Writing the Photoplay pdf book download By J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

Writing the Photoplay pdf book download

By J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

Book: Writing the Photoplay

Author: J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds

Release Date: March 3, 2006

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1.

(✍️ This article is collected from this book 📚 (All Credit To Go Real Hero The Author of this book 📖) 🙏 Please buy this book hardcopy from anyway.)

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As its title indicates, this book aims to teach the theory and practice of photoplay construction. This we shall attempt by first pointing out its component parts, and then showing how these parts are both constructed and assembled so as to form a strong, well-built, attractive and salable manuscript.

author learns that secret, he, too, is an untrained writer--of photoplays, and his "prices" will suffer accordingly.

[Illustration: Producing a Big Scene in the Selig Yard. See Cameras on the Right]

[Illustration: Film-Drying Room in a Film Factory. The Films are Rolled Around the Racks which are Suspended from the Ceiling and in the Hands of the Operators. Moist Warm Air is Introduced through the Large Pipes]

Now, however, after both have acquired this knowledge of screen requirements, the trained fiction writer and the untrained photoplay writer cease to be on common ground. The writer of novels and short-stories has the advantage of years of--training, is the best word, meaning, in the present instance, both experience and special education. He has a tutored imagination; he has the plot-habit; he has an eye trained to picture dramatic situations; he sees the possibilities for a strong, appealing story in an incident in everyday life that to ninety-nine other people would be merely an in.

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WHAT IS A PHOTOPLAY?

As its title indicates, this book aims to teach the theory and practice of photoplay

construction. This we shall attempt by first pointing out its component parts, and

then showing how these parts are both constructed and assembled so as to form a

strong, well-built, attractive and salable manuscript.

The Photoplay Defined and Differentiated

A photoplay is a story told largely in pantomime by players, whose words are

suggested by their actions, assisted by certain descriptive words thrown on the

screen, and the whole produced by a moving-picture machine.

It should be no more necessary to say that not all moving-picture productions are

photoplays than that not all prose is fiction, yet the distinction must be

emphasized. A photoplay is to the program of a moving-picture theatre just what

a short-story is to the contents of a popular magazine—it supplies the story-

telling or drama element. A few years ago the managers of certain theatres used

so to arrange their programs that for four or five days out of every week the

pictures they showed would consist entirely of photoplays. On such days their

programs corresponded exactly to the contents-page of an all-fiction magazine—

being made up solely to provide entertainment. The all-fiction magazine

contains no essays, critical papers, or special articles, for the instruction of the

reader, beyond the information and instruction conveyed to him while

interestedly perusing the stories. Just so, the all-photoplay program in a picture

theatre, at the time of which we speak, was one made up entirely of either

"dramatic"

[1] or "comedy" subjects. Films classified as "scenic," "educational,"

"vocational," "industrial," "sporting," and "topical," were not included in such a

program.

True, a genuine photoplay may contain scenes and incidents which would almost

seem to justify its being included in one of the foregoing classes. One might ask,

for instance, why Selig's film, "On the Trail of the Germs," produced about five

years ago, was classified as "educational," while Edison's "The Red Cross Seal"

and "The Awakening of John Bond" (both of which were produced at the

instance of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of

Tuberculosis, and had to do with the fight waged by that society against the

disease in the cities), were listed as "dramatic" films or photoplays. Anyone who

saw all three of the films, however, would recognize that the Selig picture, while

in every respect a subject of great human interest, was strictly educational, and

employed the thread of a story not as a dramatic entertainment, but merely to

furnish a connecting link for the scenes which illustrated the methods of curing

the disease after a patient is discovered to be infected. The Edison pictures, on

the other hand, were real dramas, with well-constructed plots and abundant

dramatic interest, even while, as the advertising in the trade papers announced,

the principal object of the pictures was "to disseminate information as to what

becomes of the money that is received from the sale of Red Cross stamps at

holiday time." So we see that the distinction lies in the amount of plot or story-

thread which each carries, and that a mere series of connected pictures without a

plot running through it obviously cannot be called a photoplay any more than a

series of tableaus on the stage could be accurately called a play.

Therefore, learn to think of a photoplay as being a story prepared for pantomimic

development before the camera; a story told in action, with inserted descriptive

matter where the thought might be obscure without its help; a story told in one or

more reels, each reel containing from twenty-five to fifty scenes.

The spectator at a photoplay entertainment must be able promptly and easily to

discover who your characters are, what kind of people they are, what they plan

to do, how they succeed or fail, and, in fact, must "get" the whole story entirely

from what he sees the actors in the picture do, with the slight assistance of a few

explanatory leaders, or sub-titles, and, perhaps, such inserts as a letter, a

newspaper cutting, a telegram, or some such device, flashed for a moment on the

screen. The more perfect the photoplay, the less the need for all such explanatory

material, as is the case in perfect pantomime. 

This, of course, is not to insist

upon the utter absence of all written and printed material thrown on the screen—

a question which will be discussed in a later chapter. It is enough now to

emphasize this important point: Dialogue and description are for the fiction

writer; the photoplaywright depends upon his ability to think and write in action,

for the postures, grouping, gestures, movements and facial expressions of the

characters must be shown in action, and not described as in prose fiction.

Action is the most important word in the vocabulary of the photoplaywright. To

be able to see in fancy his thoughts transformed into action is to have gained one

goal for which every photoplay writer strives.