishing them either to avoid

stories which because of prohibited themes are likely to make them

unpopular with editors, or else to "try comedies."

It may be that this writer is one of those who have never tried to

write comedy scripts, or possibly he is one of the favored few who

have a special talent for humor. Whichever may be the case,

notwithstanding this well-meant advice, the truth is that the

thoroughly effective comedy script is the hardest of all to produce,

and this is proved by the fact that, no matter how many manufacturers

announce that they "will not be able to use any more Western, slum

life, or war stories for some time to come," they _never_ declare that

they are "over-stocked with good comedy scripts." There is _always_ a

market for a fine, clean comedy.

_3. Comedy Requires a "Full" Treatment_

But superior comedy scripts, we insist, are hard to write. One of the

less obvious reasons is that there are generally about twice as many

scenes in a comedy script as in any kind of dramatic story. This does

not mean, of course, that the comedy script is hard to write merely

because it takes longer to write it. The labor expended on its

mechanical preparation is trivial compared to the brain-work necessary

to the building of a story which, while having almost double the usual

number of scenes, must still display lively action, logical sequence,

and convincing (which in the case of comedy means probable) situations

from beginning to end.

Especially in comedy must each scene tell; hence there can be no

excuse for "writing in" a number of scenes which have no dramatic

value whatever, for that is palpable padding. True, you may have seen

many comedy subjects in which one or two fairly good ideas were

stretched out until you could almost picture the director kneeling in

front of the camera, stop-watch in hand and megaphone at lips, wearily

pleading: "Ginger up! Work fast! It will soon be over." Unfortunately,

there have been many such "funny" plays, and there will be more, for

the right kind of comedy is not to be had for the asking. The number

of scenes in a comedy photoplay arises from the necessity that the

action be brisk, scene follow scene rapidly, and the whole be played

from a full third to a half faster than is the case in a dramatic

subject.

To say that comedy requires a fuller script-treatment than is needed

for a dramatic subject does not mean that in writing comedy scripts

you should write in line after line of action that would only be

useful to give the director a few details which he could very well

think of himself. No matter what part of the script you are writing,

be constantly on the alert to avoid including non-essential details.

Take pains, of course, to show the director just what bit of by-play

it is that is responsible for a certain situation that will "get a

laugh," but do not be verbose, and do not go into tiresome details.

"It is a very easy matter, for a writer fired with enthusiasm, to

overwrite."

_4. Length of Comedy Photoplays_

Seemingly, the day of the split-reel comedy is past. A few years ago,

when one thousand feet was considered the proper length for the

average dramatic subject, a full-reel comedy was the exception. They

ran from four hundred to six hundred feet, the remainder of the reel

being taken up with a scenic or other educational subject. Thus we had

what came to be known as "split reels," as we have previously

explained. Today, even the slap-stick comedies are produced in not

less than one full reel, and they usually run to two reels. On the

other hand, there are one or two comedy-producing companies which

adhere to the single-reel length for their light comedies of domestic

life.

Far more than in writing dramatic scripts, you must be guided in

deciding the length of your comedy photoplay by the company to which

you are submitting. This entails taking a chance as to whether you

sell at all or not, in the event of your story's not being suitable

for the market at which you have aimed it. For example, those writers

who have both sold to and had scripts rejected by the editor who looks

after the wants of such a comedy team as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew know

that if a script does come back from them it is seldom "placable"

anywhere else. For markets such as this, the fact that a synopsis only

is usually called for is a real benefit to the writer, saving him much

time and disappointment in the event of non-acceptance.

Another thing that experienced writers know is that certain of the

larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for

outside material. After being deluged with all kinds of "comedy"

stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to

announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on

account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and

the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were

familiar with the studio, its players, and the surrounding possible

locations.

Thus, in its way, the market for comedy scripts or synopses is more or

less limited, and yet there is, as has been said, a good demand for

first-class humorous stories for the screen. One important rule to

keep in mind is that they should be, in every case, just as long as,

_but no longer than_, the idea that is back of them. You must never

pad a comedy plot, or even a comedy idea; to do so is fatal to the

attainment of artistically perfect results, if not to its acceptance

by the editor.

In writing dramatic stories, on the other hand, more freedom is

allowed. To be sure, here padding is bad also, but in a dramatic

subject the central idea is almost always big enough to justify one of

the several lengths to which screen dramas now run; but, largely

because comedy action is played so much faster than dramatic action,

you must firmly refuse to allow yourself to expand a humorous story by

even so little as a single scene beyond its logical and natural end.

Comedy ideas, perhaps more than any others, should be carefully

classified, and in classifying you should try to determine, from the

very first, the length to which that particular story ought to run.

Having once arrived at your decision, keep to it. It is

quality--clever situations and funny action--and not quantity that

counts in the writing of humorous photoplays. Most of the good comedy

themes have been worked over so often, either by the authors

themselves or by the director, that it requires considerable skill to

give them that much-desired new twist[30] that is necessary to make

them acceptable. In the writing of dramatic photoplays, a word or two

will often suggest the necessary "business" of a certain character,

but in comedy it is especially important that every action, every bit

of by-play, should be made to count; and for that reason it is

necessary to give each scene a much fuller treatment in the script

than would be necessary in describing dramatic action.

[Footnote 30: Treated in Chapter XIX.]

_5. Classes of Photoplay Comedy and Their Requirements_

While the written-and-spoken drama recognizes not only the four major

types of humorous plays already referred to, but several sub-types in

addition, there are only three general classes under which humorous

photoplays are usually grouped: (a) Comedy-Drama, (b) Light-Comedy and

(c) Farce.

Of the comedies, two kinds are in almost constant demand--the comedy

of society life, and the comedy of everyday life, with special

emphasis upon domestic scenes. In treatment, these two kinds may be

cast in any of the three foregoing forms, but usually they will adhere

to the principle of comedy, even when they may verge on farce, or take

on certain aspects of the more intense dramatic tone.

When writing photoplay comedies, remember always that comedy of

_action_ is more important than comedy of _idea_. That is, it is not

enough that you work up to a funny climax, but the action leading up

to the climax must be funny as well. A humorous idea underlying your

comedy is good, but unless this idea is constantly worked out through

humorous action, the effect is largely lost by its being too subdued.

In fact, the photo-comedy _cannot_ be purely the comedy of idea. On

the regular stage, most light-comedies succeed by reason of the bright

and humorous dialogue which the author puts into the mouths of the

players. Funny "business," and the by-play of the players, help, of

course, but the humorous lines of the piece are depended upon to make

it a success.

It is just the opposite in photoplay; dialogue (unless cut-in leaders,

taking the form of a speech made by one of the characters, may be

called "dialogue") is entirely absent, and humorous action and funny

situations must take its place.

The requirements of a comedy script are very definitely covered by Mr.

Sargent in the following, taken from his department in _The Moving

Picture World_:

"In photoplay ... the majority of the scenes must each have its own

comedy action while the narrative is advanced, and it is here that the

average writer of comedy falls short. If a scene is not naturally

funny, put some humor into it. Do not force the comedy action, but

invent something that is germane to the plot and natural to the

situation. If you can do this you can write comedy, but until you can

get a laugh in every scene you are not writing comedy, no matter how

funny the central idea may be. As a rule the central idea furnishes

the comedy for only one scene; not for the entire play. In comedy you

must play faster, work harder, and strive constantly for the natural,

unforced laughs. And remember that the editors go to vaudeville shows,

the same as you do. They know the old sketches and the whiskered

jokes. If they wanted them they would write them themselves."

The success of a comedy composition lies fundamentally in the novelty

of its plot, or in some new and interesting phase of an old situation;

it prospers in proportion to its interest-holding qualities, its

natural logic, its probability, and the constant humor of the

individual scenes and situations. There is a wide difference between

comedy and comic pictures, and the difference lies chiefly in that

comedy depends largely for its humor on the cleverness displayed in

the construction of the plot, whereas the comic picture is usually

merely a series of funny situations arising from one basic situation,

but having little or no plot. In the "comic," the scenes are loosely

connected, while the humor of the picture depends upon the uproarious

fun in each scene. These comic pictures, usually of the slap-stick

variety, would naturally be classed as farces; but even in photoplay

it is possible to produce a better and more natural brand of farce

than that which depends for its humor upon the silly antics of

different characters in a series of loosely connected scenes, which

have no logical or consistent plot.

There is steady demand for the unusual and genuinely humorous light

comedy--by which is meant the kind of photo-comedies that approximate

the legitimate plays usually employed as vehicles by Mr. John Drew and

Mr. Cyril Maude. They may treat of society, of business life, or of

life in the home, but on account of the light, airy, and subtly

humorous way in which the situations are developed they take far

higher artistic rank than may be accorded to farce. There is also a

good demand for comedy-dramas in which there is a strict regard for

dramatic values in handling the different scenes, and in following out

the plot, which has its serious elements, but in which the

comedy-element remains comedy from first to last.

The domestic comedies produced by Metro, featuring Mr. and Mrs. Sidney

Drew, of which we have already spoken, are so well known, and these

artists are so universally popular, that a word or two from Mr. Drew

on the subject of screen comedy should be interesting and instructive:

"Comedy is and always will be an amusing story humorously told," says

Mr. Drew. "If it _is_ a good story, well told, then it is a comedy,

but if it has no story or cannot be told humorously, then no amount of

bolstering will ever make it into a comedy. You may add a lot of

knockabout and perhaps get an acceptable farce, or you can write in

sensation and get travesty, but you cannot by these means change the

unfit into comedy, and the broad use of 'comedy' to apply to anything

intended to be diverting is a misuse of an ancient and honorable

word.... To my way of thinking comedy is first of all a good story. It

is a story and not merely an incident or a collection of incidents.

There must be a plot to obtain and hold the interest. This plot does

not necessarily require profound depths, but there must be a distinct

and clearly defined objective upon which the interest may be centred,

and the interest must arise from mental processes and not from mere

mechanical appeal.... Humorous action does not mean gross horseplay.

The action itself may not always be marked to be amusing. To take a

crude illustration, suppose that a character in the story is about to

thrash his ancient enemy. He feels so certain of victory that he

bribes the policeman on the beat not to interfere. Now he goes to the

field of battle and unexpectedly gets the worst of it. He is the first

to call for the police, and the scene flashes between the suborned

officer placidly smiling at the sounds of the affray and never

dreaming that it is his patron who is calling for aid. There is

nothing humorous in the spectacle of a policeman on a street corner.

In a comedy of incident he would have to suffer indignity to get a

laugh. In the comedy with a plot, the plot makes the action humorous.

We are not, in reality, laughing at the policeman. He is merely the

symbol of the idea. We are laughing at the predicament into which our

hero has thrust himself. It is this thought, and not the sight of the

policeman, at which we laugh. The policeman merely stands for the

thought, yet it is humorous action within my meaning of the term in

that the policeman represents the thought.

"In our own comedies Mrs. Drew and I seek to appeal to the mind as

well as to the eye, but to appeal to the mind _through_ the eye. We

value the advantage of brightly-written sub-titles, but believe that

these should supplement and not replace the comedy in the action. The

clever leader may either prepare for the comedy-situation or may

follow and intensify it, but it is always an accessory and not the

chief aim. It is absurd to talk of the leader as an intrusion to be

avoided. It should be avoided only when it really is an intrusion. The

cleverness of an author displays itself in the expertness with which

he handles leaders rather than in his skill in avoiding them."[31]

[Footnote 31: Sidney Drew, "Comedy Picture Production," in _The Moving

Picture World_.]

_6. General Advice_

It is most important that, having started to write a farce, for

instance, you _keep it a farce_ throughout. One fault of many amateur

scripts is that they show a tendency to be a little of everything. A

strong emotional drama may--even should--have its "comedy relief," but

it is a very unwise thing to introduce a note of tragedy into a farce

or even into a straight comedy composition.

At this point it will not be out of place to say a few words in

connection with this matter of "comedy relief," of which we have just

spoken, as used in writing _dramatic_ stories. The over-use of comedy

relief, so called, is mostly due to misguided directors who have seen

the success attending its introduction by prominent directors who

really understood how and when to use it. A departmental writer in the

_Motion Picture News_, speaking of the small army of directors "who

worked with Griffith," says:

"Probably the most obvious of all the blunders made by the men who

seek to emulate the wonderful work of Griffith is their introduction

of comedy, chiefly through the medium of domestic animals, when they

are forced to stop the action of their story to do so. Griffith's

comedy is always spontaneous, incidental--it seems to have been

inspired at the moment and runs in as part of the main action. The

comedy of the men 'who worked with Griffith,' while perhaps inspired

at the moment, rises not from the situations of the story but from the

contemplative mind of the director himself. This is the general rule,

at any rate. There are exceptions, of course, and notable ones, too,

but that all-powerful _motif_ of 'comedy relief' often gets the better

of the director's judgment and results in a product that is so

unbalanced that much of the illusion is destroyed. In fact, comedy

relief is a difficult element to gain. It should always be purely

incidental, unforced, arising from some major situation, and so

creating the desired contrast. When it is obviously sought after and

introduced without regard for its suitability it is not comedy relief

but comedy-out-of-place."

Since this, like the over-use of the close-up, is something for which

directors are largely responsible, it is the photoplaywright's duty to

help by being very careful about how he himself writes in comedy

intended to "light up" tense, serious, dramatic action.

No matter what class of humorous photoplay you may be writing, you

must keep in mind what we enlarged upon in Chapter XVI: Nothing is

funny that offends against good taste, or that, in any way, causes

pain to any number of the spectators. Comedy, to be worthy of

appreciation, must always be good-natured. National types as

caricatured by many comedians with the aid of eccentric costumes and

weird make-ups are usually as far from being real national types as

one could well imagine. Humor must have more than mere extravagance or

caricature for its basis. Even in farce and in musical comedy, as well

as in vaudeville, the once familiar green-whiskered Irishman, the

Frenchman who is all shrugging shoulders and absurd gestures, the

negro who walks as if he were trying to take two steps backward for

every one forward, and whose most noticeable facial feature is an

enormous mouth, and the "Busy Izzy" type of Jew, who when not getting

robbed himself, or being otherwise abused, is doing his best to

defraud others, are gradually going out of fashion. And in the

photoplay, which is now seen by all classes of people and is for all

the people, racial characteristics must be treated in at least a

fairly accurate manner, _and always good-naturedly_. Six or seven

years ago, more than half the comedies produced were based upon a

chase, or else depended largely upon slap-stick humor to raise a

laugh. Not a few of them had as their chief comedy-incident an act of

downright cruelty to some animal, or even to some human being. Today,

when manufacturers are vying with each other to produce better,

cleaner, and more universally enjoyable pictures, the script that

violates Censorship rules or studio ethics by including any of the

foregoing undesirable subjects stands but little show of reaching the

production stage, if, indeed--which is extremely unlikely--it is

accepted at all.

"Good sense is at once the basis of and the limit to all humor. He who

lacks a fine perception of 'the difference between what things are and

what they ought to be,' as the always-to-be-quoted Hazlitt expressed

it, can never write humor. All the way through we shall find that

mirth is a matter of relationships, of shift, of rigidity trying to be

flexible, of something shocked into something else.

"Let us think of a circle on which four points have been marked:

[Illustration:

5 The Serious 1

4 The Contemptible 2 The Laughable

3 The Ridiculous]

"Beginning with a serious idea, we may swiftly step from point to

point until we return to the serious, with only slight variations from

the original conception. Take the perennial comedy-theme of the impish

collar, and visualize the scenes:

"1. A man starts to button his collar. Nothing is less comical, as

long as the operation proceeds normally.

"2. But the button is too large and his efforts begin to exasperate

him, with the result that his expression and movements become

incongruous. We see, and laugh--though he does not.

"3. He begins to hop around in a mad attempt to button the

unbuttonable, and soon rips off the collar, addressing it in

unparliamentary language. He is ludicrous, ridiculous, absurd.

"4. In his rage he violently kicks a pet dog that comes wagging up to

him. Our laughter subsides, for the fellow is more contemptible than

amusing--a deeper feeling has been born in us.

"5. The little dog limps off with a broken leg--we are no longer

amused, we are indignant. What is more, not only have we gotten back

to the serious, but there is no amusement left in any of the previous

scenes.

"Still applying the test of the _extent_ of the variation from the

normal as shown in the effects, we conclude that _serious consequences

kill humor_. The mere idea of such consequences, when we know that in

the circumstances they are really impossible, may convulse us with

merriment, as when we see a comedian jab a long finger into the mouth

of his teammate and the latter chews it savagely. In real life this

might sicken us with disgust--I say 'might,' because we can easily

conceive of such a situation's exciting laughter if the victim were

well deserving of the punishment. It is human for us to laugh when the

biter is bit; indeed, variations on this theme are endless in humorous

writing.

"_Sympathy also kills humor._ The moment we begin to pity the victim

of a joke--for humor has much to do with victims--our laughter dies

away. Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose

distress we feel strong sympathy. The thing that happens to a fop is

quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady.

True, we often laugh at those--or at those ideas--with whom or with

which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for

the moment overwhelms our sympathy--and sometimes even destroys

it."[32]

[Footnote 32: J. Berg Esenwein _Writing for the Magazines_; published

uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library."]

This one thing bear especially in mind: _clean_ comedy is even more

essential than clean drama. It is so easy, when writing humorous

material, to go wrong without intending it--indeed, even without

knowing it. Under the guise of comedy some producers are responsible

for scenes and situations that manage somehow or other to pass the

censors, whereas the same scene in a dramatic photoplay would not be

tolerated for a moment. But these are exceptions.

The marital relation should be touched upon only in a way which admits

of no offense being taken by right-minded and refined people. Real

infidelity had far better be left out of humorous photoplays

altogether. Here more than in any other branch of photoplay writing

you should remember that what merely _might_ be tolerated on the

regular stage would never do on the screen. It is well to remember

also that just as the American public has tired of the chase and the

foolish powder, it has also sickened of the coarse, suggestive, and

even the questionable subjects that could once be depended upon to

"get a laugh." There is absolutely no excuse for introducing anything

into a picture today that would offend the good taste of any member of

an audience. The local censorship boards of some cities have made

themselves ridiculous in the eyes of thinking photoplay patrons, but

the work done by the National Board of Censors has been the means of

slowly and surely causing the lower class of photoplay patrons to

acquire an appreciation of good dramatic subjects as well as more

refined comedy.

It may be said in passing that not all the companies producing

farcical photoplays or slap-stick, as it is generally called--exclude

the work of the outside writer. Such firms as do accept outside

scripts of this kind are prepared to "go the limit" in the matter of

expense in order to make their pictures superlatively funny and

unusual in the matter of staging. The Pathé comedy, "Cleopatsy,"

featuring the famous clown Toto, was a striking example of how a

slap-stick comedy today is unhesitatingly given as elaborate and

sumptuous a scenic investiture as was accorded a few years ago to

screen-versions of Shakespearean or other "classic" plays. The laughs

in this Pathé production were produced, principally, by the

introduction of business and situations that simply could not have

happened in the time of Cleopatra, Antony and Cæsar. Thus we saw

traffic policemen with their Stop and Go signals in the middle of the

Sahara; telephones, check books, motorcycles and automobiles in use,

and so on. In addition, the leaders were filled with modern business

and other slang; and the spectacle of a huge negro wrapping Cleopatsy

in a modern Axminster rug and carrying her in to show her to Antony

(instead of, as according to history, Cæsar) kept the spectators in a

roar of laughter. For an originally-worked-out idea such as this there

is nearly always a ready market.

Finally, remember that comedy-action should run as smoothly as a

well-oiled machine. Start with a good, fresh, funny idea and then

make each scene run smoothly and logically into the next. There are

certain series of comic pictures in the comic section of the

newspapers which might well serve as your models for progressive and

logical action. Mr. Bud Fisher's well-known "Mutt and Jeff" and Mr.

George McManus's "Bringing Up Father" series are excellent examples.

Particularly in the McManus pictures do we get funny, logical, and,

above all, generally natural--in the sense of its being

probable--comedy action. Take as an example the one which is

sub-titled "It's a pity the valet left--he would have been such a nice

playmate for Father." "Father," as we know, is the very much

hen-pecked husband of a socially impossible woman who holds her place

among the "400" only by reason of her husband's wealth. It is Father's

constant ambition and determination to spend as much of his time as

possible amongst his old "roughneck" working-man pals, instead of in

attending his wife's receptions and other society functions. A

sociable companion of his own class is what he constantly seeks. In

this picture there are, as is usual in the Sunday supplements, twelve

scenes. The action of the picture may be roughly synopsized as

follows:

Scene 1. Mrs. Jiggs introduces Mr. Jiggs--"Father"--to the new, and

very English, valet--who "waited on Count de Miles until he died." To

which Father (possible sub-title) replies: "No wonder he died!"

Scene 2. The butler, in Father's room, announces that he "thinks

he'll like the job and that Father won't find him hard to please."

Scene 3. Shows Father making a critical inspection of the statue-like

valet, and muttering that "his folks must have been fond of children,

to raise him!"

Scene 4. Shows Father glancing up at a shield and some ancient

battle-clubs, spears and axes, hung on the wall. We can easily guess

what is passing in his mind.

Scene 5. Father takes the valet over to the window and stands him

facing out, saying that he wishes to show him the wonderful view.

Behind his back Father holds one of the war-clubs.

Scene 6. As the valet gazes out of the window, Father swings the club

upward, preparing for a mighty blow, muttering as he does so: "It's a

duty I owe my country."

Scene 7. Just as Father is about to strike, the valet glances down at

something on the corner of the dresser, and exclaims: "Ah! A pinochle

deck! My favorite game!" To which Father replies: "_Oh!_ Do you play

cards?"

Scene 8. Here they are in the middle of an exciting game, Father

winning everything, the chips piled high before him. The valet asks:

"Will you pardon me? I'll see if I can get some of my wages in

advance."

Scene 9. In the lower hallway. Shows the valet asking Mrs. Jiggs for

his salary in advance, adding that "the count always paid him ahead."

Scene 10. Back in the room upstairs, with Father at the table, on

which are piled the valet's clothes, while the constantly losing valet

plays his last hand from behind a screen.

Scene 11. Shows the entrance of the butler, who tells Father that Mrs.

Jiggs "wishes to see him at once."

Scene 12. Shows the inglorious dismissal of the pinochle-loving valet,

dressed only in three of Mrs. Jiggs' hat boxes, the bottoms of which

have been knocked out. When Mrs. Jiggs declares "Pack your things and

get out immediately--you are fired!" the valet answers gloomily: "I

have nothing to pack, Madam!"

This, although merely an idea drawn out into a dozen pictures, is the

sort that might easily be made the foundation for a laughable short

comedy. Barring the fact that one or two of the scenes are played (so

to speak) in the same setting, with no leader or other scene

separating them--as would be the case in photoplay--this newspaper

"funny" is much better put together, much more logical, and is just

about the same number of scenes as were many of the split-reel

comedies of a few years ago. Almost all of the more popular comic

series in the newspapers, in fact, may be studied with profit by the

would-be writer of screen comedies. There is action, and often very

funny action, in every picture, and the plot moves quickly, logically,

and without the slightest sign of unnecessary detail or irrelevant

action, to an extremely funny climax, which, best of all, is usually a

surprise to the reader.

Apply the same working-principle to the writing of humorous

photoplays, especially the plan of having a surprise climax followed

by a quick denouement, and you can hardly fail to produce a comedy

that will cause the editor to notify you favorably.

CHAPTER XIX

GETTING THE NEW TWIST

_No_ story is an old story if you give it a new "twist"--a fresh turn,

an original surprise, an unexpected course of narration. As a matter

of fact, this is what fiction writers and dramatists have been doing

for hundreds of years; taking an old idea, they have twisted it about,

enlarged upon it, provided a new setting for the story, and created

something new, yet in truth far from new, from the idea furnished by

another writer. Who evolved the "original" plot in any certain case is

a question that will forever remain a question, for the earliest plays

and stories are no longer extant. But this we do know: there are only

a very few original or primary plots, and all the plays, novels, and

short-stories that have been written are variations of these. Some

writers have made the twist more pronounced, and their work, judged by

present-day standards, is classed as original. Others, without trying

to conceal the source of their plots, nevertheless give them new

treatment, and so are not charged with plagiarism. Therefore we may

conclude that that writer is entitled to be called original who is

capable of so twisting and remodeling the theme used by another writer

that it is, in the remodeling, virtually recreated.

_1. An Example from Fiction_

As a concrete example, let us compare Poe's short-story, "The Cask of

Amontillado," with Conan Doyle's "The New Catacomb." In both of these

the theme is revenge, brought about by having the one seeking to

entomb his enemy alive--the same theme, precisely, as Balzac had used

earlier in "La Grande Bretêche," and Edith Wharton in later years in

"The Duchess at Prayer." In "The Cask of Amontillado," Montresor

desires to be revenged upon Fortunato because the latter has both

injured and insulted him. Exactly how he has been insulted we are not

told; nor do we know the extent of his "injuries." It is sufficient

for the purpose of the story that we know that his Latin blood has

been roused sufficiently to make him eager to compass the death of his

enemy--who is none the less his enemy although, up till the very

moment when Fortunato realizes the awful fate that is to be his, he

(Montresor) pretends friendship for his victim. After Montresor's

revenge has been accomplished by walling up Fortunato in a

subterranean vault, the perpetrator feels no remorse. He has completed

what he set out to do, and is satisfied. He has "punished with

impunity" and he has made the fact that he is the redresser felt by

"him who has done the wrong."

What chiefly impresses the reader is the lack of motive for

Montresor's crime--for crime it surely is, whatever his real or

fancied wrongs--other than the motive of a madman. At the conclusion

our sympathy for the unfortunate victim of Montresor's hate is

perhaps as great as is our pity for Montresor himself.

But note that Doyle's story is not only an original piece of

fiction--as we have just interpreted that expression--but also one in

which we recognize that the seeker after revenge is thoroughly

deserving of our sympathy, even though we do not entirely approve of

his bringing about the death of even so unworthy a creature as we know

his enemy to be. In Doyle's story, as in Poe's, the background is

Italy, but Italy of the present day, so we feel that we understand the

motives of the characters better because they are of our own time.

There is a definite and grievous wrong committed against the young

woman with whom the central character is in love, therefore the wrong

is committed indirectly against the lover himself. We are made to

realize the despicable nature, the utter heartlessness, of the young

woman's betrayer, and we actually _hate_ him as soon as the facts are

made clear to us. We realize how great has been the love for her

cherished by the man who finally punishes the one who has wronged her,

by causing him to be entombed alive in a Roman catacomb which he

himself has but recently discovered.

In Poe's story, Fortunato is chained to the wall of the vault, after

which he is literally walled up and buried alive. In "The New

Catacomb," the redresser of the wrong takes the evil-doer down into

the catacomb and leaves him while he finds his own way out by means of

a trail of cord, knowing that the other, unable to follow him, is

being left in what will be his tomb.

The dramatic intensity of Doyle's story is just as great as in that

written by Poe; the "hero" is as much deserving of our sympathy as the

"villain" merits our condemnation; and the treatment of the theme,

from first to last, makes Doyle's an absolutely original story,

although there is little doubt that it was suggested, or, at least

influenced, either by the one written many years before by the

American master of the short-story, or by Balzac's remarkable tale

referred to above.

The discriminating photoplaywright will have no difficulty in making

the application of this illustration of how an original story may grow

out of an old theme. _But be careful not to turn this liberty into an

excuse for adhering closely to a borrowed theme._

_2. Plagiarism_

In justice to writers in general it is only fair to believe that most

cases of plagiarism are quite unintentional. The fault usually is in

the writer's memory. Turn your eye inward, and form the habit of

tracing the origin of your inspirations--sometimes it may chagrin you

to find how near to unconscious imitation you have been. You may get

the inspiration for a story and write it; it may be accepted and

produced; then, after its release, some friend will casually remark

that it reminds him of a Vitagraph picture that he saw a year or two

ago. And only after he has called your attention to it do you realize

that that Vitagraph story, seen and forgotten, _was_ the source of

your "inspiration"--and perhaps you have committed an unconscious

theft.

In an earlier chapter we have urged photoplaywrights to keep in touch

with the market so as to avoid writing on trite themes. But that

practise will not help the conscious plagiarist. Why should he invent

a new twist when he can steal one? This would seem to be his

short-sighted logic. Fortunately, there are not many unscrupulous

writers who deliberately attempt to sell to editors stories which are

simply adaptations of more or less well-known stories or plays. A

great deal has been said about editors and their assistants being

familiar with standard literature and current books, plays, and

magazine stories. But no editor is infallible, and once in a while a

stolen story "gets by." We know of two companies, each of which within

the space of six months produced stories that were plainly

recognizable as adaptations of "The Adventure of the Norwood Builder,"

the second story in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes." Another company

released a picture that was simply Maupassant's "The Necklace" so

carelessly re-dressed that we wonder the editor did not recognize it

after reading the first paragraph of the synopsis.

The final test of whether a story really resembles another closely

enough to suggest intentional plagiarism is when the similarity

between the two is recognized immediately by people in many different

parts of the country--yet that is too late to help any one involved!

The short-stories of "O. Henry" have been so widely read that when a

new story appears that closely resembles one of his it is not long

before comparisons are made. Three or four years ago a certain company

made a two-part picture that so closely resembled O. Henry's "The

Reformation of Calliope" that after its release one of the present

writers received letters of inquiry from photoplaywrights in five

different cities commenting upon it, three of the letters being from

young writers who, recognizing the resemblance, asked if it were

"permissible to take the principal plot-idea of a copyrighted story

and, by changing it about slightly, make it into a salable photoplay."

As might be supposed, they were earnestly advised to refrain from

doing so.

A dozen years ago there appeared in the English edition of _The Strand

Magazine_ a story in which a retired Indian officer, at a dinner given

to a party of his friends, displays a remarkably fine diamond. The

jewel is unset, having been taken--as most jewels in stories of this

kind are--from the head of an Indian idol. The stone is passed around

for inspection. The Hindoo servant is clearing some of the things from

the table, and the diamond has just been admired by an old gentleman

in a rather frayed dress-suit, when the attention of everyone present

is drawn away from the table for a moment or two. When they turn

around, the diamond has disappeared. Naturally, the guests are

embarrassed, but they all offer to allow themselves to be searched,

with the exception of the shabby-genteel old gentleman. While he

protests that he knows nothing of how the stone has disappeared, he

stubbornly refuses to allow them to search his clothes. The effect

upon the other guests may easily be imagined. Later, however, one of

the guests having followed him home, it is discovered that the poor

old man has merely filled his pockets with different delicacies from

the table, and has taken them home to his sick grandchild.

Subsequently it is discovered that the Hindoo servant has taken the

jewel, and he is arrested and punished. In the moment that the

attention of the guests was directed elsewhere, after the old

gentleman had laid it on the table, the servant had snatched up the

jewel and dropped it into a half-filled water glass, where it remained

undiscovered while the servant was searched with the others. It is

pretty generally known that an unset pure diamond, if dropped into a

glass of water, becomes invisible.

Some time during 1911, one of the producing companies released a

picture entitled "The Class Reunion." To get the plot of the photoplay

story, simply substitute an impecunious professor for the old

gentleman in the short-story. Instead of the Hindoo servant, have one

of the pupils--if our memory serves--turn out to be the thief, and

have him drop the jewel--which is a ruby, and not a diamond--into a

glass of red wine instead of into a glass of water. In all other

particulars the two stories were identical.

Only a few months later, this plot cropped up again--in fiction

form--in a prominent American magazine. Then, in the release of

another well-known company, of January 13, 1913, it again did service

in the photoplay "The Thirteenth Man," where the inevitable banquet is

the annual reunion of "The Thirteen Club." The theme has now become so

hackneyed that, as the list given in Chapter XVI shows, it is no

longer serviceable for photoplay purposes.

Obviously, these facts are cited not to discredit the companies

referred to, but solely to emphasize the difference between the

genuinely new twist as exemplified in Conan Doyle's "The New

Catacomb," and the dangerously close similarity as exhibited in at

least one of the two photoplays just referred to as following the plot

of the _Strand_ story.

It must not be inferred, however, that all cases in which the themes

of short-stories are developed into photoplays with very little change

are plagiarisms, either conscious or unconscious. Many important

companies are negotiating constantly with the magazines for the right

to photodramatize their most suitable short-stories. Sometimes this is

done with the consent of the author and the plot of the story used

substantially without change, while in other instances the plot is

freely changed, only the germ being used. It is particularly in such

cases that we must be careful not to charge plagiarism.

In this connection it is important to note that the photoplaywright

cannot be too careful in respecting the rights of publishers and

authors in their fictional properties. To many writers it is not clear

precisely what rights an author parts with when he, without any other

stipulation, sells a short-story or a longer piece of fiction outright

to a magazine, so he must be careful in offering moving-picture rights

to a company unless he is _sure_, from a clear _understanding_ with

the magazine publisher, that he is at liberty to do so. If these

points are not altogether in the clear to you, nevertheless it is

certainly wise to be definite in securing your own copyright on

stories, when that is possible, by agreeing with your publisher for

the release to you of all dramatic rights.

To return once more to the subject of originality, in W.W. Jacobs's

story, "The Monkey's Paw," the thrillingly terrible crisis begins when

the father, much against his will, makes use of the second wish

granted to him as the possessor of the fatal paw and wishes his dead

son alive again. In the night he and his wife are aroused by a

familiar knocking on their door. The mother, believing it to be their

son returned to life, rushes to let him in, but while she is trying to

unlock the door, the husband, remembering the terrible condition of

the son's body, he having been crushed to death by some machinery,

utters the third and last wish. The knocking ceases, and when the

woman succeeds in getting the door open, the street lamp flickering

opposite is shining on a quiet and deserted road.

Substantially the same plot is used in a story published in _The Blue

Book_, "The Little Stone God," the principal difference being that,

when those in the house hear the knocking on the door, they refuse, in

utter terror, to answer the summons. The knocking ceases; and the next

morning they learn that a telegraph messenger boy called at the house

with a message on the previous night and, after knocking several times

in vain, went away again.

The foregoing are only a few examples of plots which strongly resemble

one another. How it comes that they resemble one another it is not our

province to discuss any further--the point is that if your story is

inspired by the work of another writer, give it such an absolutely

original treatment that you can conscientiously refer to it as

original.

"Don't waste time in rewriting other people's brain-children, for the

scenario-editor goblins will catch you sure as fate, and once you get

a reputation for plagiarism, not a film-maker will dare to buy any

manuscript from you for fear it is copyrighted."[33]

[Footnote 33: Herbert Case Hoagland, _How to Write a Photoplay_.]

In photoplays as in novels and short-stories nothing is so

disappointing as a story whose title is inviting, and the first few

pages--or scenes, as the case may be--interesting, but which soon

begins to reveal itself as nothing more than a story with which we are

already familiar, though slightly changed in a few particulars in the

hope that it may be welcomed as an original work. We say "slightly

changed," for if the all-important new twist is not given the story

cannot escape detection as being what it is--a mere copy of the

original.

"The formula upon which the plot is built is of venerable antiquity,"

says Frederick Taber Cooper, in _The Bookman_, in reviewing a certain

novel. Then, although he commends the purpose of the story, he

concludes: "But the book is not really an important one, because there

have been scores of books equally well written which have already said

much the same thing. The author has not had any new twist to give to

the old theme--and, worst of all, we know from wearisome past

experience just how the plot will work out, just how inevitable it is

that Kenneth will achieve fame, and his father will be reconciled, and

Jean, convinced of her injustice, will tearfully plead for

forgiveness." Don't lay yourself open to such a criticism.

_3. What Is Originality?_

"Popularly, we call that man original who stands on his own feet, uses

the thoughts of others only to stimulate and supplement his own, and

who does his best to color borrowed thought with the hue of his own

personality. Such a man, if he be not a creator, is at least a

thinker, and a thinker need never be a literary thief. The entrance of

any thought that will set the mind to working should be welcome

indeed."[34]

[Footnote 34: J. Berg Esenwein, _Writing the Short-Story_.]

Speaking of the way in which a writer may take an old plot and work it

over, Frank E. Woods, the former "Spectator" of the _Dramatic Mirror_,

says:

"That is precisely what every author does in nine cases out of ten. He

utilizes and adapts the ideas he has gained from various sources. It

is when he follows another author's sequence or association of ideas

or arrangement of incidents so closely as to make his work appear to

be an obvious copy or colorable imitation, that he is guilty."

_4. The New Twist Illustrated_

As an example of the way in which an old theme may be given a new

twist, let us compare the plot of Browning's "Pippa Passes"--which,

by the way, was wonderfully well produced in motion-picture form by

the Biograph Company in 1909--and James Oppenheim's photoplay, "Annie

Crawls Upstairs," produced by the Edison Company.

In each, the theme is the spiritual redemption of several different

characters through the influence of the heroine, who in each case

accomplishes this worthy end quite unconsciously. Pippa, the

mill-girl, spends her holiday wandering through the town and over the

countryside, singing her innocent and happy-hearted songs. It is the

effect of those songs upon those who hear them that gives the

poem-story its dramatic moments and makes up the plot. In Mr.

Oppenheim's story, the heroine, Annie, is a tiny, crippled child who,

wandering out of the tenement kitchen where her half-drunken father is

quarreling with his wife, crawls painfully up one flight of stairs

after another, innocently walking into each flat in turn, and in each

doing some good by her mere presence. On one floor a wayward girl is

so affected by meeting with the crippled child that she remains at

home with her mother instead of going out to join a party of friends

of questionable character; on another floor she is instrumental in

preventing an ex-convict from joining his former pals in another

crime; in the flat above, she brings together two lovers who are about

to part in anger; in the next flat she comforts a busy dressmaker who

has lost patience with and scolded her little girl for being in her

way while she is at work, and who realizes on seeing Annie that she

should at least be thankful that her child has health and strength,

and does not, therefore, add the care and worry of sickness to the

burden of poverty. Finally, on the top floor, a young man, heart-sick

and weary of the vain search for work in a strange city, coming out of

his room finds little Annie asleep, her head resting against the frame

of the door. As he carries her down to her own flat, he picks up

courage, banishes the thoughts of suicide which a few moments before

had filled his brain, and resolves to try again. The picture ends with

the mother and father, their quarrel forgotten, bending over the

child.

[Illustration: Preparing to Take Three Scenes at Once in a Daylight

Studio]

Thus, consciously or unconsciously, Mr. Oppenheim has used the same

theme that Browning used; but he has given it a new twist with the

introduction of each new incident in the story. The little lame child

of the tenements does not seem to speak a word in the picture, and the

scene between the two young lovers parting after their quarrel is

totally unlike the scene between Ottima and Sebald in Browning's poem,

yet we feel that the good influence that changes the heart of the

burglar, as he sits there planning the new crime, is the same as that

which shakes the guilty wife and her lover when Pippa passes beneath

the window of Luca's house, singing:

_God's in his heaven--

All's right with the world!_

We have read of a Western script in which the outlaw, wounded and

bleeding, is given shelter by the heroine. When the sheriff arrives,

he sees the basin containing the bloody water and inquires how it

comes there. Even while he is looking at it, the girl cuts her hand

with a knife, and declares that, having cut herself before the

Sheriff's arrival, she has just washed her hand in the basin.

This incident, or situation, is almost identical with one in the

Ambrosio Company's "After Fifty Years," which won the first prize of

twenty-five thousand francs ($5,000) at the Turin Exhibition, and

which showed as one of its many thrilling situations the Italian

heroine gashing her hand with a knife held behind her back, to explain

to the Austrian soldier who is in search of her lover the presence of

blood on her sleeve.

Yet this could not be called a theft, or even a re-arrangement of

another writer's plot. The plot, characters, and setting were entirely

different in each play--it was only that one situation that was made

use of; and it seems likely that it was from the Ambrosio picture, or

the account of it, that the author of the Western story got his

inspiration. Yet who can really tell? Thoughts are marvellous things,

and both writers may have gotten their ideas from some other

original--or even conceived them in their own brains.

After all, as has been pointed out, the trouble with many young

writers is that they are not content with copying a single situation.

They have not been "in the game" long enough to realize either the

risk that they are taking or the wrong that they are doing a fellow

writer, so they not only adapt to their own needs a strong situation

in another's story but precede and follow it with other incidents and

situations which are substantially the same as those surrounding the

big situation in the original story.

But giving an old theme a new twist is a trick of the trade that comes

only with experience, and experience is gained by practice. Experience

and practice soon teach the photoplaywright not to rely too heavily

upon the newspaper for new ideas, for almost every day editors receive

two or more plots which closely resemble each other, simply because

the writers, having all chosen the same theme, have all worked that

theme up in the same way--the _obvious_ way, the _easiest_ way, the

way that involves the least care, and therefore the least ingenuity.

"Where do the good plots come from, anyhow?" asks John Robert Moore.

"We people in universities often amuse ourselves by tracing stories

back to their origins. The trouble is that we often reach the limit of

our knowledge, but rarely find the beginning; for the _plot_ seems to

be as old as the race. What, then, has been changed in a story which

has been raised from a mediæval legend to a modern work of art?

"In such cases, the setting and the moral content are almost

invariably altered. An absurdly comic story about an Irishman and a

monkey, which was current a couple of centuries ago, became 'The

Murders in the Rue Morgue' in the hands of Poe. The central plot

remained much the same, but the whole of the setting and the

intellectual content assumed a new and vastly higher significance.

'The Bottle Imp' harks back to the Middle Ages; but Stevenson made a

world-famous story of it by giving it the flavor of the South Sea

Islands which he knew so well."

So there are both discouragement and cheer for those who accept the

Wise Man's dictum that there is nothing new under the sun. In the one

aspect, there seems little chance for the novice since the primary

plots are really so few; but in the other view, fresh arrangements of

old combinations are always possible for those who see life with open

eyes, alert minds, warm hearts, and the resolve to be as original as

they can.

CHAPTER XX

COMPLETE FIVE-REEL PHOTOPLAY SCRIPT "EVERYBODY'S GIRL"

Adapted from "O. Henry's" Short-Story, "Brickdust Row," by A. Van

Buren Powell, and Produced in Film Form by The Vitagraph Company[35]

[Footnote 35: Used by permission. Copyright, 1918, by the Vitagraph

Company of America. All rights reserved.]

The mere reading of the following photoplay script will not do you any

good. To get any benefit from it you must _study_ it.

The script, which is an adaptation--the short-story of a famous

author, "O. Henry," translated into screen technique--is in the form

in which it was accepted for production. An adaptation rather than the

script of an original idea is chosen for two reasons: the story from

which it was made is accessible in every library, and the translation

into production-form offers certain problems which make it a more

effective lesson in idea-building.

Pretend that you are a staff writer, and that you are to "do" a

certain story by "O. Henry." Get from your library the book of

short-stories by the famous author which contains "Brickdust Row"--the

volume is entitled "The Trimmed Lamp." Read the story--read it until

you are thoroughly familiar with its every word. Read it analytically.

You are to make an adaptation of it. What must that adaptation have

for its fundamental purpose?--the preservation of "O. Henry's" charm

of atmosphere; the utilization of his cleverness with words, wherever

possible in leaders; the emphasizing of his purpose in writing the

story. What was that purpose? Was it not to show how a man's code of

ethics, mistakenly clung to, resulted in his misjudging a perfectly

innocent girl, with resultant tragedy? And, contributory to this, was

it not the aim of the original author to emphasize and excuse the

conduct of the girl--conduct arising naturally from her environment

and station in life?

These things must be conveyed, then, through the medium of

characterization, with the help of little human touches. The girl must

be shown as sweet, clean, without a wrong thought; the man must be

clearly depicted, his reason for being so seemingly churlish and

careless of the duties imposed upon him by his ownership of many

tenements must be handled in such a way that he will not be an

unsympathetic character.

Then we are confronted with certain studio conditions. The story must

be made of feature length--five or more reels. Again, tragedy is not

welcome on the screen. Arguments might be offered to show that the

original story will lose strength through the addition of the "happy

ending." We cannot help that--in fact, we must surmount that obstacle.

We must _make_ the story equally strong and try, if we can, to add to

its lesson. We cannot air our ideals, and write just as we wish; we

must conform to the set rules of our particular studio, as well as to

the general rules covering screencraft.

The change of title is governed by so many factors that it need only

be said that the alternative title was given as possessing a greater

advertising and drawing power.[36]

[Footnote 36: In Mr. Van Buren Powell's new book, _The Photoplay

Synopsis_, published uniform with this volume in "The Writer's

Library," he explains why this title was changed.]

Now we have dissected "O. Henry's" original story. We have decided

what we must do with it. Comes the director for consultation. He feels

that the story is not long enough. It need not be padded, but an

additional character might be introduced to bring out and emphasize

the true character of our leading woman, and at the same time the

required dramatic element and the contrasting of his character with

that of the leading man may be achieved by his presence.

So, agreeing with the director, we write our script.

Throughout, notes will call your attention to certain points that will

help your understanding of the technical purposes of certain material.

"EVERYBODY'S GIRL"

SYNOPSIS

Florence is a shop girl, of the quiet, sweet, clean type. She finds it

hard to make ends meet. Her more practical, more worldly-wise friend,

Ella, the shoe-store cashier, suggests that they share her present

quarters in "Brickdust Row"--a decaying tenement block. By this

division of expense they can both save "enough to buy an extra pickle

for lunch once in a while."

When Florence sees "Brickdust Row" she is depressed by its dull

aspect, its dreary environment. But she accepts Ella's proposal, and

the two girls begin their sharing of the tiny room as cheerfully as

possible.

Through a terrifying experience with a male flirt Florence comes to

learn that Ella has long been used to accepting attentions and escort

from men outside the home atmosphere. Ella explains that since the

owner of "Brickdust Row" is so avaricious that he allows the parlors

to be rented out, no place is provided where the girls may entertain

men properly, and so the society of the opposite sex must be sought

and enjoyed "here, there and everywhere."

The idea is repugnant to Florence, who is unusually fine in her ideas

of propriety; but she comes to see that Ella's way is the only outlet

for youth and the desire for companionship, brightness, life.

She is very choice in her selection of escorts, and never permits any

young man she meets to discover even where she lives.

The owner of the tenements is a bored, money-spoiled young

man--Alexander Blinker. His lawyer tries to make him take enough

interest in his tenements to change the leases so that the girls can

have a place to meet gentlemen with the shield of propriety. Blinker

is too anxious to get to a golf tournament even to listen.

Florence grows used to her rôle of "Everybody's Girl," and while she

is decidedly decorous, she learns the arts and affectations of the

"street meeting."