Writing the Photoplay Part 6

It must be opaque, because no editor wants to be annoyed by having the writing on the second sheet show through between the lines of the first, when he is reading that. That is the chief, and a sufficient, reason. A second, is that thin paper is flimsy and hard to handle.

It should be white, because that, too, is the common practice.

Besides, dull white paper displays the typewriting most clearly. We have heard of one photoplay writer who uses a buff-colored paper, and who maintains that since adopting it his scripts have received better treatment than formerly; his theory being that, on account of the difference in color, his scripts attracted attention and were more carefully handled. This may be true; but a good grade of yellow paper will cost you more than white, and if white, opaque paper is good enough for the leading photoplay writers, why not make it your paper?

The cheapest grade of paper that is sufficiently opaque costs about $1.50 a box, containing one ream, 500 sheets. The next heavier costs about $2.00 a box; a still better quality, a few cents more. Certainly here is a case where, up to a reasonable limit, the best is the cheapest. If you take pride in your work, send it out well dressed; but, no matter how aesthetic your taste may be, never use the shades of cherry, opaline, canary, or Nile green, in which certain grades of paper are made.

RULES FOR WRITING THE SCRIPT. Instead of simply saying that the ma.n.u.script _should_ be typewritten, let us ask once more: If you are in earnest, and intend to succeed, why not give yourself every chance to gain the editor's attention and interest by proclaiming that you are a business man as well as a writer? Many film manufacturers plainly announce that only typed scripts will be examined. Therefore write the script with a typewriter. Today, when many companies rent good machines at from $4.00 for three months to $3.00 a month, and when you can buy a typewriter outright for from $15.00 to $100.00, the writer who is able to use one and who does not do so is simply being unfair to himself. Any good machine may now be had by paying down a small sum and the same amount monthly for a term of months. Serious writers should promptly decide to step out of the amateur cla.s.s and equip themselves properly for the work. If you wish to experiment with your talents before deciding to rent or buy a typewriting machine, there are plenty of responsible typists who will typewrite your script for from 35 cents to 50 cents per thousand words, including one carbon copy.

If you have a typewriter you will, of course, make at least one carbon copy. Should the script you send out be lost or badly marred in any way, you have the carbon from which you can make another, but never be so unwise as to send out the carbon copy itself should the original be lost. Make a new copy. In the first place, should the carbon copy also be lost, you will have nothing left as a record of your story--unless you happen to have kept your notes and rough draft. Besides, carbon copies rarely look as well as an original script, and the editor who receives a carbon might not look upon it with any great favor--though this is the least valid reason.

Another important point is, if your photoplay is accepted, your copy will serve you as a valuable basis for criticism of your own work, inasmuch as you can compare the play as written with the play as produced, observing what changes the editor and director may have deemed necessary. This practice is followed pretty generally by earnest writers of fiction, but is applicable also to photoplay writing, and should help the writer, after seeing his play produced, to do even better work next time.

For carbon copies, almost any weight and quality of paper will serve.

A plain yellow or a manilla paper, costing about 50 cents a box of 500 sheets, is very satisfactory.

Most authors who are users of typewriters know that a black "record"

ribbon is far superior to a "copying" ribbon. The latter is likely to smudge or blur and spoil a clean ma.n.u.script. Again, it pays to get a pretty good grade of carbon paper; the best, in fact, is none too good for literary work of any kind. Cheap carbons smear the copy and stain the writer's fingers; besides, they have a tendency to make the copy look as if it were covered with a fine layer of soot or black dust.

Avoid them.

GENERAL DIRECTIONS. Other hard and fast rules for the practice of photoplay writing are:

Do not write on both sides of the paper.

Do not fasten the sheets of your script with clips or pins which perforate the paper; there are at least half-a-dozen kinds of paper clips which hold the sheets firmly without permanently fastening them together. The editor likes to have the sheets loose when reading the script.

Above all, do not roll your script. If it is 8-1/2 by 11 paper, as it ought to be, fold it no more than twice. That is what all writers do who follow the rules.

DIRECTIONS FOR TYPING THE SCRIPT. While it is well to remember that the suggestions here offered are intended for those who type their own photoplays, the same suggestions can be made by authors to the professional typists to whom they send their stories to be prepared for the editor.

The editor of one company suggests that it is best always to put your name and address on each sheet of the ma.n.u.script. This is simply "making a.s.surance doubly sure" that the script will not go astray or become mixed in the editorial office, for winds and dropped ma.n.u.scripts sometimes play annoying tricks upon editors, it need hardly be said. But at least write your name and address plainly in the upper left-hand corner of the _first_ sheet of the synopsis; then write it in the same place on the _first_ sheet of the _scenario_; and, provided you have room--if the last scene of your scenario does not run clear to the bottom of the page--also at the bottom of the _last_ page of your scenario. Then, further, write on every other page the t.i.tle of your photoplay. If it is a short t.i.tle, write it in full.

If it should be a long t.i.tle, such as "Where Love is, There G.o.d is Also," a Selig release taken from Tolstoy's story of the same name, simply write "Where Love is, etc." That will be ample to identify your work should one of the sheets become separated from the rest of the script. Thus the editor has your name and address in three different places, and with all or part of your t.i.tle on the other sheets of the script, there is little danger of any part going astray after it reaches his hands.

The following plan for the actual mechanical preparation of the three or four parts of the script has been approved by editors in general; nevertheless, it is here offered as a suggestion, not laid down as a rule. To follow it, however, insures your having a neat, readable script, one which will catch the editor's attention as soon as he opens it.

The scale-bar on most standard typewriters is numbered from 0 (the next figure, of course, being 1) to 75. Each figure indicates one s.p.a.ce. When writing your name and address on the first page of both synopsis and scenario, set your left marginal stop at 5. When the paper is pushed as far to the left of the paper-s.h.i.+eld as it will go, this will give you a left-hand margin of about 1-3/16 inches--which is quite wide enough for the margin on a photoplay script. Write your name and address so that the top line will come about three-quarters of an inch from the top of the sheet, and, keeping it even with the left-hand margin, write the two or three lines of the name and address directly beneath each other, and the other material below, in the manner ill.u.s.trated on the succeeding type-page.

Frank B. Stanwood, 392 W. 62nd St., New York City.

_T H E R A J A H ' S H E I R_

_Dramatic Photoplay in 27 Scenes;_

_6 Interior and 10 Exterior Settings_

(Use only one line in Ms.)

_S Y N O P S I S_

The first sheet of the script being the one on which you commence to write your synopsis, first of all get your t.i.tle neatly s.p.a.ced.

Always write your t.i.tle entirely in capitals, leaving one s.p.a.ce between each letter of each word in the t.i.tle, and three s.p.a.ces between each word. Say that your t.i.tle contains three words, as the foregoing. After you have written the first word--with a s.p.a.ce between every letter--the machine will automatically s.p.a.ce one. Do not count that as one, in leaving the three s.p.a.ces suggested, but touch your s.p.a.ce-bar three times. This will move the carriage back so that the first letter of the next word will be printed four s.p.a.ces away from the last letter of your first word, leaving three s.p.a.ces between. Take one sheet of your typewriter paper and keep it as a test sheet, trying out your t.i.tle-s.p.a.cing thus: Write the complete t.i.tle, with s.p.a.cing as suggested above, once, getting it as nearly right (with even s.p.a.ces on either side) as you can at a good guess. If it is not right, s.p.a.ce one line down on your trial sheet and try it again, this time a little farther to the right or left as the case demands. One or two trials and you will have it as nearly even in margins as it can be made on a typewriter. Thus, in a t.i.tle like

T H E H E R O I N E O F T H E P L A I N S

you will find that to start the first word at 11 on the scale-bar, managing the s.p.a.cing as suggested, will get your t.i.tle in the centre of the page with practically no variation in the two margins.

Then, about an inch below the t.i.tle, write the descriptive lines:

Dramatic Photoplay in 28 Scenes;

5 Interior and 12 Exterior Settings

as described in the chapter on "The Synopsis." About an inch below this, write the word

S Y N O P S I S

starting to write at 28 on the scale-bar. The O in the word OF, the middle word of your t.i.tle, is the exact centre of the t.i.tle. Starting the word

S Y N O P S I S

on 28 causes the centre of this word (which is the s.p.a.ce between the O and the P) to fall exactly beneath the centre of the t.i.tle. Then, about 1-1/2 inches below that, start to write your story in synopsis form. Commence your paragraph at 15, indenting ten s.p.a.ces from the left margin. Thus the neatness and businesslike appearance of your pages will impress the editor favorably at the very first glance.

Follow the same rule when typing the scenario, or continuity, and also the scene-plot, if one is made.

Having written your synopsis, if you find that you have plenty of room on the last sheet to write your cast of characters, do so; but do not crowd it in. If you cannot get it in so as to look well, double s.p.a.ced, and appearing to be, as it should, a separate division (though not necessarily a separate sheet) of the ma.n.u.script, by all means give it a separate sheet.

On the other hand, there is a rule regarding separation of divisions of the script which must be observed in every case. You must ALWAYS start to write the _scenario_ on a fresh sheet, no matter how much room you have left after writing your cast. The reason for this is simply that, should your scenario be in proper shape for the director to work from just as it is, he wants the scenario separate. Having read the synopsis once or twice, he is through with it; whereas, when working on a picture, the director "sleeps with the scenario."

And now a word as to the typing of the continuity, or scenario, for you should do everything in your power so to prepare it as to make its every word quickly and easily understood.

In the first place, we strongly recommend the following method for the mechanical preparation of the scenario:

When writing the number of your first scene (1), place the indicator at 0 on the scale-bar. Write all scene-numbers up to 9 at the same point. When you start to write scene-numbers containing two figures (from 10 to as high as you will go) do so at 0 and 1, respectively.

Now s.p.a.ce one, then print the hyphen mark (which will make a short dash), after which s.p.a.ce one or two, as the case may be, which will bring you to 5 on the scale-bar. At 5 start to write the _descriptive phrase_ for your scene. You should also make 5 your left marginal point for the writing of the body of your action. In writing the subject matter of each scene, or division, of the action, _commence each new paragraph_ at 15. In writing "Leader," "On screen, Letter,"

_or any other_ direction intended especially for the director, always start to write at 0 on the scale-bar, in a direct downward line with your scene-numbers.

The result of following these suggestions will be a neat and attractive type-page, upon which the producer will be able to locate the scene-numbers and other directions at a glance, as may be seen from the following example:

[Ill.u.s.tration:

LEADER-

FIVE YEARS LATER TOM RETURNS HOME.

8-Platform of Railway Station.

Train pulls in and stops.

Tom alights. Sets grip on ground --feels in pocket--produces Kate's letter. Opens it and glances at it again.