The photodrama

by Henry Albert Phillips

The Potential Situation

CONTRAST; SITUATION’S RELATION TO AUDIENCE; HARVESTING SITUATIONS; PERIL AND DEATH; CLIMAX AND PUNCH.

THE most poignant dramatic effect is that obtained by contrasting a character with his most coveted—tho ungratified—condition. The most powerful situations are those in which a character is confronted with that which should have been, that which might might have been, or that which can never be. Therein we plunge into the deepest wells of pathos.

(EXAMPLE 72.) As a case of that which should have been, we find the man who failed suddenly coming into the presence of the man who is prosperous because of his failures. That which might have been, we see illustrated in the man and woman meeting years later—the husband and wife of others—when a silly misunderstanding is all that separated them. That which can never be is pathetically shown by an old man making the acquaintance of a youth, who alone can accomplish what he himself wishes to do. These are all dramatic situations of the highest order.

Since drama is an artistic process of obtaining striking and gratifying effects upon the emotions of an audience, the situation is the most frequent and positive means to that end. The situation is what lends novelty, fire and brilliancy to the progressive units of the play. It places the characters in a galvanic relationship with each other or with their condition or environment. It means the introduction of the unexpected—either from the point of view of the character or of the audience. Its introduction marks the beginning of Suspense, and raises the question, What will he do about it? For it means a relationship about which something must be done immediately, and that something is a Crisis. The Situation itself is of short duration but of tremendous power and effect. It succeeds the introductory action, or a sudden revealment to the audience, of which the character may remain in ignorance, or an unlooked-for entry, or an undreamed-of relationship disclosed—that suddenly change the whole aspect of development.

(EXAMPLE 73.) A woman’s old father has sent for the police to arrest the young criminal whom he has raised from a foundling—when the daughter discloses that the boy is her illegitimate son, and his grandson! A girl betrays a man to the mob for murdering her wealthy benefactor whom she has never seen—when it is seemingly too late the man proves to her that he is the benefactor, and that her brother murdered his valet! In both cases the audience was aware of the relationship and reveled in the characters’ embarrassment.

The foregoing Example has touched a point that should be driven home. It concerns the extent to which the author shall take the audience into his confidence. In this relation, writers will have to discard in photoplay writing what in story writing is undoubtedly one of their greatest assets; namely, the withholding of some of the important details in order to build the delightful surprise at the end. In the photoplay we must take the audience into our confidence, for the simple reason that everything is screened in the order of its occurrence. That is the first principle of perfect illusion—perfect continuity. The second principle is, that all that is essential must occur on the screen, which is the principle of perfect progression. Both the spoken drama and the fiction story permit a development that is contrary to these principles of photodrama. The writer of those forms builds up a fabric of deception, as it were, around the real events that hides the truth and makes it seem as tho it were just the opposite—until the grand surprise at the end. He does this by means of cleverly framed innuendoes, artificial explanations offered by various persons in the play or story and the delay of misleading evidence that is cleared up in speeches and dialog, that in turn explains why they made the mistakes. The photoplay gains power by being more direct.

We do not try to outwit our audiences; we take them into our confidence. If we can do this cleverly and suggestively, we can equal, if not surpass, any of the effects to be obtained by other forms of dramatic expression.

(EXAMPLE 74.) We see a crime about to be committed, but all of the criminal that appears is a hand—possibly scarred—slipping thru the parting of the portières. When the hero who was robbed or assaulted by that hand finds the ring, the audience finds the criminal. Another instance of showing the essential progressive action, but reserving the full disclosure till the climacteric Situation, is found in the finding of a woman’s lost boy by the man she loves. Later she is led to believe that the boy has gone the evil way he started for. She comes to the man she had scorned, for help; the man takes her to a boy’s school where her boy is the leader. We had only seen the lover find the boy and then we returned to the main line of action.

But are not the audiences’ hopes and fears heightened by omniscence? Their knowledge does not mean foreknowledge, by any means. The hero must work out his own salvation and overcome the villain just the same. The fact that they know that the hero is sitting on the box that contains the treasure for which he is looking is a hundred times more dramatic than if they are not told till the end, when the circumstance may be forgotten. The finest Situations are those wherein he does not realize the true state of affairs that the foregoing scene has fully disclosed to the audience.