Writing the Photoplay Part 28

Another thing that experienced writers know is that certain of the larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for outside material. After being deluged with all kinds of "comedy"

stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were familiar with the studio, its players, and the surrounding possible locations.

Thus, in its way, the market for comedy scripts or synopses is more or less limited, and yet there is, as has been said, a good demand for first-cla.s.s humorous stories for the screen. One important rule to keep in mind is that they should be, in every case, just as long as, _but no longer than_, the idea that is back of them. You must never pad a comedy plot, or even a comedy idea; to do so is fatal to the attainment of artistically perfect results, if not to its acceptance by the editor.

In writing dramatic stories, on the other hand, more freedom is allowed. To be sure, here padding is bad also, but in a dramatic subject the central idea is almost always big enough to justify one of the several lengths to which screen dramas now run; but, largely because comedy action is played so much faster than dramatic action, you must firmly refuse to allow yourself to expand a humorous story by even so little as a single scene beyond its logical and natural end.

Comedy ideas, perhaps more than any others, should be carefully cla.s.sified, and in cla.s.sifying you should try to determine, from the very first, the length to which that particular story ought to run.

Having once arrived at your decision, keep to it. It is quality--clever situations and funny action--and not quant.i.ty that counts in the writing of humorous photoplays. Most of the good comedy themes have been worked over so often, either by the authors themselves or by the director, that it requires considerable skill to give them that much-desired new twist[30] that is necessary to make them acceptable. In the writing of dramatic photoplays, a word or two will often suggest the necessary "business" of a certain character, but in comedy it is especially important that every action, every bit of by-play, should be made to count; and for that reason it is necessary to give each scene a much fuller treatment in the script than would be necessary in describing dramatic action.

[Footnote 30: Treated in Chapter XIX.]

_5. Cla.s.ses of Photoplay Comedy and Their Requirements_

While the written-and-spoken drama recognizes not only the four major types of humorous plays already referred to, but several sub-types in addition, there are only three general cla.s.ses under which humorous photoplays are usually grouped: (a) Comedy-Drama, (b) Light-Comedy and (c) Farce.

Of the comedies, two kinds are in almost constant demand--the comedy of society life, and the comedy of everyday life, with special emphasis upon domestic scenes. In treatment, these two kinds may be cast in any of the three foregoing forms, but usually they will adhere to the principle of comedy, even when they may verge on farce, or take on certain aspects of the more intense dramatic tone.

When writing photoplay comedies, remember always that comedy of _action_ is more important than comedy of _idea_. That is, it is not enough that you work up to a funny climax, but the action leading up to the climax must be funny as well. A humorous idea underlying your comedy is good, but unless this idea is constantly worked out through humorous action, the effect is largely lost by its being too subdued.

In fact, the photo-comedy _cannot_ be purely the comedy of idea. On the regular stage, most light-comedies succeed by reason of the bright and humorous dialogue which the author puts into the mouths of the players. Funny "business," and the by-play of the players, help, of course, but the humorous lines of the piece are depended upon to make it a success.

It is just the opposite in photoplay; dialogue (unless cut-in leaders, taking the form of a speech made by one of the characters, may be called "dialogue") is entirely absent, and humorous action and funny situations must take its place.

The requirements of a comedy script are very definitely covered by Mr.

Sargent in the following, taken from his department in _The Moving Picture World_:

"In photoplay ... the majority of the scenes must each have its own comedy action while the narrative is advanced, and it is here that the average writer of comedy falls short. If a scene is not naturally funny, put some humor into it. Do not force the comedy action, but invent something that is germane to the plot and natural to the situation. If you can do this you can write comedy, but until you can get a laugh in every scene you are not writing comedy, no matter how funny the central idea may be. As a rule the central idea furnishes the comedy for only one scene; not for the entire play. In comedy you must play faster, work harder, and strive constantly for the natural, unforced laughs. And remember that the editors go to vaudeville shows, the same as you do. They know the old sketches and the whiskered jokes. If they wanted them they would write them themselves."

The success of a comedy composition lies fundamentally in the novelty of its plot, or in some new and interesting phase of an old situation; it prospers in proportion to its interest-holding qualities, its natural logic, its probability, and the constant humor of the individual scenes and situations. There is a wide difference between comedy and comic pictures, and the difference lies chiefly in that comedy depends largely for its humor on the cleverness displayed in the construction of the plot, whereas the comic picture is usually merely a series of funny situations arising from one basic situation, but having little or no plot. In the "comic," the scenes are loosely connected, while the humor of the picture depends upon the uproarious fun in each scene. These comic pictures, usually of the slap-stick variety, would naturally be cla.s.sed as farces; but even in photoplay it is possible to produce a better and more natural brand of farce than that which depends for its humor upon the silly antics of different characters in a series of loosely connected scenes, which have no logical or consistent plot.

There is steady demand for the unusual and genuinely humorous light comedy--by which is meant the kind of photo-comedies that approximate the legitimate plays usually employed as vehicles by Mr. John Drew and Mr. Cyril Maude. They may treat of society, of business life, or of life in the home, but on account of the light, airy, and subtly humorous way in which the situations are developed they take far higher artistic rank than may be accorded to farce. There is also a good demand for comedy-dramas in which there is a strict regard for dramatic values in handling the different scenes, and in following out the plot, which has its serious elements, but in which the comedy-element remains comedy from first to last.

The domestic comedies produced by Metro, featuring Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew, of which we have already spoken, are so well known, and these artists are so universally popular, that a word or two from Mr. Drew on the subject of screen comedy should be interesting and instructive:

"Comedy is and always will be an amusing story humorously told," says Mr. Drew. "If it _is_ a good story, well told, then it is a comedy, but if it has no story or cannot be told humorously, then no amount of bolstering will ever make it into a comedy. You may add a lot of knockabout and perhaps get an acceptable farce, or you can write in sensation and get travesty, but you cannot by these means change the unfit into comedy, and the broad use of 'comedy' to apply to anything intended to be diverting is a misuse of an ancient and honorable word.... To my way of thinking comedy is first of all a good story. It is a story and not merely an incident or a collection of incidents.

There must be a plot to obtain and hold the interest. This plot does not necessarily require profound depths, but there must be a distinct and clearly defined objective upon which the interest may be centred, and the interest must arise from mental processes and not from mere mechanical appeal.... Humorous action does not mean gross horseplay.

The action itself may not always be marked to be amusing. To take a crude ill.u.s.tration, suppose that a character in the story is about to thrash his ancient enemy. He feels so certain of victory that he bribes the policeman on the beat not to interfere. Now he goes to the field of battle and unexpectedly gets the worst of it. He is the first to call for the police, and the scene flashes between the suborned officer placidly smiling at the sounds of the affray and never dreaming that it is his patron who is calling for aid. There is nothing humorous in the spectacle of a policeman on a street corner.

In a comedy of incident he would have to suffer indignity to get a laugh. In the comedy with a plot, the plot makes the action humorous.

We are not, in reality, laughing at the policeman. He is merely the symbol of the idea. We are laughing at the predicament into which our hero has thrust himself. It is this thought, and not the sight of the policeman, at which we laugh. The policeman merely stands for the thought, yet it is humorous action within my meaning of the term in that the policeman represents the thought.

"In our own comedies Mrs. Drew and I seek to appeal to the mind as well as to the eye, but to appeal to the mind _through_ the eye. We value the advantage of brightly-written sub-t.i.tles, but believe that these should supplement and not replace the comedy in the action. The clever leader may either prepare for the comedy-situation or may follow and intensify it, but it is always an accessory and not the chief aim. It is absurd to talk of the leader as an intrusion to be avoided. It should be avoided only when it really is an intrusion. The cleverness of an author displays itself in the expertness with which he handles leaders rather than in his skill in avoiding them."[31]

[Footnote 31: Sidney Drew, "Comedy Picture Production," in _The Moving Picture World_.]

_6. General Advice_

It is most important that, having started to write a farce, for instance, you _keep it a farce_ throughout. One fault of many amateur scripts is that they show a tendency to be a little of everything. A strong emotional drama may--even should--have its "comedy relief," but it is a very unwise thing to introduce a note of tragedy into a farce or even into a straight comedy composition.

At this point it will not be out of place to say a few words in connection with this matter of "comedy relief," of which we have just spoken, as used in writing _dramatic_ stories. The over-use of comedy relief, so called, is mostly due to misguided directors who have seen the success attending its introduction by prominent directors who really understood how and when to use it. A departmental writer in the _Motion Picture News_, speaking of the small army of directors "who worked with Griffith," says:

"Probably the most obvious of all the blunders made by the men who seek to emulate the wonderful work of Griffith is their introduction of comedy, chiefly through the medium of domestic animals, when they are forced to stop the action of their story to do so. Griffith's comedy is always spontaneous, incidental--it seems to have been inspired at the moment and runs in as part of the main action. The comedy of the men 'who worked with Griffith,' while perhaps inspired at the moment, rises not from the situations of the story but from the contemplative mind of the director himself. This is the general rule, at any rate. There are exceptions, of course, and notable ones, too, but that all-powerful _motif_ of 'comedy relief' often gets the better of the director's judgment and results in a product that is so unbalanced that much of the illusion is destroyed. In fact, comedy relief is a difficult element to gain. It should always be purely incidental, unforced, arising from some major situation, and so creating the desired contrast. When it is obviously sought after and introduced without regard for its suitability it is not comedy relief but comedy-out-of-place."

Since this, like the over-use of the close-up, is something for which directors are largely responsible, it is the photoplaywright's duty to help by being very careful about how he himself writes in comedy intended to "light up" tense, serious, dramatic action.

No matter what cla.s.s of humorous photoplay you may be writing, you must keep in mind what we enlarged upon in Chapter XVI: Nothing is funny that offends against good taste, or that, in any way, causes pain to any number of the spectators. Comedy, to be worthy of appreciation, must always be good-natured. National types as caricatured by many comedians with the aid of eccentric costumes and weird make-ups are usually as far from being real national types as one could well imagine. Humor must have more than mere extravagance or caricature for its basis. Even in farce and in musical comedy, as well as in vaudeville, the once familiar green-whiskered Irishman, the Frenchman who is all shrugging shoulders and absurd gestures, the negro who walks as if he were trying to take two steps backward for every one forward, and whose most noticeable facial feature is an enormous mouth, and the "Busy Izzy" type of Jew, who when not getting robbed himself, or being otherwise abused, is doing his best to defraud others, are gradually going out of fas.h.i.+on. And in the photoplay, which is now seen by all cla.s.ses of people and is for all the people, racial characteristics must be treated in at least a fairly accurate manner, _and always good-naturedly_. Six or seven years ago, more than half the comedies produced were based upon a chase, or else depended largely upon slap-stick humor to raise a laugh. Not a few of them had as their chief comedy-incident an act of downright cruelty to some animal, or even to some human being. Today, when manufacturers are vying with each other to produce better, cleaner, and more universally enjoyable pictures, the script that violates Censors.h.i.+p rules or studio ethics by including any of the foregoing undesirable subjects stands but little show of reaching the production stage, if, indeed--which is extremely unlikely--it is accepted at all.

"Good sense is at once the basis of and the limit to all humor. He who lacks a fine perception of 'the difference between what things are and what they ought to be,' as the always-to-be-quoted Hazlitt expressed it, can never write humor. All the way through we shall find that mirth is a matter of relations.h.i.+ps, of s.h.i.+ft, of rigidity trying to be flexible, of something shocked into something else.

"Let us think of a circle on which four points have been marked:

[Ill.u.s.tration:

5 The Serious 1

4 The Contemptible 2 The Laughable

3 The Ridiculous]

"Beginning with a serious idea, we may swiftly step from point to point until we return to the serious, with only slight variations from the original conception. Take the perennial comedy-theme of the impish collar, and visualize the scenes:

"1. A man starts to b.u.t.ton his collar. Nothing is less comical, as long as the operation proceeds normally.

"2. But the b.u.t.ton is too large and his efforts begin to exasperate him, with the result that his expression and movements become incongruous. We see, and laugh--though he does not.

"3. He begins to hop around in a mad attempt to b.u.t.ton the unb.u.t.tonable, and soon rips off the collar, addressing it in unparliamentary language. He is ludicrous, ridiculous, absurd.

"4. In his rage he violently kicks a pet dog that comes wagging up to him. Our laughter subsides, for the fellow is more contemptible than amusing--a deeper feeling has been born in us.

"5. The little dog limps off with a broken leg--we are no longer amused, we are indignant. What is more, not only have we gotten back to the serious, but there is no amus.e.m.e.nt left in any of the previous scenes.

"Still applying the test of the _extent_ of the variation from the normal as shown in the effects, we conclude that _serious consequences kill humor_. The mere idea of such consequences, when we know that in the circ.u.mstances they are really impossible, may convulse us with merriment, as when we see a comedian jab a long finger into the mouth of his teammate and the latter chews it savagely. In real life this might sicken us with disgust--I say 'might,' because we can easily conceive of such a situation's exciting laughter if the victim were well deserving of the punishment. It is human for us to laugh when the biter is bit; indeed, variations on this theme are endless in humorous writing.

"_Sympathy also kills humor._ The moment we begin to pity the victim of a joke--for humor has much to do with victims--our laughter dies away. Therefore the subject of the joke must not be one for whose distress we feel strong sympathy. The thing that happens to a fop is quite different in effect from that which affects a sweet old lady.

True, we often laugh at those--or at those ideas--with whom or with which we are in sympathy, but in such an instance the ludicrous for the moment overwhelms our sympathy--and sometimes even destroys it."[32]

[Footnote 32: J. Berg Esenwein _Writing for the Magazines_; published uniform with this volume in "The Writer's Library."]

This one thing bear especially in mind: _clean_ comedy is even more essential than clean drama. It is so easy, when writing humorous material, to go wrong without intending it--indeed, even without knowing it. Under the guise of comedy some producers are responsible for scenes and situations that manage somehow or other to pa.s.s the censors, whereas the same scene in a dramatic photoplay would not be tolerated for a moment. But these are exceptions.

The marital relation should be touched upon only in a way which admits of no offense being taken by right-minded and refined people. Real infidelity had far better be left out of humorous photoplays altogether. Here more than in any other branch of photoplay writing you should remember that what merely _might_ be tolerated on the regular stage would never do on the screen. It is well to remember also that just as the American public has tired of the chase and the foolish powder, it has also sickened of the coa.r.s.e, suggestive, and even the questionable subjects that could once be depended upon to "get a laugh." There is absolutely no excuse for introducing anything into a picture today that would offend the good taste of any member of an audience. The local censors.h.i.+p boards of some cities have made themselves ridiculous in the eyes of thinking photoplay patrons, but the work done by the National Board of Censors has been the means of slowly and surely causing the lower cla.s.s of photoplay patrons to acquire an appreciation of good dramatic subjects as well as more refined comedy.

It may be said in pa.s.sing that not all the companies producing farcical photoplays or slap-stick, as it is generally called--exclude the work of the outside writer. Such firms as do accept outside scripts of this kind are prepared to "go the limit" in the matter of expense in order to make their pictures superlatively funny and unusual in the matter of staging. The Pathe comedy, "Cleopatsy,"

featuring the famous clown Toto, was a striking example of how a slap-stick comedy today is unhesitatingly given as elaborate and sumptuous a scenic invest.i.ture as was accorded a few years ago to screen-versions of Shakespearean or other "cla.s.sic" plays. The laughs in this Pathe production were produced, princ.i.p.ally, by the introduction of business and situations that simply could not have happened in the time of Cleopatra, Antony and Caesar. Thus we saw traffic policemen with their Stop and Go signals in the middle of the Sahara; telephones, check books, motorcycles and automobiles in use, and so on. In addition, the leaders were filled with modern business and other slang; and the spectacle of a huge negro wrapping Cleopatsy in a modern Axminster rug and carrying her in to show her to Antony (instead of, as according to history, Caesar) kept the spectators in a roar of laughter. For an originally-worked-out idea such as this there is nearly always a ready market.

Finally, remember that comedy-action should run as smoothly as a well-oiled machine. Start with a good, fresh, funny idea and then make each scene run smoothly and logically into the next. There are certain series of comic pictures in the comic section of the newspapers which might well serve as your models for progressive and logical action. Mr. Bud Fisher's well-known "Mutt and Jeff" and Mr.

George McMa.n.u.s's "Bringing Up Father" series are excellent examples.

Particularly in the McMa.n.u.s pictures do we get funny, logical, and, above all, generally natural--in the sense of its being probable--comedy action. Take as an example the one which is sub-t.i.tled "It's a pity the valet left--he would have been such a nice playmate for Father." "Father," as we know, is the very much hen-pecked husband of a socially impossible woman who holds her place among the "400" only by reason of her husband's wealth. It is Father's constant ambition and determination to spend as much of his time as possible amongst his old "roughneck" working-man pals, instead of in attending his wife's receptions and other society functions. A sociable companion of his own cla.s.s is what he constantly seeks. In this picture there are, as is usual in the Sunday supplements, twelve scenes. The action of the picture may be roughly synopsized as follows: