If your scenario calls for an outdoor picture—for example, a cowboy story—which does not require costumes, you should be able to make it for a thousand dollars, provided your amateur actors, and amateur cameramen, and amateur authors are working for nothing. There are mighty few amateur theatricals of any pretention whatsoever which do not cost as much as this, and you should be able to take in a good profit if your picture is exploited in your local theaters.
As a matter of fact, pictures have not always been produced on the scale that they are to-day. Ten years ago feature pictures cost from $5,000 to $7,000 to make, and in those days film and cameras were much more expensive. The producers simply made outdoor pictures which required no lights or scenery, and saved on the salaries of actors and directors, which have multiplied twenty times since then. To-day the average feature picture costs from $50,000 to $150,000 to produce. Griffith's "'Way Down East" cost nearly a million to produce. That is because the salaries of actors, directors and authors have risen so enormously.
But there is no reason why an amateur company in which the cost of salaries is completely eliminated cannot make their own picture at a minimum expense. If you want to break into the movies, here is a way to do it, right in your own home town.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART II
Whether you desire to break into the movies as writer, actor or director, your most important consideration will be the scenario. In the scenario you will find all the elements of the photoplay; everything is built upon that as a foundation. The actor or director who sincerely desires to do good work studies his script assiduously. The ambitious writer analyzes not only his own photoplays, but those of other people.
It is exceedingly difficult to talk technique to anyone who has never read a scenario. For this reason we have incorporated a "continuity" in this book. It is the dramatic form of a screen story which we have made as a special production. The titles, which are the written inserts to be flashed on the screen, are in capital letters. The inserts refer to such articles as letters, telegrams, pictures, and the like, which may be shown in close-up. The "iris" is the broadening or narrowing of the frame of the picture to open or close a scene, or to emphasize some particular object which is "irised" upon. The "fade" effects are used very much as the curtain of the legitimate stage is used to open and close scenes. The abbreviation "Sp" means "Speech," indicating that the title which follows is to be spoken by the actor. Some of the quoted lines—the ones not set off in capitals—are not shown on the screen, but are merely given as a guide for the players.
Most of the directions concerning the scenes are also given in capital letters. "EXTERIOR," or the abbreviated "EXT.," for example, refers to a scene outdoors, while "INTERIOR" or "INT.," is an indoor scene. The terms "LONG SHOT" and "CLOSE-UP" refer to the distance at which the camera is placed from the scene.
"Red Hot Romance" is played as a romantic melodrama, but is intended as a satire upon this very type of story, with its incredibly heroic hero, its American girl, its marines-to-the-rescue and all the rest of it. Basil Sydney and May Collins played the parts of Roland and Rosalie, and Victor Fleming was the director.