Technique is the Training School of all organised knowledge; Art is its Life: Technique is a matter of Rules and a space of study; Art is one of principles and eternity.
Technique is the Training School of all organised knowledge; Art is its Life: Technique is a matter of Rules and a space of study; Art is one of principles and eternity.
Technique is the Training School of all organised knowledge; Art is its Life: Technique is a matter of Rules and a space of study; Art is one of principles and eternity.
Rules of the Game
DURATION AND NUMBER OF SCENES; PERPETUAL MOTION; THE “NOW” ELEMENT; EFFECTIVE FORM; NATURAL LAWS; SCENE PRINCIPLE.
DURATION AND NUMBER OF SCENES; PERPETUAL MOTION; THE “NOW” ELEMENT; EFFECTIVE FORM; NATURAL LAWS; SCENE PRINCIPLE.
IN no literary effort is technique more important or essential than in the construction of the photoplay. There are arbitrary rules that must be followed and conventions that cannot be ignored. We must cater to the manufacturer’s possibilities; we must conform to fixed mechanical limitations; we interpret our art thru “business”; we must gather the world-wide vision within the narrow focus of the camera’s eye. Our play-form and techniquemust be sufficiently potent, suggestive and revealing to enable competent co-operators to discern, interpret and manufacture an effective concrete and vividlyalivereproduction of our abstract vision, so that it may be readily recognized and emotionally realized by independent audiences the world over.
The photoplaywright is the only literary craftsman who does not carve, model and perfect with his own handiwork the actual presentment of his creation offered to the public. And, greatest obstacle of all—our photoplaywright must accomplish his eloquent task by remaining technically silent! We come to the inevitable conclusion that construction and technique are equal in importance—if not superior—to idea or conception of the writer.
The matter of bare photoplay form is but the slightest move in the direction of perfect effect. It is the subject ofeffectivephotoplay form and how to produce the effects that really count.
We may set down as one of the first principles of photodrama, that the playwright must make his rule of construction: People go to the theater toseea deed and not to read orhearaboutit. There are several ways of construing a breach of this principle. The first is that of telling the story indirectly by means of captions and inserts, instead of directly thru consecutive action. This is the method of the poor plotter and shallow artificer who sticks in a caption or insert whenever he encounters an obstacle, oftentimes skipping the climacteric situations and showing the trifling details.
(EXAMPLE 41.)AFTER THE RIOT JOE KEPT IN BED WITH BROKEN ARM .... Audiences simply will not accept that broken arm as convincing unless their reasons can vouch for the violence that led to it. But riots are more easily skipped than successfully delineated. All climacteric scenes must be shown and not merely referred to. We always take the commonplace for granted; but never the extraordinary.
(EXAMPLE 41.)AFTER THE RIOT JOE KEPT IN BED WITH BROKEN ARM .... Audiences simply will not accept that broken arm as convincing unless their reasons can vouch for the violence that led to it. But riots are more easily skipped than successfully delineated. All climacteric scenes must be shown and not merely referred to. We always take the commonplace for granted; but never the extraordinary.
Next we deal with an offending heritage from short story fiction, the story within a story or, as we shall here call it, a story within a play. It should never be resorted to; it need never be done. It breaks the thread of one story to insert another that in nearly every case is stronger than the original, forming an anti-climax instead of contributing to one.Its use means that the play has not been carefully plotted, that it has not been begun early enough, or in the right place, and that it is trying laboriously to explain something that would not stand by itself.
(EXAMPLE 42.)In the Vitagraph’s “A Million Bid,” the quasi-hero is picked up again after having been absent for more than a reel, and sets in to tell what has happened to him while he has been away! Most of it was entirely “another story,” but much of it might have been effectually interwoven with the progressing action of the play. As it was, it was most difficult to grasp the fact that we had been hauled months back in point of time. In the mental melée we lost sight of the main theme altogether, and most of us never quite got back to it. All of us were befuddled to some extent. It was intended, no doubt, that the audience should not know the identity of the narrator until the heroine herself found it out, which would have made it worse in thus having an entire stranger break into our story and consume nearly one-third of the entire play!
(EXAMPLE 42.)In the Vitagraph’s “A Million Bid,” the quasi-hero is picked up again after having been absent for more than a reel, and sets in to tell what has happened to him while he has been away! Most of it was entirely “another story,” but much of it might have been effectually interwoven with the progressing action of the play. As it was, it was most difficult to grasp the fact that we had been hauled months back in point of time. In the mental melée we lost sight of the main theme altogether, and most of us never quite got back to it. All of us were befuddled to some extent. It was intended, no doubt, that the audience should not know the identity of the narrator until the heroine herself found it out, which would have made it worse in thus having an entire stranger break into our story and consume nearly one-third of the entire play!
The most common form of a story within a play is the one in which the hunter, or the veteran, or the old person blighted in love, or some such character sits down, with a younger person usually, and in the end there is a laborious effort to make the experience of theolder person play a part in the younger’s career. There may be exceptions to a hard-and-fast rule of avoiding these devices, but usually it will be found that there is a remedy in the principles of the photodrama itself that say begin your action back atthe very beginningandalways go forward.
The third pitfall, is that of trying to record speeches—dramatic tho they be—by supposedly visualizing what the speaker is referring to; of trying to tell the story of a crime, for instance, thru the trial of the culprit, rather than by showing the events preceding and causing the trial in their chronological order. Here, as in the former instance, the vision is resorted to. The vision is apt to be employed in dramatizing the detective story that is primed with a surprise in the climax in which the method of its revealment is disclosed by going back and showing the steps. Let it be a rare exception that makes you ever turn backward; for neither time nor drama can do it without violating a natural law.
To be explicit, the photoplay is anowplay! The now may be a thousand years ago, but it must be relived again, now. All of whichshould warn us to avoid long lapses of time, occurring especially in the one-part play.
Nothing quite emphasizes the “now” quality of the photodrama as the invariable practice of employing nothing but thepresent tensein writing the photoplay. Synopsis and scenario are seemingly conscious of the things they are engaged in doing now. Past deeds and future prophecies—employing their respective tenses—frequently occur in captions and inserts, however.
(EXAMPLE 43.)From a letter: “I have never seen you take any interest in anything.” Caption: “In fifty minutes your child will be on the scrap heap, too!”
(EXAMPLE 43.)From a letter: “I have never seen you take any interest in anything.” Caption: “In fifty minutes your child will be on the scrap heap, too!”
The laws of natural movement and action should never be violated by the characters themselves. Any character who is to appear in the next scene must always be seen toleavethe present scene, disappearing from view in that action, and again be seen tocome onthe scene that follows. It is unnecessary to accompany the character thru the various and uninteresting steps between his leaving one scene and arrival on the next. If something dramatic happens to him en route then weshould see it. Contrary to fiction construction, scene precedes character in presentation. We are carried to the new scene and meet the character at the door as it were, and the illusion is complete. A preliminary fragment of action transpiring in the following scene, before the appearance of the character, will lend a further contribution to naturalness.
(EXAMPLE 44.)In scene 27, of “All Power for a Day,” we find Alice hurriedly leaving the crowd when she has seen the face of the man she hates. In scene 28, the room, in her boarding-house is shown, her landlady—her enemy’s confederate—snooping for a bit among her things before she enters.
(EXAMPLE 44.)In scene 27, of “All Power for a Day,” we find Alice hurriedly leaving the crowd when she has seen the face of the man she hates. In scene 28, the room, in her boarding-house is shown, her landlady—her enemy’s confederate—snooping for a bit among her things before she enters.
Characters must not be left in one scene and be discovered in the next following. They are not clothing dummies or marionettes, to be picked up bodily and helplessly and placed in set poses for the inspection of the audience. If another scene intervenes in which the same character does not appear, then it is not necessary for him to “come and go,” since we presume he has had time and freedom for the necessary action while we were engaged with the alternate scene.
The scene principle in the photoplay is oneof reflective power. One scene reacts, rebounds, reflects, reverberates from the scene that precedes it to the scene that follows it; all bear a cumulative relation toward the climax.
(EXAMPLE 45.)In “The Master of the Lost Hills” we have six scenes all different, yet showing the reflective power with tremendous force: (1) Mary aims gun out of window and tells brother to step back or she will shoot; (2) Brother hesitates in his advance; (3) Close-view of Mary taking aim; (4) Just at edge of woods Mary’s desperate lover is taking aim at her; (5) Portion of dense forest showing sheriff and posse, who have come to rescue Mary, lost; (6) Exterior of shack shows mob drawing closer.
(EXAMPLE 45.)In “The Master of the Lost Hills” we have six scenes all different, yet showing the reflective power with tremendous force: (1) Mary aims gun out of window and tells brother to step back or she will shoot; (2) Brother hesitates in his advance; (3) Close-view of Mary taking aim; (4) Just at edge of woods Mary’s desperate lover is taking aim at her; (5) Portion of dense forest showing sheriff and posse, who have come to rescue Mary, lost; (6) Exterior of shack shows mob drawing closer.
Another scene principle that we have learned is that every time the camera is shifted an iota we have a new scene. Theoretically, the eye of the camera never moves, excepting in the disillusioning practice of some operators to follow the movements of energetic characters by “panoram-ing.”
Our rule for length, duration and number of scenes is governed by the unalterable unit of the reel, or 1,000 feet of film. A short play—one reel—may consist of from 25 to 50 scenes; according to the directness, tone,treatment by the author and the method of the director. The exciting play of comedy, adventure and peril moves along rapidly, with short, quick scenes and many “returns,” just as in fiction we use short sentences and employ words and phraseology that remind us of and constantly revert to the hero’s imminent peril. The duration of a scene is in direct ratio to the vital relationship of its action to the climax.
(EXAMPLE 46.)In “The Salt of Vengeance” the grief-crazed father of an injured child sets a bomb under the rails that will blow to atoms the child of the man who is responsible for the injury. The lunatic pens up the guilty man, taunts him with the swiftly approaching fate of his precious child. This scene endures for several minutes. The next is a mere “flash” of a speeding railroad train occupying several seconds.
(EXAMPLE 46.)In “The Salt of Vengeance” the grief-crazed father of an injured child sets a bomb under the rails that will blow to atoms the child of the man who is responsible for the injury. The lunatic pens up the guilty man, taunts him with the swiftly approaching fate of his precious child. This scene endures for several minutes. The next is a mere “flash” of a speeding railroad train occupying several seconds.
It is a natural law of drama that demands the establishment of identity almost the moment that a character appears. This is especially requisite in photodrama because of the rapid panorama of scenes that hurry on and off, at the rate of 75 to 200 an hour. One moment’s doubt on the part of the audience—so incredibly swift and fleeting is the hurryof photoplay events—may mean the misunderstanding or losing of a year of the hero’s life.
Learn and follow rules always with a willing mind; but never let them lead you around by the nose. The man who cannot take a single step without consulting his rules will become a wooden worker. “The way to make rules really valuable is to thoroly learn them, then literally forget them by perfectly practicing them.” Now and then we see something in a play that is superior to rules and technique; something that would have been cramped and crushed by rules. At present the photodrama has many superficial rules and a technique that is often archaic and lacks the element of futurity.
All said and done, we are not teaching technique, or laying down rules; rather, we are trying to interpret the laws of human conduct, the science of being natural and the art of entertaining effectively.