Palmer plan handbook; photoplay writing, simplified and explained

Front matter

PALMER PLAN HANDBOOK

PHOTOPLAY WRITING

Simplified and Explained

Part Five CHAPTER XXV 145

Criticism.

CHAPTER XXVI 147

The Photoplay Sales Department.

CHAPTER XXVII 149

United States Copyright Laws.

CHAPTER XXVIII 151

Rules of the National Board of Censors.

CHAPTER XXIX 157

Snapshots.

CHAPTER XXX 160

Plan of Study The Handbook.

The following plan of study is suggested to each member of the Palmer Plan as the most direct and comprehensive method of obtaining the best results :

First — ^with an open mind and with thoughtful attention read the Handbook through in its entirety.

Second — read the three scenarios slowly and carefully.

Third — read and carefully study Chapter Two, which deals with Action. In this connection, review the three scenarios and Chapters Twenty-one, Twenty-two and Twenty-three, in which the three stories are analyzed. Witness as many current photoplays as may be found convenient and note the quality of continuous action in each. Spend as much time as may be deemed necessary in order to become possessed of a full and clear comprehension of the absolute necessity of action as a basis of all photoplays.

Fourth — read and digest Chapter Three, on Characterization. Study the three scenarios and Chapters Twenty-one, Twenty-two and Twenty-three, and, viewing whatever current productions may be available, study and analyze the various characterizations therein contained.

Fifth — study Chapter Four on Situation in the same manner.

Sixth — study Chapter Five on Theme in the same manner.

Seventh — study Chapter Six on Material in the same manner.

Eighth — study Chapter Seven on Suspense in the same manner.

Ninth — study Chapter Eight on Unity in the same manner.

Tenth — study Chapter Nine on Contributory Factions in the same manner.

Eleventh — review the various chapters of Part One, and wherever any doubt remains in your mind concerning any one of the various fundamentals therein set forth, return to that subject for further study.

Twelfth — read, analyze and study Chapter Ten on Visualization. Spend considerable time and practice on this subject for it is a vital one and the future success of the student rests, to a great extent, upon the mastery of the ability to visualize clearly and consecutively.

Thirteenth — read and study Chapter Eleven, frequently consulting the three scenarios — and Chapters Twenty-one, Twenty-two and Twenty-three. Continue to witness current productions and to study them in connection with the chapter in hand.

Fourteenth — study Chapter Twelve in the same manner.

Fifteenth — study Chapter Thirteen in the same manner.

Sixteenth — study Chapter Fourteen in the same manner.

Seventeenth — study Chapter Fifteen in the same manner.

Eighteenth — study Chapter Sixteen and review all of Part One and Part Two.

Nineteenth — read and study the four Chapters contained in Part Three.

Twentieth — review Parte One, Two and Three in detail.

At this point the student should be possessed of the ability to begin working out a photoplay for submission to the Advisory Bureau. It is urgently recommended that plenty of time be given to this work, and that the story be rewritten and revised until the student feels that it is the best that he or she is capable of doing. When this first story is completely developed, write it into direct detailed synopsis form and submit it with your number one coupon to the Advisory Bureau for criticism. When you have mailed the manuscript put the story out of your mind completely and return to the study of the Handbook.

Plan of Study The Plot Encyclopedia

The Handbook is essentially an elementary work intended for intensive study purposes — the Plot Encyclopedia is a reference book to be permanently turned to for help in the selection, rejection and combination of situations in plot building.

Certain portions of the Encyclopedia, however, will be found to be of direct and definite value as a medium of study. The following suggestions are offered to assist the student in obtaining the best results from such study:

In the closing paragraph of the Handbook plan of study on the opposite page it is assumed that the student is ready to commence actual work in plot building and story creation. If at this point, the student feels that he or she possesses a clear, comprehensive realization of what dramatic situations are and how they may be used in the construction of a photoplay, it may be well to start immediate work on a story in order to test the various elements of technique that have been set forth in the Handbook. If, on the other hand, the student does not seem to possess a sound and satisfactory grasp of the subject as dealt with in Chapter IV of the Handbook, it would be well to turn the attention to portions of the plot Encyclopedia.

Read the preface and the six chapters of Part I.

Read through Part II in order to gain a familiar knowledge of the classification of the thirty-six situations and their various subdivisions. This perusal will equip the student for the intelligent use of part two of the Plot Encyclopedia for reference purposes.

Part III is supplementary to Part II, inasmuch as it contains synopses of one hundred well known photoplays, with analyses in which references are made to the situations involved. The student may read and carefully consider these synopses and analyses from time to time in order to gain an exact idea of how various definite situations have been used in produced photoplays.

Part IV may be regarded as a continuation of Part I. Parts I and IV may be read and digested as a means of study and in direct connection with the Handbook, while Parts II and III are primarily intended for permanent reference. The addition of the Plot Encyclopedia to the Palmer Plan is intended to clarify and simplify the Handbook rather than to confuse or complicate, and it is the firm belief of the authors that it will be found to be of immeasurable value to this end.

Advisory Bureau Service

In making use of the five Advisory Bureau Coupons bear in mind that this privilege is one of the most valuable units of the Palmer Plan. You have a full year in which to use these coupons. Do not permit your impatience to allow you to rush half-finished stories in for criticism. Take time to develop each plot and thus receive the full value of this service. Stories that possess some merit, but at the same time possess some weaknesses, will be returned to you for revision and may then be submitted for further criticism under the original coupon. Stories that are found to be selling possibilities will be immediately transferred to our Photoplay Sales Department for consideration and possible sale. The student will be immediately notified in such case. Stories found to be utter impossibilities in theme, treatment or technique will be returned with a complete criticism and with the advice to discard them entirely and start work upon something new.

The Advisory Bureau also issues at intervals Supplementary Advanced Texts, in order that the student may have the latest information at all times, thus making the Palmer Service perpetually up to date.

The Lecture Series

The series of twelve lectures written by famous authorities on photoplay subjects will be mailed at regular intervals throughout the term of membership of each student.

The Handbook serves as a basic and elementary text book. The lectures guide the student into somewhat more advanced paths and convey the thoughtful opinions of a carefully selected group of the deepest thinkers in the photoplay profession.

Each lecture should be read and studied in the sequence that it is received.

Photoplay Sales Department

The Photoplay Sales Department is permanently at the disposal of every Palmer Plan member from the date of enrollment. Each student may submit as many stories as may be desired and as frequently. It is urgently requested, however, that each student shall receive Advisory Bureau criticisms of the five stories before submitting any manuscripts to the Sales Department. This will enable each Palmer Plan member to obtain a fundamental knowledge and skill which will lead to a more salable quality of submissions.

*'The Photoplaywright"

^ "The Photoplaywright," the only magazine in America devoted solely to photoplay writing and the photoplay market, is sent free to members during their term of enrollment.

"The Photoplaywright" is issued monthly. Each number is filled with inspiration and valuable information.

Glossary and Board of Censors' Rulings

The Rules of the National Board of Censorship and the Glossary of Terms are contained in the appendix in order that each member may be equipped with complete information. If in doubt concerning any of the censorship rulings do not omit anything that seems vital to the construction of your story.

In criticising submitted manuscripts, the Advisory Bureau will suggest elimination of action that is absolutely forbidden.

Do not attempt to use the technical terms contained in the Glossary when preparing a synopsis for submission. Tell your story in clear, simple language.

Introduction

A New Art

Action

Characterization

Situation

Theme

Material

Suspense

Unity

Contributory Factions

STUDY I

Study! Study! Study!

Never cease to study.

One is never too young to learn. One is never too old.

Study prepares the young to meet life. .

It enables the old to enjoy it.

Study develops genius. It creates strength. It controls fate. It instills culture. It gratifies ambition. It banishes grief.

It is the foundation of life's greatest happiness.

Don't think of study as work. Think of it as it is — a great pleasure. Don't be afraid of it. Don't believe you can't learn.

That wonderful human intellect is capable of anything. It is yours to develop, improve, enlarge. There is no limit to your possibilities — that is, if you possess energy and determination with desire.

Don't let anything discourage you. What others can do, so can you. The first essential in learning is to believe in yourself. The next is the craving to acquire. The third is to know how. The fourth is application. So, is the sixth, the tenth, the one hundredth.

Never allow yourself to say you regret not having studied this or that at school, or that you regret that you don't know this or that. Go at it and learn.

Don't be afraid you can't learn. Just say you will and go ahead.

Each thing you study makes the next thing easier. The first is always the most difficult. You must acquire the habit of study. Then your difficulties are solved. Don't be impatient to advance too rapidly. Learn well what you do learn. Make your foundation solid.

Nelly Bly.

INTRODUCTION

1. "Who will write the photoplays of the future?" is a question that is arousing varying degrees of perturbation among several scores of motion-picture producers, several hundreds of famous novelists, short story writers and dramatists, several thousands of hit-or-miss free lance writers of indifferent success and several millions of motion-picture theatre-goers.

2. Within scarcely more than two decades there has been created a sort of Frankenstein monster with an insatiable appetite for pictureable fiction. A hundred new stage productions with a scattering of "revivals" of past successes would supply the United States with material for a gigantic theatrical season, just as a few hundred new novels would keep the presses of all the book publishers of the country exceedingly busy for a twelve-month.

3. Yet thousands of photoplays are necessary to keep the cameras of the motion-picture producers clicking at a rate sufficient to meet the demands of exhibitors in their endeavor to satisfy the long lines of patrons eagerly waiting at the box-office windows.

4. The tremendous growth of the motion-picture as a permanent and indispensable institution forms one of the most amazing sequences of events of this age in which we are so accustomed to speed and the acceleration of speed that we have almost ceased to wonder at anything.

THE BIRTH OF MOTION PICTURES.

5. It was in 1872 that Mr. Muybrfdge first obtained a succession of snap-shot photographs which formed the first crude experimentation in motion photography. Others contributed to the development of the fundamental but still impractical idea of photographically reproducing motion, but it was not until 1893 that animated photography was lifted from the realm of experiment into that of commercial practicability.

6. When Thomas A. Edison's kinetoscope was exhibited at the Chicago World's Fair, it was in the form of a wooden cabinet, which permitted but one spectator at a time, so that we must really consider 1895 as the year of the birth of motion-pictures. It was then that they were first shown upon a screen, and not until 1896 was the initial public demonstration given.

7. During these early days such startling and artistic scenes as "The Gardener Playing the Hose" and "Mammy Washing Her Child" were shown. These were in lengths of from twenty-five to forty feet of film and were viewed as a matter of wonder merely because they were pictures that moved. As the demand for motion-pictures grew the'length of exhibited film was increased to two or three hundred feet; then came the first photoplay — the first exhibited film that pretended to show anything in the way of a consecutive story.

8. This was entitled "The Great Train Robbery" and was eight hundred feet long. It is interesting to note tnat the Edison Company proudly advertised that the cost of production was $400, and then to consider that several productions that have been made during the past few years have cost close unto a million dollars each. This production was first shown in 1897, I believe.

AN INFANT ART.

9. Therefore, we have before us the proof that the art of photoplay writing is just twenty-four years old — twenty-five hundred years younger than the stage play.

10. Within this brief period the manufacture, distribution and exhibition of motion-pictures has grown to its present high position among the industries of the United States. That is sufficient, statistically speaking, to indicate the magnitude of the burden of demand that rests upon the fundamental source of supply — the creators of fiction of a form and quality suitable for use as photoplays.

11. We become aware then that in the short space of a quarter of a century, we have come face to face with an entirely new art, to which the rules of creating novels, short stories or plays for the speaking stage are not applicable.

12. Twenty-four years ago those of us who found it necessary or desirable to transport ourselves across greater distances than those open to the practicability of pedestrianism, made use most frequently of horses or railroads. Today, many still employ these same means of transportation, while other millions of us are using automobiles instead.

13. Twenty-four years ago we sought mental relaxation, entertainment and education from novels, magazines and the stage. So do we today, in addition to which many millions of us seek the same effects from motion-pictures. Horses are fed with hay, locomotives with coal, yet it would be an exceedingly facetious or a lamentably silly person who would attempt to operate an automobile on either hay or coal.

TRAINED WRITERS NEEDED.

14. Publishing houses have long depended upon novels written by trained novelists for their final product. The theatre feeds on plays written by trained plaj^wrights, and the motion-picture, the great new art of today, must be supplied with photoplays written by trained photoplaywrights. Gasoline cannot be manufactured from either hay or coal. Photoplays cannot, except in rare instances, be successfully adapted from novels or stage plays. Yet in the attempt to do so has existed one of the greatest faults of motion-pictures.

15. In some cases the producers have not fully realized that the artistic photoplay must be just that — a photoplay — and not an adaptation from some other art. In other instances the producers have been possessed of a complete comprehension of this fact, but through a dearth of photoplays and photoplaywrights they have turned to novelists, short story writers and the authors of stage plays, desperate for any sort of material they could lay their hands on.

16. Continuous and rapid production has been and is a condition difficult to cope with. A novel is usually published first as a magazine serial and later in book form, its circulation covering months or years. A successful stage production may run a full season or more in a metropolitan theatre and then be seen "on the road" and in stock .for several years, but when a motion-picture is produced a large number of prints are made from the original negative and these copies are shown synchronistically in "first run" theatres throughout the country. After a few weeks of second, third and fourth run appearances, these prints may be seen occasionally in the smaller and cheaper back-street houses and then are shelved and forgotten. This necessitates a constant flow of new productions from the studios which in turn depend upon an equally uninterrupted flow of photoplay manuscripts into the studios.

17. So few individuals have really learned the art of photoplay construction that these few have been called upon to supply too great a number of stories. The result has frequently and quite naturally been a lowering of the artistic quality.

PUBLISHED MATERIAL UNDESIRABLE.

18. Motion-picture producers are still occasionally buying novels, magazine stories and plays from the speaking stage for screen adaptation, but from motives of self-preservation rather than choice. Almost invariably original photoplays are given the preference, provided they contain real screen values.

19. Mr. Frank E. Woods, Supervising Director of the Famous Players- Lasky Corporation, has spoken as follows in an interview: "The day of the trained author who will write almost exclusively for motion picture presentation will come, is coming, in fact. Writing photoplays is emphatically an art apart. It is just as distinct as the art of the stage dramatist is from that of the novelist and short story author. In fact, the relationship of the novel and the spoken play is closer than is that of the book and the screen drama for the reason that dialogue is as essential in a stage play as a plot, and more so than action, whereas action and expression are the outstanding characteristics of the screen play."

20. This, coming from the Supervising Director of a corporation that has dealt largely in the production of stories adapted from published novels, indicates the fact that the future of the photoplay lies absolutely in the hands of those who learn to write original screen stories.

21. The usual reason for adapting published novels or short stories to screen use is that the supply of original material is insufficient to meet the demands of production. It is easy to understand, then, what an opportunity lies before the trained photoplaywright.

A PERSONAL MESSAGE.

22. The studious men and women possessed of imagination and creative ability, who learn to tell their stories in the language of the screen, regardless of the standards and theories of any other art, will be the successful photoplaywrights of the future.

23. The fact that you have possessed yourself of the several units of the Palmer Plan is sufficiently indicative of your sincere determination to master the fundamentals of photoplay plot construction.

24. Do not allow yourself to falter in this determination if you possess a genuine desire to achieve success. Be resolute and persistent.

25. I am quite as desirous of having you succeed as you are of succeeding. Had I not believed that I could be of direct assistance to you in your quest for this knowledge I would not have put the Palmer Plan into effect.

26. The many notables of the motion-picture profession who have advocated the Palmer Plan and Advisory Service believe that I possess the ability to give you invaluable aid, or they would not so unreservedly endorse my work.

27. But bear this in mind : These pages cannot think for you, nor can I. You must use your own brain ; you must take up the task of learning to write photoplays with a spirit of earnest endeavor and steadfast resolution. I cannot hold you to persistent effort in your study of the Palmer Plan, but I urge that you hold yourself to such persistence.

28. Read the Plan of Study and make comprehensive use of the suggestions contained therein. Do not merely skim the surface. Read carefully ; weigh and deliberate minutely. Absorb ALL the contents ; otherwise the portion that you skip may contain a morsel of information or advice the lack of which will be the one weakness in your technique that will lead you to failure. Photoplay plot creation is mental work. Use your brain 1 THINK!

Frederick Palmer.

IS

CHAPTER I Photoplay Writing — ^A New Art

1. In approaching the study of photoplay writing, permit me to emphasize that we are dealing with a new art. It is neither a limping little brother of written literature nor a poor relation of the speaking stage.

2. Arthur Stringer has said : "The motion-picture is more than a new art ; it is a new language, a new method of expressing thought and communicating emotion. It is an amplified sign-language, the picture talk of primitive man vitalized by movement and magnified to splendor. It is life itself, singled out and set in a frame. And as life it is deficient, as it stands, in just two things. One is color. And the other is sound. But this new, this novel, this revolutionary art which has been tossed into the world speaks, not in words, but in action and scenic impression. It is quite vocal enough, only we haven't yet taken the trouble to acquaint ourselves with its amazingly impressive alphabet. In other words, we have deferred fixing on settled values for its different counters of expression."

3. It shall be my endeavor to make clear these values, the deferred knowledge of which Mr. Stringer deplores. Photoplay writing is a new professional calling, just as the photoplay is a new form of expression. Within a score of years the motion-picture has grown from a toy to the embodiment of the fifth largest industry in the United States, and its chief artistic product — the photoplay — reaches every nook and corner of the globe, entertaining and educating even those who have never read a book nor witnessed a stage production.

4. I designate the photoplay as the chief product of the motion-picture industry to separate it from the travelogue, the educational subject, .the cartoon and the various other branches of screen presentation which have their uses and values, but which we shall pass by in order to deal with the single subject of the photo^/fl>'. And I use the word industry to cover the whole great process of making, distributing and exhibiting motion-pictures. Our interest lies in the art of creating the story which makes this world-wide industry of manufacture, distribution and exhibition possible.

A SEPARATE TECHNIQUE.

5. Victor O. Freeburg, in his interesting and comprehensive volume, "The Art of Photoplay Making," says: "It is a common error to judge a photoplay by the standards of the stage drama and to condemn it because it cannot do exactly what the stage drama can do. That the photoplay is silent and practically wordless is a fact, but this fact is really no more to be deplored than that sculpture is without coloring and that music is invisible. The man who deals with facts instead of prejudices must consider the limitations of the respective arts, not as defects, but as differentiating qualities.

6. "When we examine the photoplay as an art medium we discover that it inherits something from each of the elder arts, and yet differs essentially from them all. Thus although a cinematic composition is a play of silent pictures and not of spoken words, it inherits from the stage drama the power of delineating human characters in a series of, actions interpreted by actors. It inherits from the art of acting and from stage pantomime some of the methods of this visual presentation ; yet the photoplay, because of its ubiquity of setting and its hundreds of screen devices, has a flexibility which permits the representation of stories that no dramatist or director of stage pantomime would ever dream of undertaking.

7. "The photoplay further inherits or adapts the methods of the novelist. It is the novelist's privilege to follow his characters wherever they go, no matter how often the scene may shift. This, too, is the privilege of the cinema composer. The camera may follow the hero indoors and out, into lonely places or crowded streets, into peaceful privacy or public broil, until the audience, virtually behind the camera, are made intimately acquainted with him and become eagerly interested in his career."

THE EARLY DAYS.

8. The earlier years of film production were chaotic ; conditions might have been likened to those surrounding a mining-camp boom. The demand for new pictures grew with amazing rapidity, fortunes were made in short spaces of time by men who had never dreamed of such success, and in the frantic rush for profits more thought was given to the number of feet of film that could be produced per week than to the artistic quality thereof.

9. Time and circumstances have altered these conditions, and the motion-picture is based upon sound artistic and business principles. In the beginning indiscriminate use was made of every sort of story material regardless of merit. Frequently the director originated a story while it was being photographed, any more or less connected string of incidents sufficing.

10. Gradually this state of affairs has changed and improved in response to the demands of the theatre-going public. Greater attention has been given to story quality, but the mass of writing has been done by a comparatively small number of persons. The need of stories became so great that many novels have been picturized and popular plays have been adapted to screen use, usually with disappointing results.

11. Still the demand increases without a corresponding increase in available supply. As a means of expression and entertainment, the photoplay stands on its own feet abreast of literature and the stage, and in the capable hands of master writers and producers it is quite as sure of indefinitely prolonged existence. Without question, the author is, today, the most vital necessity.

VAST DEMAND FOR STORIES.

12. One prominent writer claims that thirty thousand motion-picture plays a year are required to satisfy the present demand. If this be true, no single and limited group of persons can hope to yield the supply. Therefore, new writers or new individuals with natural imagination and creative brains lying dormant and undeveloped, must be found and trained. One cause for the shortage of photoplaywrights is the fact that comparatively few have had the advantages of practical instruction and guidance, and these have been too busy with their own work to teach others to write.

13. But the lack of photoplay material has become so vital and serious a menace to the future of the motion-picture that new writers must be found and developed at any cost. The following chapters are presented with the hope that you will keep before you the fact that the producer needs the writer quite as urgently as the writer needs the producer, for without a constant flow of material this gigantic industry would soon totter and fall.

14. Any person possessed of ordinary intelligence and a natural quality of imagination and mental creative instinct can, if he or she wills, become a successful writer of photoplays, provided that the individual first becomes familiar with the necessary fundamental knowledge of what to do and how to do it — and then uses the brains that God bestowed. There are no born scenario writers any more than there are born architects or born novelists. Success is reached through work and study and perseverance.

NO MYSTERY.

15. Neither is there any mystery about photoplay creation. The cause underlying the failure of an exceedingly large percentage of persons who attempt to write motion-picture stories is identical with the cause that leads to inefficiency and inefficacy in any

IS human endeavor — lack of knowledge of the elementary essentials of the subject in hand. No one possessed of sanity would attempt to make a pair of shoes, or build a piece of machinery, and expect to meet with an appreciable degree of success, until equipped with training in at least the fundamental requisites of shoe-making or mechanical construction.

16. And yet in my work as scenario editor and in my exchange of experiences with others in like positions, I have found that hundreds of otherwise intelligent men and women, for the greater part educated and accomplished, are constantly submitting to producing companies attempts at writing for "the squared circle of the silver screen" that display from the very first an absolute lack of knowledge of the first principles of photoplay plot construction. An individual of this sort may have an excellent idea, but in presenting it for consideration, he bungles and beclouds it in a density of words, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

17. He not only fails to express clearly his idea, but he loses trace of it himself. He becomes bewildered and oppressed by the weight of his own ignorance of technique, which, if previously mastered, would have enabled him to see his way through the intricacies of his plot to a definite conclusion, and thus more readily make his thoughts known to others. Regardless of underlying merit, the intent is defeated through lack of acquaintance with the rules of the game.

NEVER-ENDING QUEST FOR STORIES.

18. Scenario editors are busy men. Their days are filled with one pursuit, an unending search for a new story that is fit for screen production. At best they wade through vast bogs of worthless material. It is a brain-fagging, heart-breaking task, this thing of plodding through mazes of stories based on worn-out ideas, or hopeless through being impossible in premise, or under the ban of the Board of Censors, or too expensive for production, or for a dozen other reasons unavailable. Many are illegibly written with pen or pencil. Some run into pages of useless description, while others are too brief and do not clearly tell the story.