Writing the Photoplay

by J. Berg Esenwein; Arthur Leeds

1—Exterior of store.

John comes out of store and walks down street, out of picture.

2—Street.

Enter John. Passes down street and out of picture.

3—Exterior of bank on street corner.

John comes down street, approaches bank, and enters.

In the foregoing example, three scenes are given to show how John gets from the store to the bank; but it might not be really necessary to take three scenes to show this action. We might see John leave the store and start down the street, the camera being set up in such a way as to take in not only the doorway of the store but also a considerable portion of the street. If the scene showing the front of the bank were planned in the same way, so as to show John approaching up the street, as though coming from the store, the connecting scene (2), which merely shows him between the two points, could very well be left out altogether, to be supplied by the imagination of the spectators.

Experience alone—combined with the study of the pictures seen on the screen—can teach you just what scenes are really necessary and which may be avoided; the point to remember is that you should not waste footage on even the shortest scene that can be eliminated without detracting from the interest or breaking the logical sequence of the events in your story. In other words, make it your hard and fast rule to write nothing into your scenario that does not aid materially in telling your story and making your meaning clear to the spectator. On the other hand, see that you omit nothing that will tend to produce the same result.

Going back to the example just given, we would point out that we purposely introduced into it an example of what not to do. Scene 3 is described as the "exterior of bank on street corner." That is something that it is best to leave entirely to the director. Let him do the locating of all the buildings used in a story, unless there is an exceptionally good reason why you should specify just where a certain building ought to be. The chances are that there is no special reason why the bank in your story should be located on the corner of the street, and the director might be able to locate a bank suitable for the purpose of the scene in question within a block or two of the studio. If there is a really important reason for having the bank on the corner, he may have to go a mile or more away from the studio to find one; and, inasmuch as it is frequently the case that the director will take his cameraman and the necessary actor or actors out with him, and do such a scene as this one outside the bank while another set is being built up inside the studio for him to work in, it will easily be seen that the more you can help him out by making things convenient for him the more likely he is to express a desire to examine other stories written by you.

This point will bear repeating: A scene is so much of the entire action as is taken in one place without stopping the camera; in its photoplay sense, scene never refers to the action between certain players, nor does a new scene commence when another character enters upon a scene already in course of action.