Writing the Photoplay

by J. Berg Esenwein; Arthur Leeds

So far as any special rules in connection with the writing of the feature picture is concerned, there are really none—unless the admonition to try to make a five-reel story five times as interesting and five times as cleverly plotted as a one-reel story may be called a rule. In other words, the writer who can turn out a salable synopsis for a one-reel story ought to be able to write an equally good synopsis for a five-reel feature; and similarly, if you can write the continuity for a one-reel story—if you can write a single-reel scenario of the kind that would have been acceptable in any studio a few years ago—you undoubtedly can write a five-reel continuity that is up to the technical standard demanded by those companies that accept complete scripts today. And of course the same applies to the "synopsis only" script.

The one thing that you cannot do, unless you are actually on the staff of a certain company, is obvious, and has been referred to in the [chapter on "The Synopsis"]: You cannot write any story with the certainty that it will be entirely unchanged after being accepted for production. Any one of a dozen very good reasons may demand that some alteration, addition to or elimination of certain scenes or parts of scenes in your story must take place while it is in the director's hands. There is a vast difference between the necessary changes carefully made by an artistic and painstaking director and the indiscriminate slashing to pieces of a writer's story common among a certain variety of directors in the past. Fortunately for the writer, this class of director is rapidly being outlawed, and the photoplaywright should write at all times in the confident belief that his perfect-as-he-can-make-it story will be adequately "put on" by a director who knows his business and is, as Mr. Merwin says, an interpreter of the author's plot.

We need only repeat here one other thing that we said in [Chapter VIII]: No matter what the length of the story, today, it is always run through—in all but the very smallest and most out-of-the-way theatres and towns respectively—without interruption, because two projecting machines are used, and another reel is started as soon as one finishes, there being no perceptible break in the action on the screen. For this reason, if you are writing a five-reel feature-story with, say, forty scenes to a reel, you start with Scene 1 and number straight through to Scene 200. There should be a series of rising climaxes, but no special forward-looking climax exactly at the end of each thousand feet.

Also, of course, it is quite unnecessary to have an equal number of scenes to each part. The action of your first reel—more or less introductory—may demand only thirty or thirty-five scenes, whereas when your story gets to moving rapidly you may see the necessity for running up the number of scenes by introducing several short scenes, or "flashes."

17. Serials

We advise a rereading of the definition of the term "[serials]" given in [Chapter III]. In addition to what is there said, it may be stated that, as a rule, it is best not to write a complete serial—even though only in synopsis form—unless you have what is beyond question a sure market. As a matter of fact, most serials are written at present by big-name writers of fiction—such as Arthur B. Reeve—or "inside" writers, such as George B. Seitz, who has been responsible for several successful Pathé serials. The comparatively few "outside" writers who have "made good" with serials follow the plan of writing the synopsis of the first four or five episodes (which in film form would mean eight or ten reels), which they submit for the editor's approval in the regular way. If the editor likes the idea, or theme, of the story, and thinks it would make a successful picture, he will commission you to finish it. Four or five episodes of well-planned, suspense-holding plot will be sufficient to assure him that you are capable of keeping up the same speed and making the story consistently interesting all through.

To reiterate what was also pointed out in the definition in [Chapter III], you must bear in mind that while the end of each separate reel in an ordinary feature need not end with a forward-looking climax, the end of each episode in a photoplay serial must be a climax of a most thrilling nature, or, at any rate, must be such a climax as will greatly excite the interest of the spectator and insure his coming to the theatre when the next episode is shown. The serial photoplay is exactly like the well-written and carefully edited serial story of fiction. Judged from the box-office viewpoint, the supreme test of a good photoplay serial is its ability to keep the same spectators coming to the theatre where it is being run week after week.

What has been said as to the thrilling climax at the end of each episode, or chapter, must not be interpreted as meaning that a mere thrilling situation is all that is required. In the boys' story-papers of a few years ago, referred to in our discussion of the cut-back, the hero was frequently left hanging over the edge of the cliff, or tied to the railroad track, or waiting for the timed fuse to reach the keg of powder. These situations in themselves were sufficient to make juvenile readers wait anxiously for seven whole days in order to find out what would happen "in our next." It has been demonstrated, however, that what holds the attention of the photoplay spectator, young or old, is the mystery connected with the story, and it is the solving of this mystery that must constantly be kept in mind. "Who is the masked stranger?" "Who is the owner of the mysterious clutching hand," "Who is the mysterious and ominous personage who inevitably sends a telephone message of warning when about to strike down a new victim?" These are the questions that keep them guessing from week to week and draw them back to witness every episode. Your climax may be a thrilling situation—should be, in fact—but it must also be a definite way-station on the journey to the point of discovery.

While there is still a great deal of absolute nonsense—viewed from any standpoint of common sense and logic—in most photoplay serials, and while the long-drawn-out mystery is often made possible only by the introduction of weird and unnatural happenings not even possible in real life, there is now a tendency toward serials more true to life and more dependent for their success upon plots that will stand the acid test of logical reasoning. The very fact that each separate episode, with its various situations in the working out of the mystery, had to be depended upon to draw the crowds back again to see the next episode, was taken as sufficient excuse for the introduction of situations that would make the wildest exploits of "Diamond Dick" or "Old King Brady" read like the Sunday-school stories of a generation ago.

The Wharton serial, "The Eagle's Eye," already referred to, was the first in which historical facts were reproduced in their logical order, held together and made more interesting by a veneer of fiction. The fictional head of the Criminology Club and the daring woman Secret Service operative seemed almost to be secondary characters compared to the much-talked-about agents of the Imperial German Government whose nefarious acts made so much trouble for the American detectives and Secret Service agents headed by ex-Chief Flynn, under whose supervision the serial was made.