Naturally, it often happens that the director adds scenes to those planned by the author, and even oftener some of the author's scenes are cut out; in either case, however, so much of the scene-plot as remains unchanged will have its value. The author may feel that the director's alterations are unwarranted, but that functionary rarely makes additions or cuts unless he works an improvement.
The writer sends the scene-plot along so that, in case no drastic changes are necessary, the director may have all ready his list of scenes arranged in proper chronological order. From these he will prepare his regular scene-plot diagram, which the carpenters and mechanics will use in building the scenery, and by which the stage hands and property men will be guided in setting the scenes and placing the furniture and other "props."
2. The Scene-Plot Explained
Let us now explain the difference between the only kind of scene-plot with which the photoplaywright is concerned and that which the director means when he uses the same term.
Practically all directors have had experience as theatrical producers, or stage directors, or stage managers, before entering the moving-picture field. What is known as a scene-plot in regular theatrical work is a list of the various scenes, or sets, showing where the different "hanging pieces" (drops, cut-drops, fog drops, foliage, fancy, kitchen, or other borders) are hung, and how all the various pieces of scenery that are handled on the floor of the stage, as wood and rock wings, "set" pieces, "flats," and "runs," are to be arranged or set. Almost every stage carpenter has, in addition to this list, a supply of printed diagrams showing the exact position on the stage of everything handled by the "grips," or scene-shifters, as well as the proper arrangement on the set of the furniture and larger props. Both the list and the diagram are usually printed on one sheet, and this, known as the scene-plot, is sent ahead to the stage managers of the theatres in the next towns to be played. At the same time, a "property plot," being simply a list, act by act, of the various props not carried by the company, is sent to the property man of the house.
Now, the principal difference between the regular and the moving-picture stage is that, in making photoplays, natural exteriors are used, in almost every case. Consequently, landscape and other exterior drops are almost unknown in moving-picture work. As actual drops they are unknown; when such painted backgrounds are used, they are usually painted on canvas or a sort of heavy cardboard, which is stretched over or tacked to a solid framework. So that even in making out his working scene-plot diagram, a director finds that there are many technical terms which he constantly used in his theatrical work but seldom or never employs in his capacity of photoplay producer. Nevertheless, he still uses a scene-plot diagram, drawing it himself on regular printed forms.
As may be gathered from the foregoing, the scene-plot diagram for a photoplay setting is entirely different from the diagram of the setting for a scene on the regular stage. The former shows, printed, the comparative shape and dimensions of the "stage," and gives, in figures, the depth of the stage and the distance from the camera to the "working line," below which (toward the camera) an actor must not step if he wishes his feet, therefore his whole body, to show in the picture.
To say "the depth of the stage" is to say that the printed diagram is marked off in a scale of feet from the camera's focus. The figures at the right side of the sheet indicate the distance in feet from the camera, while those at the left show the width of the field, or range of the camera lens, at different distances. Only that portion of each piece of furniture which is marked a solid black in the diagram is supposed to show in the picture. Thus half of a table may be "in" and half "out" of a picture, or scene. This diagram-form is made out by the director for virtually every set that shows an interior scene, and he frequently draws one also for exteriors, where a building, or even what appears in the picture to be a complete, permanent structure, is set up by the carpenters and mechanics out of doors. Such a [scene-plot diagram] is reproduced at the end of this chapter.
The scene-plot which you as a photoplay author are called upon to prepare, however, is simply a list of the scenes used in working out your scenario. Here you must distinguish between "scene" and "set" (or setting) in photoplay writing. We know that the scene is changed every time that the camera is moved. One scene or ten may be taken, or "done," in the same set—that is, a half-dozen scenes might be taken successively in a business office without changing the set at all. Therefore, although you have two hundred scenes in your five-reel scenario, only twenty sets may be needed in which to play them.
3. How Scenes and Sets Are Photographed