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.
Real success is not as likely to come to the man who grinds out a play a day, year in and year out, as it is to him who writes “the play of the day” once a year; film footage is not the measure of photoplay fame.
CHAPTER IX
Bromides Worth Repeating
THE VIRTUE OF ECONOMY; PRODUCING POLICIES; PERIOD AND COSTUMES; ANIMALS; COPYRIGHT AND CARBON COPIES; RELATION OF AUTHOR’S WORK TO HIS AUDIENCE; TO THE MANUFACTURER; TO HIS MANUSCRIPT.
SO many volumes have been written merely describing the photoplay, representing it primarily as a manufactured article and larding the treatises with an appalling number of “dont’s,” that the author of the present work has made an especial effort constructively to analyze photodrama, to embody it as a new and complete form of drama-literary art, and show the student not only what to do but how to do it. Hitherto, photoplay inception and construction have been carried on chiefly with a view to facilitating its manufacture. It is about time that we took the profit-yielding audiences into consideration by supplying the artistic entertainment for which they are crying. The manufacturing end is well able to take care of itself; the actor has demonstrated in a vast number of instances that he is able “to deliver the goods”—if he is supplied with them; a large number of directors have demonstrated remarkable ability in assembling and directing the material elements that perfectly interpret and visualize the story of the playwright. All that is needed is the trained writer in adequate numbers to supply the infinite demand. By the trained writer, is meant the man who needs the artistic co-operation of editor, director, actor and manufacturer, and not the mechanical collaboration with them.
It takes, then, a knowledge of the things that enable you to do your good idea effectively; a negligence of the don’ts will not make for the flawless play, yet alone would not succeed in smothering the great idea.
There are three relationships of the writer that will bear repeated cautions and dont’s: (1) The Audience; (2) The Manufacturer—(a) editor, (b) studio, (c) photography, (d) manufacture; and (3) The Manuscript—(a) technique, (b) preparation, (c) sale. We shall discuss these considerations in the order named.
1. THE AUDIENCE.—Your audience in general is world-wide. Because of the brevity of the plays, the cheapness of admission to the theaters, and the quick and universal appeal to the emotions our first and most numerous patrons are the lower classes and especially the children. For these reasons alone, suggestiveness, the portrayal of crime in such a way as to show how it is done, or as to inspire its commission, are not to be exploited. Taking sides with either the masses or the classes; with labor or capital, or with the white race versus races of color, is not only inartistic but dangerously incendiary. Politics are too local as play material, as we must always bear in mind that our play is to appear in Timbuctoo as well as in Tonopah. Religion is too delicate, too cherished and too sacred a subject for anything but dignified and unprejudiced treatment. Films that in any way reflect upon the Roman Catholic Church will be barred out of many Catholic countries. The European market is a most profitable source of income to many American manufacturers. In this connection we have but to remember that the human heart has the same strength and struggle, the same weaknesses and tragedies the world over. Difference of language, however, raises a few minor pitfalls. For example, placards of warning, ransom, rewards and other matter which play a part in the story thru the audience’s reading it in the picture, should be eliminated. These points are easily circumscribed—and made more effective—by the use of the insert. Just as captions have to be made in the language of each exhibiting country, so do the proper inserts.