The profits of the picture come out of its run, which may last seven or eight years, and even longer in Europe. A one hundred thousand dollar picture may eventually make half a million dollars for it's backers, but, of course, they have a long wait for their money. On the other hand, the risk is stupendous, for the picture may be a flat failure.
One cheering fact, attested by all motion picture magnates, is that, whatever may be the case in other industries, salaries are not going to drop in the movies. On the contrary, the movies are growing bigger and bigger and the demand is greater than ever before. There is money in the movies now, and there will be even more in the next few years.
CHAPTER XI
SCENARIOS
On the legitimate stage nearly every actor at one time or another writes a play. In the same way, in the movies nearly every actor tries his hand at scenario writing. In fact, many of the most successful playwrights and photodramatists have had stage or screen experience as actors.
For this reason, although this series is designed more for those who wish to act than for those who wish to write—and although we have already one book on "How to Write Photoplays"—nevertheless, a chapter on scenario writing is not out of place.
There is a fine career for any writer in scenario writing if the writer will only take the trouble to study it seriously. There is technique in writing plots and still more technique in adapting those plots to the screen, by writing them into scenario form. Studio experience is of vast benefit to anyone who wishes to write movie stories; and that is where the actor has the advantage over the outsider who tries to write scenarios with no practical knowledge of how movies are really made.
First write your plot into a five hundred or thousand word synopsis, just as you would write it for a magazine. Make it brief and clear. Be sure it is based upon action, mental or physical, and try to give real character to your plot people.
In choosing your story be sure it has the dramatic quality. It must not be rambling; and it must have an element of conflict between opposing factors—a man and a woman, a woman and her Destiny, or simply Good and Evil—which leads up to a crisis in which the matter is fought out and finally settled. Stories which have not these qualities are suitable for novels, perhaps, but not for plays.