J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds - Writing the Photoplay

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WRITING THE PHOTOPLAY

by

J. BERG ESENWEIN
Editor of "The Writer's Monthly"

and

ARTHUR LEEDS
Late Editor of Scripts, Edison Studio

The Writer's Library
Edited by J. Berg Esenwein

Revised Edition

The Home Correspondence School
Springfield, Mass.
Publishers
Copyright 1913
Copyright 1919
The Home Correspondence School
All Rights Reserved

[Illustration: The Lasky Studio of the Famous Players-Lasky
Corporation, Hollywood, California]

Table of Contents

Page

CHAPTER I--WHAT IS A PHOTOPLAY? 1

CHAPTER II--WHO CAN WRITE PHOTOPLAYS? 5

CHAPTER III--PHOTOPLAY TERMS 17

CHAPTER IV--THE PHOTOPLAY SCRIPT: ITS
COMPONENT PARTS 29

CHAPTER V--A SAMPLE PHOTOPLAY FORM 34

CHAPTER VI--THE MECHANICAL PREPARATION
OF THE SCRIPT 55

CHAPTER VII--THE TITLE 72

CHAPTER VIII--THE SYNOPSIS OF THE PLOT 87

CHAPTER IX--THE CAST OF CHARACTERS 111

CHAPTER X--THE SCENARIO OR CONTINUITY 131

CHAPTER XI--THE SCENE-PLOT AND ITS PURPOSE 204

CHAPTER XII--THE USE AND ABUSE OF LEADERS,
LETTERS AND OTHER INSERTS 218

CHAPTER XIII--THE PHOTOPLAY STAGE AND ITS
PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS 245

CHAPTER XIV--HOW TO GATHER IDEAS FOR
PLOTS 255

CHAPTER XV--WHAT YOU CANNOT WRITE 267

CHAPTER XVI--WHAT YOU SHOULD NOT
WRITE 282

CHAPTER XVII--WHAT YOU SHOULD WRITE 304

CHAPTER XVIII--THE TREATMENT OF COMEDY 324

CHAPTER XIX--GETTING THE NEW TWIST 347

CHAPTER XX--COMPLETE FIVE-REEL PHOTOPLAY
SCRIPT--"EVERYBODY'S GIRL" 363

CHAPTER XXI--MARKETING THE PHOTOPLAY
SCRIPT 408

APPENDIX A 416

APPENDIX B 417

GENERAL INDEX 418

List of Illustrations

The Lasky Studio of the Famous Players-Lasky
Corporation, Hollywood, California Frontispiece

Page

Producing a Big Scene in the Selig Yard

Film-Drying Room in a Film Factory 8

Essanay Producing Yard; Two Interior Sets
Being Arranged for a Historical Drama

Players Waiting for their Cues in the Glass-Enclosed
Selig Studio 58

Paint Frame on Which Scenery is Painted

Checking "Extras" Used in Rex Beach's Photodrama,
"The Brand" 108

View of Stage, Lubin Studio, Los Angeles, California

Wardrobe Room in a Photoplay Studio 158

The Reception of King Robert of Sicily by His
Brother, the Pope

Same Set, with Players Getting Ready for Action 208

William S. Hart with Part of His Supporting
Company

Harry Beaumont Directing Fight Scene in "A
Man and His Money" 258

Arrangement of Electric Lights in a Photoplay
Studio

An Actor's Dressing Room in the Selig Studio 308

Preparing to Take Three Scenes at Once in a
Daylight Studio 358

CHAPTER I

WHAT IS A PHOTOPLAY?

As its title indicates, this book aims to teach the theory and
practice of photoplay construction. This we shall attempt by first
pointing out its component parts, and then showing how these parts are
both constructed and assembled so as to form a strong, well-built,
attractive and salable manuscript.

_The Photoplay Defined and Differentiated_

_A photoplay is a story told largely in pantomime by players, whose
words are suggested by their actions, assisted by certain descriptive
words thrown on the screen, and the whole produced by a moving-picture
machine._

It should be no more necessary to say that not all moving-picture
productions are photoplays than that not all prose is fiction, yet the
distinction must be emphasized. A photoplay is to the program of a
moving-picture theatre just what a short-story is to the contents of a
popular magazine--it supplies the story-telling or drama element. A
few years ago the managers of certain theatres used so to arrange
their programs that for four or five days out of every week the
pictures they showed would consist entirely of photoplays. On such
days their programs corresponded exactly to the contents-page of an
all-fiction magazine--being made up solely to provide entertainment.
The all-fiction magazine contains no essays, critical papers, or
special articles, for the instruction of the reader, beyond the
information and instruction conveyed to him while interestedly
perusing the stories. Just so, the all-photoplay program in a picture
theatre, at the time of which we speak, was one made up entirely of
either "dramatic"[1] or "comedy" subjects. Films classified as
"scenic," "educational," "vocational," "industrial," "sporting," and
"topical," were not included in such a program.

[Footnote 1: The photoplay has come to have a language of its own,
which we must observe even when, as in this case, we lose somewhat in
finer word-values. In their lists of releases (photoplays released or
made available for public presentation at a specified date),
manufacturers usually classify as "comedy" subjects all photoplays
which are without any serious dramatic moments or situations. Thus, in
the lists of releases published in the various trade journals, what
are obviously "comedy-dramas"--some of them, such as certain of the
Douglas Fairbanks productions, even bordering on farce--are classed as
"dramatic" subjects, and this, apparently, because they are strongly
dramatic in certain scenes. Thus, again, genuine farce (as
distinguished from "slap-stick" comedy), social comedy, burlesque and
extravaganza are all classed under the head of "comedy," just as
comedy-drama, tragedy, melodrama, and historical plays are classed as
"dramatic." These two broad classifications will be used throughout
this work except where finer distinctions are needed in order to treat
varieties of subjects. The regular spoken play naturally invites these
distinctions more than does the photoplay, at least at present. In
preparing your manuscript, however, you will be taught to follow the
accepted form among photoplaywrights and, in writing the synopsis,
after the title, specify the class of subject, as "dramatic
photoplay," "farce," "comedy-drama," "historical drama," "society
drama," etc.]

True, a genuine photoplay may contain scenes and incidents which would
almost seem to justify its being included in one of the foregoing
classes. One might ask, for instance, why Selig's film, "On the Trail
of the Germs," produced about five years ago, was classified as
"educational," while Edison's "The Red Cross Seal" and "The Awakening
of John Bond" (both of which were produced at the instance of the
National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, and
had to do with the fight waged by that society against the disease in
the cities), were listed as "dramatic" films or photoplays. Anyone who
saw all three of the films, however, would recognize that the Selig
picture, while in every respect a subject of great human interest, was
strictly educational, and employed the thread of a story not as a
dramatic entertainment, but merely to furnish a connecting link for
the scenes which illustrated the methods of curing the disease after a
patient is discovered to be infected. The Edison pictures, on the
other hand, were real dramas, with well-constructed plots and abundant
dramatic interest, even while, as the advertising in the trade papers
announced, the principal object of the pictures was "to disseminate
information as to what becomes of the money that is received from the
sale of Red Cross stamps at holiday time." So we see that the
distinction lies in the amount of plot or story-thread which each
carries, and that a mere series of connected pictures without a plot
running through it obviously cannot be called a photoplay any more
than a series of tableaus on the stage could be accurately called a
play.

Therefore, learn to think of a photoplay as being a story prepared for
pantomimic development before the camera; a story told in _action_,
with inserted descriptive matter where the thought might be obscure
without its help; a story told in one or more reels, each reel
containing from twenty-five to fifty scenes.

The spectator at a photoplay entertainment must be able promptly and
easily to discover who your characters are, what kind of people they
are, what they plan to do, how they succeed or fail, and, in fact,
must "get" the whole story entirely from what he sees the actors in
the picture _do_, with the slight assistance of a few explanatory
leaders, or sub-titles, and, perhaps, such inserts as a letter, a
newspaper cutting, a telegram, or some such device, flashed for a
moment on the screen. The more perfect the photoplay, the less the
need for all such explanatory material, as is the case in perfect
pantomime. This, of course, is not to insist upon the utter absence of
all written and printed material thrown on the screen--a question
which will be discussed in a later chapter. It is enough now to
emphasize this important point: Dialogue and description are for the
fiction writer; the photoplaywright depends upon his ability to
_think_ and _write_ in action, for the postures, grouping, gestures,
movements and facial expressions of the characters must be shown in
action, and not described as in prose fiction.

_Action_ is the most important word in the vocabulary of the
photoplaywright. To be able to see in fancy his thoughts transformed
into action is to have gained one goal for which every photoplay
writer strives.

CHAPTER II

WHO CAN WRITE PHOTOPLAYS?

In almost everything that has been written up to the present time
concerning the technique of photoplay writing, considerable stress has
been laid on the statement that, notwithstanding preceding success in
their regular field, many authors of popular fiction have either
failed altogether in the production of acceptable photoplays or have
had almost as many rejections as, if not more than, the average novice
in short-story writing. That there is much truth in this cannot be
denied; but that a trained and inventive fiction writer--particularly
a writer of plot- or action-stories--after having once learned the
_mechanics_ of photoplay construction, should fail of success in
photoplay writing is, obviously, not at all necessary. A discussion of
this point should help to impress on the student just what sort of
preparation will be of the greatest assistance to him in the work he
is taking up.

_1. Experience in Fiction Writing Valuable to the Photoplaywright_

Let us consider the case of a man born with a talent and love for
music. As he grows up, he learns to play upon the violin--learns as
hundreds have done, by first taking up the most simple exercises and
constantly working up until he becomes more proficient. As in all
other occupations, practice eventually brings skill, and he at last
becomes a master of the violin. He may have been born a genius--it has
always been in him to become the exceptional performer upon the
instrument of his choice. Nevertheless, the hard work was necessary,
as that maker of epigrams saw when he said that genius was an infinite
capacity for taking pains.

To carry the simple illustration a step further: geniuses are few, so
it is certain that our artist has become a master of the violin
because he is a man who, loving his work and putting his whole soul
into it, daily improved in technique and quality by intelligent labor.
If he is a concert performer, he feels his art becoming more perfect
with each new recital. He has learned _how_ to play, and now there
remains nothing but the necessity for keeping constantly--note the
expressive phrase--in practice, and improving the quality and style of
his playing.

Let us suppose, now, that this musical artist is offered an
exceptionally good salary to appear in vaudeville with another
musician, who performs equally well upon two or three, or even more,
very different instruments. He accepts the offer; he and his partner
"open" in the act; and, after a week or two, in order to "build up"
the act as well as to become capable of playing another kind of
instrument, he decides to take up the study of the cornet. The violin
and cornet are, of course, widely different in construction, and they
produce very different effects. Besides, the methods of producing
those effects are totally unlike, since one is drawn from the violin
with the aid of trained hands and fingers, while the other is produced
by the skillful operation of the human lips, tongue and lungs, with
only minor assistance from the fingers. Yet the tones of these two
instruments may be equally harmonious and pleasing when each is
skillfully played. So, in the course of time, the violinist becomes
almost, if not quite, as accomplished a player upon the cornet as he
is upon the instrument whose study first engrossed him.

And now a question--one which certainly should not admit of much
difference of opinions in the answering: Of two men, both possessed of
a natural talent and love for music, which would be likely first to
learn to play upon the cornet correctly and with pleasing
expression--the man who had previously learned the technique of violin
playing, together with the meaning and value of musical terms, or the
one who, without any knowledge of music or of how to perform, should
suddenly determine to learn to play a given instrument?

_2. Photoplay Writing Requires a Separate Training_

Apply the same reasoning to the question of who should _become_ the
most successful photoplaywright--the trained and experienced fiction
writer, or the ordinarily intelligent and imaginative follower of some
other vocation, who is suddenly struck by the idea that he could, and
filled with the determination that he will, write a photoplay. We
accentuate the word _become_ in order to emphasize the fact that even
the professional writer _must_ learn the _technique_ of photoplay
construction before he can hope to produce a script that will not only
be accepted by a film manufacturing company for production, but will
be produced exactly as he has written it, _without the need of drastic
revision or rewriting_. This, however, is very rare today.

This last point is important. While, as we have said, it is improbable
that an experienced fiction writer would fail in the field of
photoplay writing once he had learned to put the plot together in
proper form and had mastered a knowledge of the limitations of the
moving-picture stage, it is also just as unlikely that the most famous
writer living could legitimately sell a photoplay that was essentially
faulty in construction and absolutely lacking in screen quality. If
the idea were a good one and the writer were to submit it to the
producing company under his own name, the chance is that the company
would accept it, and, after using his idea to construct the photoplay
in proper form, produce and even feature it--on account of the big
name won in the field of fiction writing. If, on the other hand, he
should submit it under a pen name it is possible that, provided the
plot, or even the fundamental idea, proved to be exceptionally good,
he might be offered a moderate sum for the plot or for the idea alone,
to be worked up and produced as the director thought best. In making
him the offer, the company would probably explain quite frankly that
the script was not suitably constructed; that it would require
rewriting in the studio; but that the idea was worth the amount
offered. Here, then, is one point upon which the novice may
congratulate himself: he, as an untrained writer of photoplays, is not
alone in having to learn the secret of what will suit the screen, for
until the famous author learns that secret, he, too, is an untrained
writer--of photoplays, and his "prices" will suffer accordingly.

[Illustration: Producing a Big Scene in the Selig Yard. See Cameras on
the Right]

[Illustration: Film-Drying Room in a Film Factory. The Films are
Rolled Around the Racks which are Suspended from the Ceiling and in
the Hands of the Operators. Moist Warm Air is Introduced through the
Large Pipes]

Now, however, after both have acquired this knowledge of screen
requirements, the trained fiction writer and the untrained photoplay
writer cease to be on common ground. The writer of novels and
short-stories has the advantage of years of--training, is the best
word, meaning, in the present instance, both experience and special
education. He has a tutored imagination; he has the plot-habit; he has
an eye trained to picture dramatic situations; he sees the
possibilities for a strong, appealing story in an incident in everyday
life that to ninety-nine other people would be merely an incident seen
for a moment and in a moment forgotten; he has at his command a dozen
different ways of assisting himself to discover plot-germs for his
stories--he is, in short, a workman knowing exactly what to do with
the tools already in his possession, and when he acquires new tools he
can, after some practise, use them with equal proficiency and skill.
Furthermore, there can be no doubt that, once each has mastered the
working rules of photoplay construction, the chances for quick and
continued success are quite evidently in favor of the trained fiction
writer--notwithstanding the fact that one man in a thousand without
any previous knowledge of writing may become extremely successful.

_3. What Chance Has the Novice?_

Should the foregoing fact discourage the novice who has not had this
previous literary training? The answer is, emphatically, YES! It
should, it ought to--_unless_ (and this is the secret of it all),
unless he has ideas, and is the kind of novice who vows with every
grain of determination in his make-up that he will soon cease to be a
mere amateur, and will be recognized as one of the successful ones.
Remember, every writer was once a beginner.

The reader may think, having read this much, that undue stress is laid
upon the question of the previously successful writer and the
ambitious but inexperienced amateur; it is this very insistence on the
comparison, however, that should cause the earnest and determined
aspirant to photoplaywright success to analyze more thoroughly the
difference, and profit by a knowledge of how he may quickly advance
himself to the position where the previously successful author will
have little or no advantage over him.

Almost all who have had anything to say upon the subject of writing
for moving pictures, but especially the writers of the advertising
copy for most of the correspondence "schools" that offer "fake"
courses of instruction upon the subject, have declared that there is
"no experience or literary knowledge necessary" in order to become
successful in the photoplay-writing field. One concern even
advertises that the student "can learn this business in from ten to
thirty days." If by this is meant that the mere correct form of
putting the work on paper with the aid of the typewriter--the
mechanical arrangement of synopsis, cast, and scenario or
continuity--can be picked up in that many days, there is hardly room
to dispute the claim. That, however, is not quite "learning the
business." No previous "literary training" _is_ necessary, if by that
is meant the mastery of English prose writing, or the actual technique
of short-story construction or novel writing. We shall see, however,
that the photoplaywright who wishes to succeed in more than one, two,
or three flash-in-the-pan instances must really submit to a course of
training, whether self-conducted or under competent instruction, and
the more he knows of fictional and dramatic art the easier is his new
work likely to be.

Nevertheless, there is a real sense in which the statement that no
literary training is required by the student of photoplay writing is
true. Provided he is gifted with an imaginative mind and the native
ability to _see_ how an idea or a plot-germ would evolve itself into a
climacteric and coherent story, and provided he has the dramatic
sense, he can actually learn the rules of construction and produce
salable photoplays even if he has by no means the literary ability to
write a salable short-story. But he _must_ be a person of ideas--no
book and no instruction can supply that lack.

We have gone so far as deliberately to try to discourage anyone who is
so foolish and so undeserving as to enter the field of photoplay
writing without the fullest intention of doing his best to win for
himself the very highest position in that field to which his talent
and ability to work can advance him; and we have no apologies to
offer. Few who have not followed the progress of the moving-picture
industry realize the enormous changes that have taken place in the
last four or five years. This is especially true of the branch of the
business having to do with the preparation of the script. To those who
have been in constant touch with the work, it seems only yesterday
that the professional photoplay writer, outside of the producing
plants, was an unknown factor. At last came the time when the
manufacturers started to advertise for ideas on which to build their
plays. "Ten to one-hundred dollars paid for motion picture plays,"
these advertisements read. They were alluring enough even to the man
who already had a steady position in another line of work. They told
him how he could add from "ten to one-hundred dollars" a month to his
regular income. At least, they _seemed_ to promise that, especially
when coupled with the assurance that "no previous literary training"
was required. These advertisements looked attractive, also, to the man
whose income was not regular. Small wonder that within a few months'
time scores, hundreds, rushed blindly into a field where even writers
of established reputation would have failed--and did fail--without
preliminary technical training. Even those who succeeded in getting
their efforts accepted by the producers found that the check was more
likely to be for ten dollars than for any amount in excess of that.

_4. Advance in Requirements_

The real change has come within the past ten or twelve months. A sort
of weeding process has been carried on by the various manufacturers,
and as a result they recognize certain writers as being capable of
supplying them, at more or less regular intervals, with the kind of
scripts they want, quite as certain magazine editors have lists of
story-writers to whom they look for the bulk of their fiction.
Gradually this list of trained and capable, and consequently
successful, writers for the screen is growing larger, for daily some
new writer is demonstrating that the freshness, brightness, and
ingenuity of his ideas warrant the editor's putting him on the list of
those from whom good material may be expected.

_5. The Demand for Photoplays_

Is there not, therefore, it may be asked, a probability of the field's
becoming overcrowded?

Hardly. The best proof of the opportunity that is held out to the
capable outside writer, new or old, is that the staff-writers, whose
duty it _should be_ to make adaptations of plays and novels and write
the scenario, or continuity, for stories bought from free-lance
writers in synopsis form, are kept pretty busy writing so-called
"original stories" for certain stars, or stories that may be "done" in
certain parts of the country at a particular season of the year. If
enough thoroughly good stories could be purchased on the outside,
staff writers would never be called upon to write stories to order;
only what might be called "inspired" stories would be accepted from
them. Furthermore, if plenty of good, original stories, written
directly for screen presentation, could be purchased by the editors,
the practice of making screen adaptations of popular novels and stage
plays would be cut down by more than half.

"Suppose that the staff writer suddenly gets the 'flash'--the
inspiration needed to write a Western story with a plot that is
infinitely bigger and more dramatic than anything that he has done in
a great many months. Thinking it over, he gradually becomes brimful of
the theme and its plot-possibilities. He wants to feed the paper into
his trusty typewriter and start pounding out the scenario before a
single bit of the suddenly inspired plot can get away from him. But he
cannot; his company does not make Western stories; nor does it permit
its staff writers to sell their work to other firms. Even if it did,
he is far too busy to give the time to the writing of a story not
intended for the use of his own particular studio.

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