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 inThe 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—doesnotmean 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 recognizethe 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 beessentialto the story, rather than thepurposeof 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 thePhotoplay 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 inThe 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'ssuggestions, 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 thePhotoplay 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 dayreturning 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 RomanCatholic 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 asingle patronif 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 ofThe Coming Nation, stories are not wanted "where thehero 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 inThe 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 brutalityin 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 pictureisproducedbecauseit 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 thechapteron 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 thetabooed 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 isnotto 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 mistakenidentity; honesty rewarded; a noble revenge; a child's influence; and so on to a long-drawn-out end."[26]
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-wornthemethat makes a story hackneyed as it is the threadbaredevelopmentof 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 littlebook 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 mercyduring the whole four years of strife."
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, whowrote 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 theprevious 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 physicianknows! 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 tenwould 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,youwill be the one blamed by those in the studio, and your next story will undoubtedly be looked at askance, and probably rejected.
"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. Butentertainingfirst, instructive second; totryto 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 YorkSun, and no one will doubt theclose 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 ofAdventure, inThe 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 pleaseallhis 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'sInfernoand 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 thebourgeois, if it were only to try to refine them, to make them lessbourgeois. 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 ParisFigaroreplied 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.
An editorial inMotographysays: "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?
Electric Lights
Arrangement of Electric Lights in a Photoplay Studio
Dressing Room
An Actor's Dressing Room in the Selig Studio
"The answer lies in the peculiar requirements ofphotoplay authorship. The writer of printed fiction is a master ofwords. 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 heisserving 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 whatnotto 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 lessexcusable 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 isnotto 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 informationfrom 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 toenable 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 disapprovalof someonewho 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—someeditor is waiting for it. But you must find that editor.
7. Write Stories Requiring Only Action
In selecting your theme, ask yourself if eitherdialogue 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 reliancemustbe 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 detectivescripts, 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 inChapter XVIregarding 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.
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 honestman; 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 isessentiallyan 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 authormentionedthat 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 thewell-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 storyis nota 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 inChapter 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 callingfor 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 inthat, 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 thepicture 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 embodiesgoodthings. 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."