There is Lambert Hillyer, who with this writing is back with Mr. Ince after several years in the service of William S. Hart, directing and writing the majority of that star's pictures. Mr. Hart would hardly pick a mechanical nincompoop to direct his screen efforts which are considerably important both to Mr. Hart and the public at large.
There is Frank Borzage himself who was with Mr. Ince a long time as an actor and who had ample opportunity to absorb his system of directing. And Mr. Borzage, as has been previously stated, is quite a worthy director.
There is Roland Lee, one of the younger directors, developed by Mr. Ince who only recently left him and who immediately made a name for himself directing some Hobart Bosworth pictures and who at this writing is with the Goldwyn company handling the directorial end of some of that company's most important pictures.
This is an array of directors rather difficult to match. And if it was tried to match it from a list of directors turned out by any other producing-director or any other producing organization, the poor fellow who tried would find himself in for a life's job.
To work in the Ince school of directing is, indeed, the luckiest thing that can befall a director. Instead of making him an insignificant employe, merely carrying out the work mapped out by the man higher up, it teaches him thoroughly all branches of picture directing so that when he strikes out for himself he is far better able to approach the excellence achieved by his former superior than he would be without such schooling.
Chapter XVII
WHO CREATES A PICTURE?
Wherein it is shown that the continuity writer and not the director is the actual creator of the motion picture in its motion picture form.—Proof is offered by the directors themselves who, perhaps unwittingly, have previously shown that the continuity writer is the beginning of everything in the studio
Chapter XVII
So much discussion has been set down in these pages regarding the results obtained when a director prepares his own continuity or when he works without a continuity in his hand; and it has been explained that a large number of directors produce the best results when they collaborate with their continuity writers, that the question naturally arises as to who is the actual creator of the motion pictures seen on the theatre screens. Is the director the creator? Or is the continuity writer the creator?
This is a question that can't be answered without giving immeasurable offense to the one group of artists or the other. Every director will publicly announce that he and his fellows are the creators. And every continuity writer will announce the same thing. Having had considerable experience in the continuity line and never having directed a picture, I will probably be accused of bias when I side with the writing men. However, the facts of the case seem to point solely to the conclusion that the writers are the creators. The very directors who decline to follow a written continuity in their work give particular significance to this statement.