Writing the Photoplay Part 21

or you may write out the ending of the letter in such a way as to suggest that much more has been said in the forepart of the message, thus:

On screen, letter, folded down to show only this:

so I'll leave for Wheeling on the first train tomorrow, and hope to clasp your hand again before Monday night.

Honestly, old man, it seems too good to be true. I won't be able to believe that what Morgan told me _is_ true until I see you with my own eyes.

Until then, believe me to be

As ever, your sincere friend,

Stephen Loring.

To ill.u.s.trate the way a letter will consume footage, we reproduce one for which fifteen feet were allowed.

Lord Cornwallis:

Am now within forty miles of Charlottesville. Thomas Jefferson and the entire Virginia a.s.sembly will be my prisoners today.

Tarleton.

As we know, a letter will sometimes be written by a character in one scene, but the spectators will not learn its exact contents--though they may know just about what he is writing--until a scene or two later, when the letter is delivered to and read by the one to whom it is addressed. On the other hand, we sometimes see an actor write a letter, immediately after which, as he reads it over, it is flashed on the screen. Then, later, we see it delivered, but although the one receiving it is seen to read it, it is not flashed upon the screen again, because the beholder has so recently been shown what it contains. But it sometimes happens that more than one letter enters into the development of the plot at a certain point, and hence there may be some slight confusion caused by the spectator's not knowing which of two letters the player is supposed to be reading. It is to avoid this confusion that directors generally flash a few feet of the letter a second time, simply to identify it. Thus, if the letter that Tom wrote to Nelly in Scene 6 is delivered to her together with one from her friend Kate in Scene 8, you may write:

Postman hands Nelly two letters. She registers delight upon noticing handwriting on one envelope. Opens it immediately and reads:

On screen. Flash two or three feet of Tom's letter, same as in 6.

Back to scene.

Few spectators will object to the introduction of letters, telegrams, newspaper items, and the like--provided there are not too many such inserts--because these seem to fit into the picture as a part of the action, and are not, like leaders, plainly artificial interpolations by the author. It need hardly be pointed out, however, that letters and other written messages must not be introduced except for logical reasons. More than one case has been known in which the scenario submitted to an editor specified that one character was to write and hand to another a note which the second character was to read--the note, of course, was to be shown on the screen--when the contents were simply the words which, on the regular stage, the first actor would speak to the other! Of course, no director would allow such a thing to take place in his picture. In a situation where the story could actually be advanced by showing the beholder what a certain player was supposed to be saying to another, it would be only necessary to introduce a cut-in leader, as previously described.

We have spoken of subst.i.tuting a newspaper item for a letter. Wherever this can be done, it is well to do it; the newspaper item, being printed, is at least readable. One or two of the studios use letters in which the handwriting is so poor that before all the spectators have read the contents of the letter it has disappeared and the scene has been resumed.

Let us suppose that Edith--not knowing that her friend Eleanor has fallen in love with Jack Temple, whom they met at a resort the previous summer--writes Eleanor a letter in which she says:

On screen, letter.

and I'll send it in my next letter.

By the way, I heard a report that Jack Temple--the fellow that you thought was so bashful--was seriously injured in the wreck of the Buffalo Express last week. I

Back to scene.

The expression on Eleanor's face, as she reads this, would be the same as if she had picked up a newspaper and read:

at the time of the collision.

Among those reported injured are James T. Appley, Syracuse, N.Y.; Lloyd W. Stern, Boston, Ma.s.s.; Mrs. Geo. P. Rowley, Bangor, Me.; and John Temple, New York City.

Conductor Thomas Hammond told a _World_ reporter that as soon as the report

Of course, at some point in the action previous to the scene in which Eleanor reads this report in the newspaper, you will have made the spectators familiar with the hero's name by means of a leader or some other insert.

"Where the information is brief," says Mr. Sargent,[23] again, "it may be better displayed as a newspaper headline. A two-column display head is better shaped for use on the screen than the deeper single-column head. A deal of information may be conveyed in a headline and the spectator seems to read the item over the character's shoulder rather than to have been interrupted by a leader."

[Footnote 23: Epes Winthrop Sargent, _Technique of the Photoplay_.]

Mr. William Lord Wright, author of "The Motion Picture Story," has this to say on the subject:

"Nearly all photoplays now contain a flash of newspaper headline. It's a good way of putting over the information essential to the plot, but it is suggested that the headlines be properly written. Perhaps the author of the playlet was a novice in writing headlines, or maybe the director was a know-it-all. If not a newspaper man and a headliner, we would advise the author who wishes to use headlines in his action to get some newspaper man to write them for him. Some of the would-be newspaper heads we have read on the screen lately are not impressive or well written. Headlining is a difficult art."

If you have occasion to use a will, mortgage, or other legal doc.u.ment, in telling your story, you will realize that the property man in every studio has the blank forms on hand for anything that you may introduce. It is therefore only necessary to show, say, the back of the mortgage on the screen, with the names of the princ.i.p.als written upon it. Then, later in the scene, or in some other scene, you can show the body of the mortgage. But if you show the body of such a doc.u.ment in Scene 10, after having shown the outside in Scene 4, it would be well to flash the outside, or cover, again in 10, before displaying the contents--for the purpose of identifying it, as in the case of the letter.

In pa.s.sing we may mention the letter or other doc.u.ment which is actually written by the actor who is _supposed_ to write it. Such a piece of writing, of course, must be, and is, not an "insert," but rather a part of a close-up scene. It might appear in the scenario thus:

27--Close-up of upper part of Allison's body, right hand writing in pencil on one of Enderby's letterheads. He writes:

It took eleven years to get you, Enderby, as I swore I would, some day. Now that I've kept my oath, I'm ready to pay the price, and you will

It is comparatively seldom, however, that this kind of close-up is made use of--usually because the actor or actress does not write a sufficiently clear hand for satisfactory "screening." More often the player will be seen starting to write the note, and then the close-up of another hand, _supposedly_ that of the player, will be shown, writing the words designed to be read by the spectator. In either case, they are close-ups, but the wording must be given in full, just as if you were writing an ordinary letter or other insert to be shown on the screen _after_ it has been written. But do not confuse what we have just said with the fact that, nowadays, nearly every letter that is screened is shown in what is literally a _bust_ picture, the letter or doc.u.ment being held in the hands of the player as he or she reads it. This is merely an additional realistic touch added in the studio; the writer supplies his insert in the regular way.

The proper use of leaders and other inserts is a part of the technique of photoplay writing that is best learned by practise. Be sure to keep a carbon copy of your script. Then, if your story is accepted and produced, when you are watching it on the screen note the leaders carefully, comparing them with the ones you originally wrote, and profit by what you see. If the producer has seen fit to make changes of any kind, there is a reason, and it is generally safe to a.s.sume that it is a good one.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PHOTOPLAY STAGE AND ITS PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS

By "the photoplay stage" we mean all that sweep of view which is taken in by the range of the camera, whether in the studios or out of doors.

At first this may appear to be of very wide area, but the scene-plot diagram (see Chapter XI) will give a good idea of s.p.a.ce-limitations in staging the picture.

_1. Scope of the Stage_

To begin with, the actors must be constantly on the alert to avoid "getting out of the picture" while the scene is being taken. Suppose an actor is seated in a reclining chair that has been "set" where the line _A_ cuts it in half, so to speak. If he is leaning forward, he will be completely in the picture. But if he forgets himself and leans back it is likely that the upper part of his body will not appear when the film is developed. To avoid this, the V-shaped lines shown on the scene-plot are actually marked on the floor, in some studios. A piece of strong cord, or sometimes wire, is stretched tightly from _B_ to _C_ and thence to _D_. Within this V-shaped s.p.a.ce the complete set must be made, and within these limits the entire scene is played. In the case of a set requiring more than the ordinary amount of depth, a larger stage is obtained by setting the back part of the scene (or set), as shown by the dotted line _E_, and laying down a special pair of V lines to cross the permanent ones on the studio floor. When the camera is placed at the apex of this larger V, the picture is, naturally, made many feet deeper, with a corresponding width of background as the lines diverge.

_2. Number of Stages Used_

As a rule, there are at least four of these V-shaped stages side by side on the floor of the studio in any of the big producing plants.

Thus four entirely different sets may adjoin each other; and, as was pointed out in a previous chapter, a director may finish Scene 8 in Set I and move directly to Set II, where the scene "done" may be 9, or any later scene, depending very often upon whether the players will have to make a change of costume or make-up. A careful director will always try to avoid waits by having his scenes set up in the order that will allow him to proceed with as few delays as possible.

In some studios, the fact that walls and ceiling are of gla.s.s permits the taking of most scenes, on a bright day, without the aid of artificial light. In the majority of studios, however, all scenes taken indoors are produced with the aid of artificial light, daylight being excluded. Natural lighting, in _indoor_ studios, has been found to be rather unsatisfactory; artificial lighting, with constant experimentation in an effort to produce better "effects," is what is most used today.

_3. Stage Lighting_