"How I Did It 
 
 H.H.Y\NLOAN
 
 (LIBRARY I 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFQRH* 
 SAN DICQG \
 
 V
 
 H. H. Van Loan
 
 "HOW I DID IT 
 
 by 
 H. H. VAN LOAN 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 
 FROM PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 THE WHITTINOHAM PRESS 
 Los ANOELKS, CALIFORNIA
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922 
 
 BT 
 H. H. VAN LOAN 
 
 First Edition
 
 The aspiring author who is struggling as 
 I hare struggled, this book is dedicated.
 
 AN APPRECIATION 
 
 / have watched Mr. Van Loan's rise to the higher 
 stellar spaces of achievement in screen writing from the 
 time he forsook his following as one of New York's 
 leading journalists to become Director of Publicity for 
 the Universal Film Company. He began his career as 
 a photo playwright with very little of the knowledge he 
 now imparts to you. 
 
 This book is not offered as a course of instruction, but 
 simply as a plain, straightforward review of Mr. Van 
 Loan's ideas and methods of creating and assembling 
 his stories. 
 
 The publication of this work has been the result of the 
 following circumstances: About two years ago Mr. Van 
 Loan was requested to prepare a series of articles on 
 photoplay writing for the Los Angeles Evening Express, 
 and later for the San Francisco Bulletin, the Oakland 
 (Col.) Tribune, the Phoenix (Ariz.) Republican, the San 
 Diego Tribune and the Hudson (N. Y.) Morning Repub- 
 lican. 
 
 When I saw the hundreds of letters that poured in on 
 Mr. Van Loan, commending him for the wonderful aid 
 he had given to aspiring screen authors, I made an ar- 
 rangement with him to publish this volume. 
 
 Having been identified with the making of motion pic- 
 tures for several years, I can heartily and honestly recom- 
 mend this work as the most instructive and helpful 
 treatise of its kind I have ever seen. 
 
 LINDSAY MCKENNA.
 
 Among H. H. Van Loan's Successes Are: 
 
 Vive La France Dorothy Dalton 
 
 *The New Moon Norma Talmadge 
 
 The Virgin of Stamboul . . . Priscilla Dean 
 
 Three Gold Coins Tom Mix 
 
 The Great Redeemer House Peters 
 
 The Wonderful Chance . . Eugene O'Brien 
 
 The Speed Maniac Tom Mix 
 
 Fightin' Mad William Desmond 
 
 Bring Him In Earle Williams 
 
 The Third Eye . . Warner Gland-Eileen Percy 
 The Highest Trump .... Earle Williams 
 The Breaking Point . . . Bessie Barriscale 
 *A Rogue's Romance .... Earle Williams 
 Winning With Wits . . . Barbara Bedford 
 
 Blue Streak McCoy Harry Carey 
 
 When a Man Loves Earle Williams 
 
 The Sage Brush Trail Roy Stewart 
 
 Storm-Swept . . . Wallace and Noah Beery 
 
 Thundering Silence All-Star 
 
 The Siren of Seville All-Star 
 
 The Drivin' Fool Wally Van 
 
 Mickey Flynn All-Star 
 
 Reissued 1922.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I THE AUTHOR'S ERA ... 1 
 
 II MOSTLY ABOUT IDEAS . . 17 
 
 III KNOW YOUR SUBJECT . . 53 
 
 IV CONSTRUCTING THE STORY 66 
 
 V SUSPENSE 77 
 
 VI PERSISTENCY 89 
 
 VII TITLES 107 
 
 VIII PRESENTATION 114 
 
 IX ADAPTATIONS 124 
 
 X MARKETING THE STORY . . 135 
 
 XI HIGHLIGHTS OF PRODUCTION 
 
 TECHNICALITIES ... 144 
 
 XII L'ENVOI 155
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 H. H. Van Loan, Frontispiece. 
 
 Virginia Brown Faire 
 
 Bessie Love 
 
 Guy Bates Post 
 
 Tom Mix 
 
 Dorothy Dal ton 
 
 Noah Beery, Arline Pretty, Wallace Beery, Virginia 
 
 Brown Faire, Robert Thornby and the author 
 Loew's State Theatre, Los Angeles, during the run of 
 
 "Fightin' Mad" 
 Eugene O'Brien discussing "The Wonderful Chance" 
 
 with the author. 
 House Peters 
 
 Wally Van and the author discussing "The Drivin' Fool" 
 Dorothy Dalton, Thomas H. Ince, C. Gardner Sullivan 
 
 and the author' discussing "Vive la France" 
 Eugene O'Brien 
 Nbrma Talmadge and the author talking over the plot of 
 
 "The New Moon" 
 Eileen Percy 
 Olga Printzlau 
 Warner Oland 
 James Young 
 Earle Williams 
 Hope Hampton 
 William Desmond 
 Priscilla Dean and the author looking over the criticisms 
 
 of "The Virgin of Stamboul" 
 The Strand Theatre, San Francisco, during the run of 
 
 "Three Gold Coins" 
 Guy Price
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE AUTHOR'S ERA 
 
 There have been three eras in the history 
 of moving pictures. The first was the indi- 
 vidual or company era, during which these 
 two factors were the most important in the 
 making of productions. After the manufac- 
 turer's era the industry entered its second 
 stage and the star proceeded to focus the ad- 
 miration of the public. Everything and every- 
 body, everywhere, bowed in deep respect to 
 the principal actors in photoplays. It was 
 during this period that the favorite actors 
 had the satisfaction of seeing their names in 
 a blaze of incandescents in front of theatres. 
 Their names became household words. There 
 is no doubt about the influence of the screen. 
 It is universal in its appeal because all can see 
 and understand its message. In this it far 
 exceeds the limitations of the legitimate stage. 
 The result has been that Charles Chaplin, 
 Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks are as
 
 "Hotc I Did It" 
 
 well known in Stamboul as they are right here 
 in America. Not one star of the legitimate 
 stage can boast of such far-reaching popu- 
 larity. 
 
 The star was not tardy in realizing he was 
 a box-office attraction. The producer soon 
 became acquainted with this fact. The result 
 was that during this era fabulous salaries 
 were paid to the stellar lights in the moving 
 picture industry. It seemed for a time as 
 though a wave of frenzied finance was sweep- 
 ing the industry. Producers seemed to lose 
 their sense of values. In mad delirium they 
 battled with each other for the services of a 
 particular star. This was music to the ears 
 of the stars and they sat back and smiled as 
 they dictated their terms to the producer. 
 The stars stated their salaries, and it often 
 meant hundreds or thousands a week to their 
 employers. The producer met their terms, 
 apparently without much objection. 
 
 That was a wonderful era, and it will oc- 
 cupy an important chapter in amusement and 
 theatrical history. It was the first time in 
 the annals of his profession that the actor had
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 ever been paid a respectable salary. But the 
 actor's era was comparatively short-lived. It 
 was doomed to fail, partially because of the 
 bombastic arrogance which accompanied the 
 rise of a group who had suddenly been ele- 
 vated into popularity. Many of them had 
 not the ability to succeed on the speaking 
 stage because of poor > diction, lack of grace 
 and weak voices. The silent drama offered 
 new possibilities for them and they were not 
 slow in grasping the opportunity. Their suc- 
 cess was accompanied by unreasonable de- 
 mands made of the producer. Some of those 
 who made these demands were 'idols of the 
 public, with immense drawing power as box- 
 office attractions, and the producer could 
 either meet their terms or lose fortunes. The 
 producer was absolutely in their power. 
 
 But the actor had overlooked one very im- 
 portant truth. As time progressed it became 
 more and more apparent that the stars were 
 not big enough to hold the interest of the 
 audience without proper vehicles and good 
 material in the way of stories. Such favorites 
 as Fairbanks and Pickford found their popu-
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 larity in the balance, because of the lack of 
 good photoplays. "The Mark of Zorro" 
 brought Fairbanks back with a bang, and 
 "The Three Musketeers" proved beyond all 
 reasonable doubt that he had regained his 
 position as one of the foremost actors of the 
 screen. Mary Pickford proved by her excel- 
 lent work in "Stella Maris" that she is a great 
 actress, and thus endeared herself to her mil- 
 lions of admirers. "Mary Pickford," the 
 ideal, will always be loved by the entire 
 world, and Mary Pickford, the actress, will 
 find it difficult to live up to that ideal. "The 
 Kid" re-established Charles Chaplin in the 
 hearts of millions and it is doubtful if anyone 
 will ever be able to crowd him out. His work 
 is distinctive and different and his fame is per- 
 manent. 
 
 After the actor's era, came the era wherein 
 the director was given an opportunity to show 
 his ability. His era is now drawing to its 
 close, and we must admit that his inning has 
 not been as important or as successful as the 
 one which preceded it.
 
 bo o 
 c ,-)
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 During the actor's era many new names 
 were introduced to the screen names that 
 will shine illustriously for years to come. 
 When the careers of some of these artists are 
 ended it will be difficult to fill their places or 
 forget the sweetness and charm they have 
 added to the screen. But with very few ex- 
 ceptions, the director's era has not been a 
 great success and not more than half a dozen 
 names will remain pre-eminent in the years 
 to come. One reason for this is that too many 
 have unconsciously sacrificed great careers 
 because they were not content to devote all 
 their efforts to directing. They wanted to 
 become authors as well. No man can do two 
 things and do them well. A director should 
 not attempt to write photoplays, and an 
 author should not seek to direct, other than 
 his own stories. The director has a right to 
 suggest, and the author is entitled to super- 
 vise and assist, but when either of them seeks 
 to do the work of the other the result is far 
 from satisfactory. 
 
 Too many times the director has felt that 
 he knew more about the story than the author.
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 He consistently and persistently ignored the 
 author and permitted his egotism and van- 
 ity to distort, deface, massacre and mutilate 
 perfectly good plots. There is no doubt that 
 the director has done good work, but he could 
 have done better if he had worked more har- 
 moniously with the creator of the story. How- 
 ever, it is with pleasure that we record the im- 
 provement of the director along this line, and 
 of late he has been quite eager and anxious to 
 consult the author and get his ideas in con- 
 nection with the preparation of the script as 
 regards sets, spectacles and situations. 
 
 However, we must not attempt to minimize 
 the importance of the director. He is the 
 most important figure in the making of a 
 moving picture, and the ultimate outcome of 
 a production rests solely on his ability. He 
 has it within his power to make something 
 worthy out of something weak. Under his 
 guidance, poor material can be made into 
 something big and impressive. On the other 
 hand, he can take something rich and beauti- 
 ful and make of it an ugly thing. The suc- 
 cess or failure of a production depends upon
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 the director. The author is the architect. He 
 draws the plans. The director is the builder. 
 He can erect a fine structure which will re- 
 main firm and steadfast, withstanding the 
 ravages of time, or he can build an unsightly 
 edifice, which will crumble and fall imme- 
 diately upon completion. 
 
 If the director is given a fool-proof story 
 he cannot go wrong. He has never failed to 
 give the public something worth-while, when 
 given such a story, and he never will fall 
 down if provided with a script which has a 
 smooth-running plot, with good suspense, 
 plenty of action, charming romance and hu- 
 man appeal. But if he is given a story which 
 has illogical situations, glaring inconsistencies 
 and unnatural sequences, he will try and 
 make something presentable out of it. If he 
 succeeds, after considerable juggling and tilt- 
 ing, to make something good out of something 
 bad, he deserves all the credit the public is 
 willing to give him. 
 
 The era which will be the last and the 
 most important of them all is just arriving. 
 It is going to be the era of the author: the
 
 "flow / Did It 
 
 age when he will come into his own. In the 
 future the story is going to be the thing. 
 Everything else will be of lesser importance. 
 It should have been so from the very begin- 
 ning, and would have been, had the producer 
 been willing to admit the importance of the 
 story. But he found to his regret, many 
 times, that the biggest star and the best di- 
 rector were not able to make great pictures 
 from poor material. He also discovered it is 
 possible for a good story to "make" a star or 
 director. In other words, the producer has 
 learned that no man can do good work with 
 a poor kit of tools. 
 
 In the past, the producer has not smiled 
 kindly on the original writer, or photodrama- 
 tist. For several years he refused to recog- 
 nize the importance of the original story, or 
 photoplay, and was content to purchase screen 
 rights to books, novels, plays and short 
 stories. Now and then he dipped into the 
 classics. In those days the screen writer was 
 poorly equipped and poorly paid. He re- 
 ceived no recognition either from the pro- 
 ducer or public. He was looked upon as the
 
 To Olga Prinf/lau the Author of This Work Is Greatly Indebted for 
 Whatever Success He Has Attained as a Photodrarnatist
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 last resort for a story. He belonged to no 
 profession and his work was not accepted as 
 an important part of the success of a picture. 
 This was because the picture itself was not 
 accepted as a form of entertainment that 
 would ever become popular with the masses. 
 It appealed to a limited number of people in 
 those days. When the producer was in a 
 pinch, the screen writer would dash off a story 
 after dinner and deliver it the next morning, 
 and by noon the picture would be half fin- 
 ished. Sometimes the producer and writer 
 would compose a story as they sat beside the 
 camera. 
 
 But as the screen progressed and gradually 
 interested the more seriously minded, the 
 screen writer advanced with it, until the pro- 
 ducer finally realized the profession of screen 
 writing was becoming a very valuable asset to 
 the production of moving pictures. 
 
 However, the producer did a lot of experi- 
 menting before he was willing to admit that 
 screen writing was an art in itself. There 
 came a period when producers stampeded for 
 the screen rights to popular books, plays and
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 short stories, and in their delirious attempt to 
 outdo their competitors the producers paid 
 enormous prices for permission to reproduce 
 these works on the screen. Soon they discov- 
 ered they had made a mistake, and millions 
 of dollars were spent before they learned that 
 screen writing is a separate profession and 
 requires a special kind of work. 
 
 Novelists and playwrights rushed to gather 
 in some of the big money. Some of them 
 made great efforts to become photoplay- 
 wrights. They soon discovered that photo- 
 playwriting is different from all other forms 
 of literary work. They were weighed in the 
 balance and found wanting. They had scoffed 
 and sneered at the screen in its youth and had 
 refused to take it seriously, with the result 
 that the screen, meantime, had progressed and 
 proved that instead of being a temporary fad, 
 it had come to stay. 
 
 Meantime, the screen writer had plugged 
 along conservatively and consistently. He 
 spent more time in writing his stories, and 
 the price of his creations consistently rose be- 
 cause they represented more care, time and 
 
 10
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 thought. He compelled the producer to rec- 
 ognize his importance, and before long the 
 producer admitted that the success or failure 
 of a production was almost entirely due to the 
 work of the screen writer. He realized more 
 and more that the continuity, written by the 
 screen writer, was capable of reaping big 
 financial harvests or absolutely spoil any 
 chances the story might have had of success. 
 And eventually a new profession the pro- 
 fession of photodramatist came to be rec- 
 ognized by producer, press and public. 
 
 A photodramatist is not necessarily a con- 
 tinuity writer, or scenario writer. A photo- 
 dramatist is a writer who writes his stories in 
 dramatic pictures. Many of them were 
 schooled and received their training as sce- 
 nario writers; many of them were continuity 
 writers. A number of them now confine their 
 talents to writing detailed synopses of their 
 plots and leave the mechanical work of the 
 script to the continuity writers. 
 
 The photodramatist, or screen author of 
 today, works in the same fashion that novelists 
 and dramatists do. He isolates himself and 
 
 11
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 surrounds himself with the greatest privacy 
 while he is working on a script. He doesn't 
 dash out a story overnight. On the other 
 hand, he spends days and weeks, even months, 
 concentrating on his subject, in order that he 
 may put into his story the best of his creative 
 ability. He has found that it pays, and 
 whereas he at one time received twenty-five 
 dollars for a story, today he is paid from one 
 thousand to ten thousand dollars for his 
 script. In the future he will probably re- 
 ceive even more. His work is entirely differ- 
 ent from that of the dramatist, novelist and 
 short story writer. The screen brought op- 
 portunity to writers who had been handi- 
 capped in the past because there was no mar- 
 ket for their product. There were many 
 writers capable of creating big dramatic plots 
 and yet were unable to sell them because they 
 had no literary style. If they happened to 
 have style, it was not attractive enough to 
 command the attention of magazine editors or 
 book publishers. They might have been ex- 
 pert in handling narrative or descriptive mat- 
 ter, but inefficient when it came to the treat- 
 
 12
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 ment of dialogue. Or perhaps they did not 
 know how to build up action. On the other 
 hand, they might have been able to write good 
 dialogue, but lacked descriptive and narrative 
 ability. Therefore, until recently, there was 
 absolutely no market for the material they 
 turned out. Again, lack of sufficient educa- 
 tion prevented the work of many writers from 
 being accepted by literary editors. They 
 might have had wonderful plots, filled with 
 big action, but were incapable of describing 
 that action in a smooth and attractive style. 
 
 But the moving picture gave these writers 
 an opportunity of disposing of their work. 
 This is due to the fact that the screen pic- 
 turizes the plot, and depends very little on the 
 dialogue or other elements so necessary to 
 good fiction writing. 
 
 The road of the photodramatist has not 
 been a pleasant one. It hasn't been paved. 
 It was a long, hard trail, and the journey was 
 filled with struggles and discouragements. It 
 was choked with sacrifices and sufferings. 
 But those who have arrived at the brow of 
 the hill will admit to the aspirant that it was 
 
 13
 
 "How I Did /t" 
 
 with the suffering and sacrificing that they 
 progressed, and that it was the gaining that 
 gave them pleasure, perhaps even more than 
 the attainment. 
 
 The cry of the producer today is: "Give 
 me an original story ! . . . I'm sick of books 
 and plays!" 
 
 A few months ago a screen author sub- 
 mitted a story to a well-known producer. 
 The producer read it and accepted it. After- 
 wards he stated that at the same time he pur- 
 chased this story he refused a script written 
 by a well-known playwright. According to 
 the producer, the playwright had refused to 
 take the screen seriously and had written a 
 very poor story, which revealed lack of care 
 and study in its preparation. He felt con- 
 vinced that he would be able to sell the story 
 on the strength of his reputation. But he 
 must have been greatly surprised when the 
 story was returned to him. Producers are not 
 buying reputations any more. They've been 
 stung too often. The playwright's story had 
 been told in three typewritten pages, while the 
 story written by the screen author was on fifty 
 
 14
 
 Authors 9 Era 
 
 pages, and to quote the producer, "was writ- 
 ten by one who knew his screen." 
 
 These things are told the reader to show 
 that the screen is the infant amusement and 
 emphasize its importance; to familiarize the 
 unacquainted with the revolutionizing steps 
 already taken. Its progress has been slow 
 and conservative, perhaps a little sensational 
 at times, but we can overlook its recklessness, 
 for, like all youths, it was trying hard to find 
 itself. Its future is going to be glorious. 
 There will be new faces. New stars will come 
 and go, but they will never twinkle as they 
 did when the industry was in swaddling 
 clothes. 
 
 Henceforth, the story will be the thing, and 
 the writer who takes the screen seriously, and 
 spends plenty of care and thought in the prep- 
 aration of his work, will deliver contributions 
 which will gain for him not only fame in this 
 generation, but they will be preserved in ar- 
 chives and later re-issued that posterity may 
 have a knowledge of the great photodrama- 
 tists of the present age. 
 
 16
 
 "Hot* I Did It" 
 
 So, I say to the aspiring screen author, 
 novelist and playwright, it is worth the effort. 
 The screen will take you just as seriously as 
 you take it. 
 
 For the purpose of aiding those who desire 
 to do something really worth-while for the 
 silent drama, I have written my experiences in 
 the writing and selling of photodramas. I 
 intended that it should be more of an inspira- 
 tional guide than a text-book, and if it proves 
 to be of real help to those who have become 
 discouraged, and is the means of their making 
 further attempt in a profession which is fas- 
 cinating to say the least, then I shall feel that 
 it has accomplished a little and was not writ- 
 ten in vain. 
 
 16
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 MOSTLY ABOUT IDEAS 
 
 There are supposed to be by actual count 
 although I've been too busy to verify it 
 about one hundred million of us in the United 
 States. And with the exception of a negro 
 switchman, stationed three miles west of the 
 Turnpike, on the outskirts of Eureka, Georgia, 
 who has been deaf, dumb and blind since his 
 birth, all of us have at times believed we were 
 logically entitled to become the Shakespeare 
 of the screen. 
 
 That's a most excellent ambition. But 
 somewhere between the first and second story, 
 something snatched the "am" out of that 
 word. The result has been that the screen 
 has suffered. Something always has to suf- 
 fer. However, this particular sort of suffer- 
 ing cannot be due to the fact that there is a 
 dearth of ideas in America, or that creative art 
 is on the decline. The undiscovered talent is 
 the greatest talent of all. If there is one na- 
 
 17
 
 "How I Did /*" 
 
 tion that has been blessed with ideas it is the 
 United States. No matter where you go, or 
 which way you turn, you can behold great 
 evidences of ideas that were born, grew up 
 and still flourish with magnificent success un- 
 der our local trademark. The way in which 
 it was discovered was most original ; the man- 
 ner in which it gained its independence was 
 decidedly different, and the way it has gone 
 about everything since its birth has attracted 
 the attention and admiration of the entire 
 world. 
 
 Despite this, many people often sigh, after 
 leaving a motion picture theatre, and as they 
 plod homeward they are of the opinion that 
 the art of the screen is on the decline with the 
 brakes burned out. They start to reflect over 
 the rise of steel, oil and industrials, and fail 
 to understand why every picture released at 
 the local theatre does not show an upward 
 trend. 
 
 A picture is similar to an egg, in that it is 
 either good or bad. We don't find the grocer 
 throwing away the bad eggs. Then why 
 should we expect the producer to throw a bad 
 
 18
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 picture away? It represents an outlay, just 
 as the egg does. They both slip across a bad 
 one when we're looking ; only we can't see the 
 inside of the egg ! 
 
 Now then, we can't expect the one hundred 
 million of us to devote our time to making 
 hens lay better eggs or the producers to make 
 better pictures. Few of us are familiar enough 
 with either, beyond being able to distinguish 
 between the good and the bad; one with the 
 aid of the nose and the -other with the aid of 
 the eyes. But those of us who have ideas 
 which would make good story material, should 
 put them on paper, and thus be instrumental 
 in the making of better pictures. Some 
 people seem to think that they haven't any 
 ideas. But D. W. Griffith has truthfully said 
 that there is a story in every human being ; but 
 the trouble is to get it out. Perhaps we are 
 not of an observing mind. Some people never 
 get ideas because they are so completely sur- 
 rounded with them. 
 
 For example: We happen to be passing 
 along a busy thoroughfare during the rush 
 hour. Suddenly we see a man stumble over 
 
 19
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 an object on the sidewalk. His contortions 
 executed during his efforts to keep himself 
 from falling make him resemble a tempera- 
 mental orchestra leader. It excites laughter. 
 Immediately we decide that here is a great 
 idea for a comedy photoplay, and that such a 
 scene would make an immense hit on the 
 screen. 
 
 But the photodramatist will point out that 
 it isn't an idea. It is merely a situation ; that 
 it isn't original and is insufficient on which to 
 base a comedy. It is slap-stick. Slap-stick 
 comedy is practically founded on the idea that 
 laughter is usually derived from injury. 
 
 Originality is anything which is a departure 
 from the ideal. It is anything out of the ordi- 
 nary. It is something different. We argue 
 that it is not quite the usual thing for our 
 residents to go along the street stumbling, and 
 making frantic efforts to keep from falling, 
 and if they did, then we wouldn't be inter- 
 ested and we wouldn't laugh. But that is 
 where we are wrong. People have stubbed 
 their toes ever since they were presented with 
 
 20
 
 Virginia Brown Faire Played the Leading Feminine Roles in "Fightin" 
 Mad" and "Storm Swept"
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 them, because stupid humanity refuses to 
 look where it treads. 
 
 The alert mind the mind that has been 
 trained to be on the lookout for the extraor- 
 dinary will point out that, had that same 
 man discovered the cause of his embarrass- 
 ment was a lump of gold, which upon inves- 
 tigation proved to be a part of the Mother 
 Lode which had been there for thousands of 
 years, his error would have been quite origi- 
 nal. That idea would be sufficient on which 
 to base a good dramatic story. 
 
 All of us, each day, are surrounded with 
 most unusual incidents, which, if we would 
 put into stories, would greatly enhance the 
 amusement value of the greatest entertain- 
 ment in the world today. When the author, 
 playwright or photodramatist completes his 
 story, play or photoplay, he admits that his 
 basic idea was inspired by some incident that 
 he witnessed, or that was brought to his at- 
 tention, and actually happened in real life. 
 When we start to write fiction we get our ma- 
 terial from facts. 
 
 21
 
 "How I Did /I" 
 
 I am going to try and give the reader some 
 real tips on screen writing. In the first place 
 you must have an idea. Don't mislead your- 
 self into believing that you have something 
 new. There are only thirty-six plots known to 
 civilization, and every one of them has been 
 used thousands of times by authors, novelists, 
 playwrights and photodramatists. You may 
 be able to distort, juggle and twist those plots 
 in various ways perhaps serve them a little 
 differently but do not think you have some- 
 thing entirely new. There is absolutely 
 nothing new this season. 
 
 When you are stricken with an idea, and 
 you are convinced that this particular idea 
 can be surrounded with a good story, sit down 
 and write it. Type it. If you can't do that, 
 have it typewritten. Producers are too busy 
 to read stories that are written in long-hand. 
 
 Get into your story immediately. Don't 
 paint a glorious background with a lot of 
 words which don't mean anything. Meaning- 
 less words only interrupt the action. But on 
 the other hand, don't leave too much to the 
 imagination of the reader. Don't glide over a
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 situation and trust to the producer to work it 
 out. Use your inventive genius and describe 
 in detail the way you think the entire scene 
 should be worked out and the way it should 
 be acted. If you were enthusiastic over your 
 new home, and were writing a relative a long 
 distance from you, you would undoubtedly 
 describe every feature of it in minutest detail. 
 You must be enthusiastic over your story. If 
 you're not, then don't write it. If you are, 
 then you will describe it at great length, just 
 as you would your new home. 
 
 Put plenty of action into your story. Keep 
 your characters moving all the time. Be 
 careful. Do not make them do a lot of things 
 which are not necessary not important in 
 the working out of your plot. You must re- 
 member that the screen differs from the stage 
 and the story in that movement is the domi- 
 nating element. The greatest second act ever 
 written for the stage can be reduced to a 
 couple of scenes and one or two subtitles on 
 the screen. That is because the photodrama- 
 tist realizes he must keep his actors moving on 
 the screen, and unless he does so, his audience
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 will walk out before the picture is entirely un- 
 reeled. 
 
 A dramatist uses clever dialogue to put over 
 the big punches in his play, but the screen 
 author has to supplement that dialogue with 
 real big action. Action is the most important 
 ingredient in the photoplay. There must be 
 lots of it, and it must be logical and necessary 
 to the development of the plot. It mustn't be 
 put into the script just to furnish movement 
 for the actors. It must have a decided bearing 
 on the outcome. 
 
 In fact, the point to remember in writing 
 for the screen is: First, establish a reason 
 for the story, then introduce your characters, 
 and after you have done that, make a dash for 
 your climax. That's all there is to it. Estab- 
 lish a premise and then rush for the final 
 scene. Don't waste any time while en route. 
 Be sure that it contains action, action, and 
 then some more action. Mix a few thrills 
 with it. Flavor it with the sweet essence of 
 romance and throw in a lot of suspense. Put 
 some big human interest into it. Bring a 
 tear to the eyes of your audience. Then, the 
 
 24
 
 James Young, who Directed "The Highest Trump" and "A Rogue's 
 
 Romance"
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 next instant, chase away the tear with a smile. 
 If you do that, then you've got a story. 
 
 After you have written it, sit down and read 
 it over carefully. Read it with a critical eye. 
 Forget that it is your story; imagine it was 
 written by someone else. If it doesn't hold 
 your interest then there is something wrong 
 with it. If there is something wrong with it 
 then find out what it is. Don't let it go until 
 you have found out. Remember there is 
 plenty of time. The moving picture industry 
 is here to stay and the producers are always 
 looking for good stories, so there is noticed 
 for you to rush your work. As you read it 
 over, try and put yourself in the position of 
 the man who is going to read it the man you 
 hope will buy it. Ask yourself the same ques- 
 tions you believe he will ask after he reads it. 
 
 Do not annoy the producer by sending a 
 long letter to him describing the merits of 
 your story. He is perfectly capable of decid- 
 ing whether the story is worthy of production 
 and he will be quick to discover whatever 
 good qualities it might possess. And it is 
 quite unnecessary to tell him the story is dif- 
 
 26
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 ferent; that it has never been done before. 
 Everything in the story line has been done 
 before. There is nothing original in fiction. 
 Anything which is different is original. 
 Therefore, I desire to rise up and decry that 
 word "original" in connection with its use 
 with screen stories. It is a grossly misused 
 term as applied to the writing of stories, 
 whether they be for the screen, magazine or 
 stage. Very few things that are being done 
 in the world today are original. Most every- 
 thing has been done before. A writer who 
 submits his story to a producer with the 
 statement that it is original, is brave indeed. 
 I would not care to state that "Vive la 
 France," "The New Moon," "The Virgin of 
 StambouF 'or "The Great Redeemer" were 
 original stories. They were based on fact, and 
 anything inspired by actuality cannot be origi- 
 nal. Almost every story I have written has 
 been an elaboration of something which hap- 
 pened in real life. Therefore, I consider none 
 of them original. I think we should ban that 
 word "original" from our moving picture par- 
 
 26
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 lance, and henceforth use the more appro- 
 priate word, "photoplay." 
 
 I am often asked where I get my ideas for 
 my stories. I get them from real life. Let 
 me illustrate. 
 
 I awoke one morning after a terrible night- 
 mare, with perspiration on my brow. In my 
 sleep, I had killed a man, and it was so 
 realistic that I recalled all the horrible details 
 for a day or two afterward. But before I 
 go on, let me state here that I am one of 
 those who believe that writers are often given 
 messages to present to the world. If we train 
 our powers of, perception we will not often 
 permit these messages to pass unnoticed. I 
 also believe that ideas travel in circles, and if 
 we do not accept the inspiration when it 
 comes and immediately seek to make use of 
 it, we will probably find that someone more 
 ambitious than ourselves will utilize it, much 
 to our regret later. 
 
 The atrocious crime which my subconscious 
 self had committed seemed to suggest a 
 story. So I began pondering over this dream 
 to see what I could get out of it. I would 
 
 27
 
 "Hoic I Did It 
 
 write a story wherein the hero would dream 
 that he had killed a man who was a total 
 stranger to him. Then, the next morning, the 
 hero would read in the newspaper that a man 
 had heen murdered in exactly the same man- 
 ner the night before. The police would be 
 baffled. The hero would go to the police and 
 confess that he was the guilty man. 
 
 No, that wouldn't do. That would be 
 stretching fiction too far. So I continued 
 building and tearing down, until finally a few 
 days later, I had constructed the following 
 story: 
 
 An eminent surgeon returned home after 
 several weeks sojourn a few hundred miles 
 away. He retired. He dreamed that he had 
 burglars about, he put on his dressing-gown 
 killed his worst enemy, and awakened in the 
 most troubled frame of mind. A dog bark- 
 ing in another part of the house aroused him 
 from his nightmare, and believing there were 
 and went downstairs. He took a revolver 
 from the drawer of a table in the hall and 
 started searching the rooms. As he entered 
 the library he stumbled and the gun was dis- 
 
 28
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 charged. He turned on the light and found 
 the hody of the man he dreamt he had killed, 
 lying on the floor. Did he kill him? If so, 
 did he kill him in his sleep or did he kill him 
 as he entered the library? That was the ques- 
 tion I asked my audience by having the hero 
 ask the same question of himself. In order 
 to keep the audience in suspense I never 
 answered the question until the last scene in 
 the picture. Of course, he didn't kill the 
 man. 
 
 So those who saw "Bring Him In," saw a 
 story that was inspired by a dream or night- 
 mare I had experienced months before. 
 
 I think this bears out my statement that 
 fact is stranger than fiction. The creative 
 genius of the most inventive mind could not 
 evolve a plot more dramatic than is revealed 
 in the above story. I am very fond of this 
 story because of the fact that I received it 
 from such a peculiar source. There's no rea- 
 son why those who write should throw away 
 any valuable time, and if we must sleep, then 
 we should make our dreams work for us. 
 
 29
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 To those who aspire to become photodra- 
 matists, I want to impress the truth that 
 stories are like oxygen they are around us 
 everywhere. But we must have the creative 
 ability to recognize them. We must train our 
 minds to differentiate between that which is 
 ordinary and that which is commonplace. 
 Again I will illustrate: 
 
 One of the reporters on a New York daily 
 brought in a story one day about an explosion 
 on a building in course of construction on the 
 West Side of the city. The explosion blew 
 two Italian laborers from a high scaffolding, 
 killing both of them. There was the story, as 
 he saw it. 
 
 But upon questioning the reporter, the city 
 editor learned that a baby asleep in a go-cart, 
 not more than fifty feet from the scene of the 
 accident, was not only uninjured, but re- 
 mained undisturbed and slept through all the 
 excitement. 
 
 There, to the editor's mind, was the story 
 the more dramatic aspect of the incident and 
 so he told the reporter to write half a column 
 about that baby, and make only casual men- 
 
 30
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 tion of the two laborers. Why did the editor 
 devote so much space to the baby who was not 
 killed, and only a paragraph to the two men 
 who were blown to atoms? Because the 
 trained mind of the editor knew that the death 
 of two Italian laborers was not worth any- 
 thing as a news story. Such stories are com- 
 mon. They are not unusual and happen most 
 every day in any big city where construction 
 is going on all the time. But the fact that a 
 defenseless baby was within fifty feet of the 
 explosion and remained asleep throughout all 
 the excitement was indeed remarkable. It 
 was unusual, out of the ordinary. It was 
 "different," and therefore a good story. 
 
 Hardly a day passes that the newspapers do 
 not print material which would furnish the 
 basis of good fiction stories. When I say this 
 I do not mean to convey the thought that such 
 stories could be taken as printed. I mean that 
 they have the foundation for fiction material, 
 and with the added elements of romance, 
 action, suspense and intrigue, offer excellent 
 possibilities for photoplays. 
 
 31
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 Soon after the Reds gained control of the 
 Russian government, the newspapers printed 
 a glaring announcement that the Bolshevists 
 had abolished the law of marriage. The 
 Soviet at Saratof decreed that henceforth it 
 would be unlawful for a man to solely possess 
 his wife, but that she would belong to the 
 public and would become public property. 
 The excuse given for this remarkable decree 
 was that it would insure the propagation of a 
 declining race. 
 
 Such a story was a most radical departure 
 from the ordinary. It had never been equaled 
 in history. It was a tremendous piece of 
 news, and the most barbarous document ever 
 conceived by the most brutal forces of man. 
 If such a decree was permitted to run un- 
 checked it threatened the decency of the forth- 
 coming generation. 
 
 After considerable effort, I succeeded in 
 obtaining a genuine copy of the original de- 
 cree. It was horrifying. After reading its 
 sixteen articles I wondered if I couldn't, in at 
 least a small way, prevent that decree from 
 becoming active in the other provinces of Rus- 
 
 32
 
 Priscilla Dean and H. H. Van Loan Reading What the Critics Had to 
 Say About "The Virgin of Stamboul"
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 sia. At least, I could reveal to America and 
 the rest of the civilized world the illiterate 
 souls of a degenerate group of leaders. 
 
 So I wrote a story called "The New Moon," 
 and sold it to Norma Talmadge. The picture 
 created a sensation in certain sections of the 
 country where anarchy had a strong-hold, 
 and efforts were made to suppress it in Mil- 
 waukee and Houston. 
 
 The anarchists declared the story was a 
 gross untruth, but fortunately the editors of 
 the newspapers in many cities were familiar 
 with the real document and they came to the 
 rescue and pointed out that I had moderated 
 instead of exaggerated the real truth. In 
 their opinion, the picture did more good than 
 a dozen sermons, because it disclosed a great 
 error which had crept into the minds of these 
 delirious leaders. 
 
 Some of the critics declared the decree was 
 abolished before it was put into execution, 
 but I will vouch for the statement that it was 
 enforced in the Province of Saratof for three 
 months, and I have since read some of the ex- 
 periences of women who were its victims. 
 
 33
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 Could the ingenious mind of a writer create 
 a plot of greater dramatic value than this ? It 
 was most extraordinary the fact that a group 
 of men attempted to thrust society back into 
 a barbarous age and intended to destroy all 
 moral laws and the sanctity of the home, was 
 sufficient to arouse the hatred of the entire 
 civilized world. Such a move was sufficient to 
 provide a tremendous theme for a story. You 
 might question the effect of such a picture. 
 The purpose was to open the eyes of such an 
 intelligent and progressive country as America 
 on the events that were taking place in a 
 darkened land, and the results when the civi- 
 lization of a country returns to barbarism and 
 Christianity goes mad. In this picture no at- 
 tempt was made to teach a lesson. The actual 
 facts were conveyed to the audience through 
 the medium of a dramatic plot based on a 
 truth. 
 
 It's the big themes of the day that provide 
 the most interesting bases for good stories. 
 Not alone do they provide good entertainment 
 for those of the present generation, but they 
 can be laid away in the archives and displayed 
 
 34
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 to posterity as a record of events which trans- 
 pired in this day and age. 
 
 While the World War was in progress, I 
 read a front-page story in a newspaper wherein 
 it was stated there were traitors in some of our 
 aeroplane factories. They were supposed to 
 be paid agents of the enemy and it was their 
 duty to see that many of our machines were 
 defective when they left the factory. Before 
 they were discovered, according to the story, 
 many of our aviators were killed. Most of 
 these accidents occurred during the trial 
 flights. Another evil which a writer could 
 easily stamp indelibly on the minds of the 
 American people and thus put the government 
 on its guard. 
 
 Using this as my theme, I wrote a story 
 called "The Highest Trump," which was pur- 
 chased by the Vitagraph Company and in 
 which Earle Williams played the leading role. 
 
 I went no further than the facts to get my 
 story, and then wove a romance through it so 
 that it would have an amusing appeal to the 
 audience. Some of the government officials 
 became so interested in the disclosures made 
 
 36
 
 "Hot* / Did It" 
 
 in the story that an entire aviation field, in- 
 cluding its aviators, took part in the produc- 
 tion. Without one exception, all the fliers ad- 
 mitted the story was an actual fact and ex- 
 pressed pleasure that the public was to be 
 made familiar with another attempt of the 
 enemy to fight unfairly. 
 
 These experiences are recorded to show the 
 writer that it is within his power to be of ines- 
 timable value to the public. The one great 
 weapon for fighting great evils is publicity. 
 And there is no greater power when it comes 
 to this than the screen. 
 
 If more people would devote more time to a 
 closer observation of the incidents which are 
 unusual and which play such an important 
 part in our daily lives, the producers would 
 have enough stories to last them indefinitely. 
 The reason they haven't this great supply at 
 present is because the majority of us ignore 
 the little things in life which are very often 
 unusual, and a departure from the ordinary, 
 and concentrate on those things which are 
 commonplace. Learn to differentiate between 
 the ordinary and the unusual. That's the se-
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 cret of not only successful photoplaywriting 
 but all other forms of literary work. The best 
 stories are never written, because we pass 
 them by. We should devote more of our time 
 to putting ourselves on the alert for those lit- 
 tle things which form such an infinitesimal 
 part of our daily lives, and yet which would 
 have such tremendous appeal if seen on the 
 screen. "The Miracle Man" was a very sim- 
 ple story; a very great story. It was simple 
 in that it showed what happens when the evil 
 forces meet the better and nobler qualities 
 which are in all of us. It was a great story 
 because of the fine dramatic way in which it 
 was told. It delivered a message without a 
 preachment. People do not go to the theatre 
 to look at sermons. They go to be amused 
 and to relax. But if we can give them some- 
 thing which may help them to become a little 
 better, without subtracting from the dramatic 
 interest and sublime suspense which we all 
 love, then we are doing a real service to 
 humanity. 
 
 If you can write a story which has plenty of 
 action, red-blooded drama, thrilling suspense, 
 
 37
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 charming romance and startling climaxes, you 
 have done something. If you can consistently 
 bring about the reform of an evil character, 
 you deserve the praise of your audience. If 
 you can go a step farther, and work out the re- 
 formation of an evil character with the aid of 
 the Supreme Being, you have done something 
 worthy of great tribute. 
 
 The reason? The majority of us want to be- 
 come better men and women. We are all 
 curious, and curiosity is the means we use to 
 gain instruction. A bad man isn't bad be- 
 cause he wants to be bad. He's bad because 
 he doesn't have a desire to be good. Plant 
 in him a desire to improve, and show him the 
 way, and he will grasp it. 
 
 One night, a few years ago, before prohibi- 
 tion made the country wet, a prospector, who 
 had been searching for gold up around King- 
 man, Ariz., arrived in San Bernardino, just 
 across the California boundary, with consid- 
 erable "dust" in his belt. He wandered into 
 a saloon where he proceeded to "oil up," and 
 before long everybody in the place was enjoy- 
 ing his hospitality. The scene gradually be- 
 
 38
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 came diffused to the eyes of all, except one. 
 That one was a tough-looking greaser, who 
 had a rather bad reputation in that vicinity 
 and had served a portion of his life behind 
 bars of a much different nature. 
 
 This greaser stood alone at one end of the 
 room and kept his gaze fixed on the prospector 
 and the gold which he flourished from his 
 belt. The bartender was conscious of the 
 Mexican's interest, and he noted that when 
 the prospector staggered out the greaser soon 
 followed. 
 
 The next morning the body of the pros- 
 pector was found in an alleyway near the 
 saloon. He had been foully murdered. 
 
 The bartender's suspicions were aroused 
 and he recalled the interest manifested by the 
 Mexican the night before. The Mexican was 
 arrested and convicted on circumstantial evi- 
 dence. 
 
 While the Mexican was awaiting trial he 
 spent most of his time drawing pictures on the 
 wall of his cell in the San Bernardino jail. 
 The jailer paused before the door of his cell 
 one day and was amazed as he discovered a
 
 How I Did /t" 
 
 life-sized drawing of Christ on the cross. The 
 picture was on the rear panel of the man's cell 
 and was a faithful reproduction of the cruci- 
 fixion. It was a beautiful piece of work, and 
 especially interesting in view of the fact 
 that the artist had not followed the usual 
 conception of this dramatic moment in his- 
 tory, but had given his own interpretation of 
 the tragedy. 
 
 The jailer was awed as he gazed on the mas- 
 terpiece and was so impressed with it that 
 he immediately interested himself in its lowly 
 creator. The story of the picture soon spread 
 throughout the jail and the other inmates 
 would stand before the cell and gaze in won- 
 derment on the work. They finally referred 
 to it as "The Cell of the Christ," and never 
 did an inmate pass that cell that he didn't 
 pause to bow and cross himself in deep re- 
 spect. 
 
 This work of art was all the more remark- 
 able because of the fact that the man who 
 drew this picture was illiterate and didn't pos- 
 sess even the semblance of a common school 
 education. In fact, he had never been able 
 
 40
 
 Hope Hampton Established a Precedent When She Paid the Author a Royalty 
 in Addition to a Handsome Price for "The Maid of Molokai"
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 to concentrate long enough to learn how to 
 read or to write his own name. And yet. 
 without aid of any kind he had created a 
 work of art that would arouse the envy of any 
 artist. 
 
 Interest increased in the Mexican and "The 
 Cell of the Christ," and before very long visi- 
 tors came from miles around to see the re- 
 markable drawing. Its fame spread, and 
 tourists journeyed hundreds of miles to pay 
 humble respect to the man's talent. The 
 jailer succeeded in interesting officials of the 
 law and a number of welfare workers, with the 
 result that a concerted move was made to ob- 
 tain the man's release. This was continued 
 even after the man had been convicted and 
 sent to San Quentin to serve his term. The 
 jailer went to Governor Stephens and ap- 
 pealed to him to use his influence with the 
 parole board to effect the man's release on 
 probation. The Governor listened and was 
 impressed. He agreed to take the question up 
 with the board at its next meeting. Later the 
 parole board paid a visit to the San Bernar- 
 dino jail, and as the members bowed in rev- 
 
 41
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 erence before the masterpiece, one of them 
 said, "The man that did this should be free." 
 They realized that a man with such talent 
 would be of far greater use out in the world 
 than in prison, and agreed that the law owed 
 him a chance to display his talents unham- 
 pered by the seclusion he was then under- 
 going. 
 
 So the parole board reported back to Gov- 
 ernor Stephens, recommending a pardon, and 
 the Mexican was liberated. 
 
 Upon receiving his liberty the Mexican 
 went to Los Angeles and later did some really 
 good work. He painted a remarkable likeness 
 of Abraham Lincoln which aroused consider- 
 able admiration, and for a time attracted a 
 great deal of attention. 
 
 I became so interested in this remarkable 
 story that I decided to put this man into a 
 screen story. So I wrote a photoplay and 
 called it "The Great Redeemer," which fea- 
 tured House Peters in the leading role and 
 was released by the Metro Company. I be- 
 lieve this story is one of the best I have 
 written. It reproduced a chapter from real 
 
 42
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 life and was so strange that it really resembled 
 fiction. The Mexican heard that I had writ- 
 ten a story, using him as the central character, 
 and he visited the studio from time to time 
 while the picture was in production and mani- 
 fested great interest in its progress. 
 
 The crucifixion used in the photoplay was 
 painted by a French artist and he spent sev- 
 eral weeks working on the canvas. It was 
 about six by four feet in size and was a beau- 
 tiful work in colors. Two priests from Arizona 
 happened to visit the studio one day and they 
 were so impressed with the painting that they 
 asked Maurice Tourneur, the producer, if he 
 would give them the picture when he was fin- 
 ished with it. He gladly consented, and the 
 painting used in that photoplay now hangs in 
 a little church somewhere in Arizona. 
 
 "The Great Redeemer" has been shown in 
 every city, town and hamlet in the United 
 States, and is still being re-booked by exhibi- 
 tors all over the country. One theatre in 
 Long Beach, Gal., has played the picture six 
 times. In addition to being shown in moviag 
 
 43
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 picture theatres, it has been booked by 
 churches, educational and uplift societies. 
 
 This picture cost ninety-five thousand dol- 
 lars to make and its producers have realized 
 about half a million dollars from its bookings. 
 
 But the unfortunate part of the real story 
 is the fact that while this Mexican inspired 
 others, and no doubt helped many people to 
 lead better lives, yet he seemed to have been 
 unable to help himself. For a few months 
 after his release he committed a bold hold- 
 up and was sent back to prison. However, 
 though he seemed to be bad, I am indebted to 
 him for a beautiful inspiration and the public 
 perhaps is a little better because he lived. 
 
 The screen, press and pulpit are the three 
 great factors in the life of civilized peoples. 
 United, they could make or break a nation. 
 There are about two thousand daily news- 
 papers printed in the United States. There 
 are about twenty thousand moving picture 
 theatres and approximately two hundred 
 thousand churches. The combined readers of 
 these newspapers are over a quarter of the 
 total population, every day. The churches 
 
 44
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 reach a little over a quarter of the population 
 once a week. Over five thousand churches in 
 the United States are equipped with moving 
 picture machines. 
 
 Those who are writing for the screen should 
 remember this when writing their stories and 
 not overlook the fact that, if the story has a 
 powerful theme and one which will improve 
 the morals of the public, they have a large 
 potential field in the churches which are now 
 showing pictures, aside from the twenty 
 thousand theatres. 
 
 In reciting these experiences I trust the 
 reader will not accuse me of being immodest 
 or vainglorious. I have done only what 
 thousands of others can do, provided they 
 have creative ability; an analytical and syn- 
 thetic mind. I have tried to prove that we are 
 surrounded with ideas, and that if we are ob- 
 serving and receptive, how simple it is to find 
 a story. Nothing in the world is so fascinat- 
 ing or dramatic as life itself. It is the lives 
 that millions of us are living that furnish the 
 novelist, playwright and photodramatist with 
 material for their work. If some terrible
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 catastrophe should sweep every individual, 
 with the exception of one, from the earth, and 
 that one individual happened to he a writer, 
 he would have nothing to write about. He 
 would have nothing to write about because 
 there would be no civilized life. And where 
 there is no civilized life there is no drama, 
 romance, intrigue, suspense or action. There 
 would be no ideas. But as long as we have 
 civilization we will have ideas, and if we 
 look around we will surely find them. 
 
 Perhaps by this time, the reader has con- 
 cluded that I get all my ideas from the news- 
 papers. Because real news, published facts, 
 happened to have supplied me with some of 
 my best material is not sufficient to warrant 
 the statement that all my stories were gleaned 
 from newspapers. Some of them have been 
 personal experiences and others have been the 
 experiences of my friends and acquaintances. 
 
 We are not all of the same mind, and 
 therefore we do not see many things in the 
 same light that others do. The reader might 
 pick up the morning paper and discover a 
 story which would so interest him that he 
 
 46
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 would become inspired to write a story, using 
 that particular piece of news as his basic 
 theme. Another writer might read the same 
 story and fail to become enthused. Writers 
 secure their ideas in many different places. 
 The system which works for one may not suc- 
 ceed for others. It depends on the way the 
 brain works. We all have different likes and 
 dislikes and something which might appeal to 
 one might not interest another. Some writers 
 are incessant news readers. They scan every 
 publication which relates the doings of the 
 people and races everywhere. Situations 
 strange, odd and sometimes erratic are found 
 in the happenings of real life. The profes- 
 sional writer is able to recognize the appeal- 
 ing idea and mould it into something which 
 will amuse and interest. 
 
 Some time ago, a clipping agency was 
 started in the East for the purpose of supply- 
 ing writers with strange and unusual happen- 
 ings printed in the columns of the daily news- 
 papers throughout the country. For a nomi- 
 nal fee, these clippings were supplied the sub- 
 scribers each week. But the agency railed 
 
 47
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 through lack of support. It discovered that 
 not all writers turned to facts for fiction. 
 Some writers can read every publication in the 
 world without getting many impressions. 
 
 Some writers are dreamers. They can lie 
 on their backs in quiet, deserted places and 
 have perfectly good ideas come to them. For 
 some it is the inspiration of the ocean ; others 
 seek the seclusion of the mountains, while 
 others do their best work on the desert or in 
 the forest. 
 
 The matter of taking advantage of happen- 
 ings in real life is something which does not 
 always work out for the beginner. He is 
 usually inclined to take the printed situation 
 too literally and fails to dress it with flights of 
 fancy and activity that are demanded by pic- 
 tures. Very often, the resentful aspirant who 
 declares that his returned story happened in 
 real life, does not realize that true occurences 
 sometimes violate logic to a great degree. 
 
 Then there is the writer with the radio 
 mind. He is ever on the alert, and his hear- 
 ing is highly sensitive, and attuned to catch 
 phrases or sentences as they waft through the 
 
 48
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 air. A clever line or pretty phrase is suffi- 
 cient to inspire a corking good story. 
 
 Other writers get most of their ideas from 
 mingling with crowds and watching people. 
 They like to wander along the streets and their 
 eyes are trained to study the actions and 
 movements of people, and some dramatic in- 
 cident witnessed on the main thoroughfare 
 will supply the spark of enthusiasm and they 
 will return home and immediately start to 
 work. The main street of any large city is 
 filled with comedy and drama, and if our eyes 
 are keen and our minds receptive we won't 
 have much difficulty in finding good material. 
 
 To know a story : that is the most important 
 part of writing. The majority of writers never 
 sit down before their typewriter until they 
 have something in mind until they know 
 what they are going to do. I know a few 
 who make it a rule to put in several hours a 
 day writing something. They make it a daily 
 task and will work four or five hours, just to 
 keep themselves in training, even if they tear 
 everything up and throw it away when they 
 have finished. Very often these writers hit 
 
 49
 
 "Hotu / Did It 
 
 upon something good, with the aid of vibra- 
 tions, and turn out great stuff. It is true 
 that many great inspirations have come in 
 this manner. 
 
 Then there is the writer who spends most 
 of his time traveling. He is of the opinion 
 that a change is necessary and an incentive 
 to better work. A change is always good. 
 Strange countries, with different atmosphere 
 and interesting customs, together with new 
 faces, will inspire the writer and keep him 
 from getting rusty. 
 
 One day during the year 1913, I was 
 standing before the Mosque of Ahmed, in 
 Constantinople. It was just at sundown and 
 I was watching the moslems as they entered 
 the Mosque to offer their evening prayer to 
 Allah. Something about that throng inter- 
 ested me, and yet for some time I was unable 
 to discover just what it was. Then it suddenly 
 dawned on me. In all that crowd, there was 
 not one hanum, or woman. They were all 
 men. I inquired of a passing Arab the reason 
 for this, and he informed me that Turkish 
 women were not permitted to enter a mosque 
 
 so
 
 Mostly About Ideas 
 
 except once a year, during the Feast of Ram- 
 azan. When I questioned him further, he 
 smiled and jokingly informed me that they 
 didn't know how to pray. 
 
 I remembered that little incident and vowed 
 that some day I would use it as the basis of a 
 story. Six years later I wrote it and sold it 
 to the Universal Film Company. It was called 
 "The Virgin of Stamboul" and Priscilla Dean 
 appeared in the leading role. The story was 
 written around a girl named "Sari," whose 
 soul was supposed to be "as filth in the streets 
 of Stamboul." She overhears an Englishman 
 tell an American the reason a Turkish girl is 
 not permitted in a mosque. Her curiosity is 
 aroused and she succeeds in getting into the 
 mosque for the purpose of learning how to 
 pray. What she sees there furnishes enough 
 plot to keep the story moving for some time. 
 
 Nearly every situation was inspired by the 
 customs of the Turkish people and I was thus 
 aided in my effort to put some tense drama 
 
 61
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 into the story. My discovery that there were 
 three forms of marriage ceremony in Turkey 
 assisted me in building up a rather interest- 
 ing dramatic situation.
 
 House Peters Will Be Remembered for His Excellent Portrayal of "Dan 
 Mollov" in "The Great Redeemer"
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 KNOW YOUR SUBJECT 
 
 In the previous chapter we discussed at 
 great length the "idea," and I endeavored to 
 point out to the reader, from my fund of per- 
 sonal experience, where to look for them and 
 how to recognize them. In this chapter I am 
 going to try and show you the value of know- 
 ing your subject. 
 
 The sale of an idea does not mean anything 
 so far as the future is concerned, unless the 
 foundation of knowing is with the writer. The 
 aspiring writer should know his or her sub- 
 ject before attempting to write it. 
 
 Do not write of countries which are so 
 strange to you that you don't know whether 
 Lloyd's is a town in the Austrian Tyrol or a 
 clam-shell emporium. Do not paint a won- 
 derful Alaskan background for a South Amer- 
 ican crap game. Do not make your hero a 
 Russian cossack, when your knowledge of race 
 is confined to the Pueblo tribe of Indians. 
 
 53
 
 How I Did It 
 
 Make your hero, your heroine and the rest of 
 your characters those with whom you are per- 
 fectly familiar. 
 
 If you live in New York City, and have 
 never been west of Buffalo, do not write a 
 story about Iceland. If you have never been 
 west of Maine, do not attempt to paint a 
 picture of the great American desert. Re- 
 member your audience is intelligent and 
 doubtless contains many nomads who have 
 wandered from Greenland to Cape Town. 
 
 "When fairly educated or travelled people 
 co to see the productions vauntingly adver- 
 tised, tli7 are amazed and disgusted with the 
 gross ignorance shown by directors and the 
 principals," says Bessie Agnes Dwyer, in * 
 recent criticism. 
 
 "For instance: In the 'Call of the Nortk 
 no less a person than Jack Holt appears as 
 lacking in either ordinary information or ordi- 
 nary sense. Everyone knows that when the 
 Hudson Bay Company, and its rivals, operated 
 in the frozen North, that Durham tobacco had 
 not been manufactured. The trappers and 
 factors smoked and chewed plug when they 
 
 64
 
 Know Your Subject 
 
 could get it. But this very young elegante, 
 very much infatuated with a Gillette shave, a 
 jersey and tight breeches in which he would 
 have promptly frozen to death or been frost 
 bitten, in the regions portrayed, sits casually 
 on tables and fallen trees, and 'rolls his own' 
 from a Durham tobacco bag. 
 
 "The young lady in the case flits about in 
 the icy moonlight, in a costume calculated to 
 give her congestion of both lungs inside of 
 twenty minutes. The rifles used are Martinis. 
 The latest type of self cocking pistols are 
 freely displayed. The whole thing is ridicu- 
 lous, impossible and a perfect travesty of fact 
 and easily ascertained facts. 
 
 "In 'Fools Paradise,' leaving to one side 
 the garishness and clumsiness of the Mexican 
 oil camp scenes and I know Mexico when 
 Burmah is invaded, the picture does violence 
 to the most sacred instinct of the human mind 
 religion. It portrays a French dancer on 
 a throne of Buddha wagging her head and 
 making sensuous passes with her hands, while 
 Javanese dancers, in Court costume, dance be- 
 fore her. 
 
 55
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 "This is positively scandalous to the people 
 of the East and any woman, white or other- 
 wise, attempting this in one of their temples, 
 would be torn to pieces. We will pass over 
 the crocodiles and the incident of the lady 
 throwing her glove into their den. That inci- 
 dent is doubtless suggested by history and not 
 bad as it goes, but the temple scene is atro- 
 cious and worse it is impossible. 
 
 "We Americans spend millions to Chris- 
 tianize the Orient, and permit ourselves to be 
 depicted before the gaze of millions of Orient- 
 als in anything but desirable way. I have 
 often wondered why the Federation of Ameri- 
 can Club Women did not investigate and 
 through the War Department, or the State 
 Department, curb this ever growing evil. 
 
 "In the Orient, I have seen the branding 
 of a white woman, on the screen, by a Japan- 
 ese Prince. The entire audience sat dumb- 
 founded as well they might. I have seen the 
 awful fights of gangsters, the housebreaking, 
 safe-cracking, woman throttling acts, happily 
 somewhat barred, by public demand, in our 
 theatres. In such wise, and merely to make 
 
 56
 
 Dorothy Dalton Gave One of the Best Performances of Her Career, as 
 "Jeannette Bouchette" in "Vive la France"
 
 Know Your Subject 
 
 money, do these movie magnates represent 
 the supposedly dominant and superior race, 
 in Japan, China, India, the Philippines, Java, 
 Ceylon all the lands beyond the Pacific. 
 
 "Let the picture people censor and elimi- 
 nate from foreign export, the libels on this 
 country, its morals and its manners, they have 
 so liberally produced and exploited." 
 
 The foregoing was a letter which appeared 
 in the Los Angeles Times, July 3rd, 1922, 
 and is typical of the criticisms which are fre- 
 quently made of moving picture productions. 
 I have quoted it in order to show that the 
 average moving picture patron possesses intel- 
 lect. One critic recently made the ridiculous 
 statement that eighty percent of moving pic- 
 ture audiences are composed of uneducated 
 and illiterate people. The moving picture 
 appeals to the highest as well as the lowest 
 form of intelligence, and because of this fact 
 it is enjoying tremendous popularity, and the 
 producer who fails to take this into considera- 
 tion, and believes that a glaring error or in- 
 consistency will go unnoticed, is fooling no 
 one but himself. 
 
 57
 
 How I Did It 
 
 I do not know Bessie Agnes Dwyer. But 
 I was interested in her criticism, for she 
 speaks for the millions of moving picture fans 
 and is a living denial of those who seem to 
 think that our audiences are made up of 
 stupid and ignorant people. The mistakes 
 she pointed out were most inexcusable and 
 reveal primarily the ignorance of the writers 
 and their subjects. If they had been thor- 
 oughly conversant with the countries they 
 wrote about, there would not have been such 
 flagrant errors as have been pointed out to us. 
 In such cases, the director is not all to blame 
 and the producer is only partially at fault. 
 The writer, alone, is responsible for such mis- 
 takes. The producer and director no doubt 
 believed the authors of these particular stories 
 were familiar with their subjects and never 
 questioned the small details. Anyone who 
 will write a story about a country with which 
 he is not familiar is indeed doing a very 
 daring thing. We do not say that it can't be 
 done. It has been done. The best history 
 of the French Revolution was written by a 
 gentleman by the name of Carlisle. And yet 
 
 58
 
 Know Your Subject 
 
 he had never crossed the English Channel. 
 But he spent years in writing that immortal 
 work. The stories criticized by our friend 
 were probably written in three or four weeks. 
 
 Know your subject. This is one of the best 
 tips I can give to the aspiring writer. Don't 
 write about anything, unless you are familiar 
 with it. You cannot write illuminatingly 
 about Alaska unless you've been there. I 
 would never have attempted to write a story 
 like "The Virgin of Stamboul" if I hadn't 
 visited Constantinople. 
 
 About a year ago I decided I would like to 
 write a story using the great northwest as a 
 background. So I packed my bag and jour- 
 neyed twenty-five hundred miles through the 
 north country, and remained away four 
 months. About three years ago I became af- 
 flicted with a desire to write a Hawaiian story. 
 So I bought a ticket and sailed down the 
 Pacific to Honolulu, where I remained nine 
 weeks. Upon my return I wrote a story 
 called "The Maid of Molokai." 
 
 Now the Hawaiians are a very superstitious 
 race. They have many legends, some of them 
 
 59
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 weird and others very beautiful, which they 
 are very willing to explain to the visitor. 
 There is one I remember in particular. It 
 was told to me by some of the natives of 
 Hilo. Hilo is on the island of Hawaii, and is 
 located thirty miles from Kilauea crater. They 
 declare that when the volcano is on the verge 
 of an eruption the fish in the harbor at Hilo 
 turn red. I used this legend to good advan- 
 tage in my story, as a great deal of the action 
 took place on the island of Hawaii, in the city 
 of Hilo and around the volcano. My story 
 fell into the hands of a continuity writer, 
 whose knowledge of the world was limited to 
 Brooklyn, N. Y., and Los Angeles, with the 
 result that this writer, while making the adap- 
 tation struck out the use I made of this leg- 
 end. When I learned of this, I immediately 
 informed her that I had not written about 
 Hawaii from knowledge I had gleaned in a 
 New York flat, but had spent approximately 
 five thousand dollars for the purpose of get- 
 ting local color and that I knew what I was 
 writing about. That work was distorted and 
 defaced by this continuity writer, who, despite 
 
 60
 
 Know Your Subject 
 
 her limited knowledge, possessed a remark- 
 able egotism and bombastic arrogance, and in 
 the end she" completely ruined what I consid- 
 ered to be one of my best stories. 
 
 Many times in the past the author has 
 found that despite his experience, gleaned 
 from traveling and coming into contact with 
 strange and extraordinary adventures in var- 
 ious remote corners of the earth, he has found 
 himself completely at the mercy of a continu- 
 ity writer whose limited knowledge about 
 everything in general, endangered a really 
 meritorious piece of work over which a great 
 deal of time, care and thought has been spent. 
 
 Know your subject. Know it thoroughly, 
 and then such errors as Miss Dwyer has point- 
 ed out will be avoided. You must remember 
 that producers and directors are not infallible, 
 and they assume when they receive a story 
 from a writer that the details are accurate. 
 Don't attempt to write a story until you have 
 made an exhaustive study of your subject. 
 See to it that the settings are accurate. If 
 you were writing a story wherein a scene of 
 a "city room" of a metropolitan daily is re-
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 quired, you wouldn't have the floor nicely 
 swept, the desks bared and the "copy" boys 
 resembling little Fauntleroys. You would 
 have the desks and floors littered with news- 
 papers and copy paper and the boys would 
 be hardened youngsters with hair dishevelled 
 and frowning countenances. The City Editor 
 would probably be in his shirt-sleeves and 
 would be smoking either a pipe or cigar. If 
 you have never worked on a newspaper, then 
 before you wrote that scene you should pay 
 a visit to a newspaper office and make a care- 
 ful study of it in order that the setting you 
 describe will be correct. Perhaps the director 
 would build that set in the studio, and then 
 he would rely to a great extent on your de- 
 scription. 
 
 When I wrote "The Virgin of Stamboul" 
 I described every scene and setting with mi- 
 nute detail; the types of characters to be 
 found on the streets of Stamboul and their 
 manner of dress ; the shops and their contents 
 and the customs of the people. Perhaps the 
 director would not be familiar with that coun- 
 try and would rely upon my description. That 
 
 62
 
 Know Your Subject 
 
 script was in 150,000 words, and in addition 
 to the story, every piece of action was des- 
 cribed and the movements of every character 
 in the story were told in detail. In addition 
 to this, I purchased a set of pictures showing 
 the style of architecture of the houses which 
 skirted the principal streets. Then I added 
 a statement to the effect that I knew Stam- 
 boul, that I had spent some time there, and 
 would vouch for the accuracy of everything 
 in the story. The result was that Director 
 Tod Browning followed my script closely and 
 the street scenes in addition to the interiors 
 were exactly as I had described them. Of 
 course this meant a great deal of labor on my 
 part labor which, to the non-initiated, might 
 seem unnecessary but in the end I was re- 
 warded by knowing that if there were any 
 inaccuracies I alone was to blame. I spent 
 three months writing that story. 
 
 During the years 1911 to 1914 I spent all 
 my time travelling abroad, and I confess it 
 has stood me in good stead since then. Knowl- 
 edge gleaned in foreign countries will make 
 us familiar with this sort of stories when we 
 
 63
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 are inspired, and we will be cautious about 
 having caravans camped beneath towering 
 palm trees on the Sahara. The Sahara isn't 
 partial to palm trees, and the few to be found 
 there are short and not so artistic as the tall, 
 graceful ones which grow in California and 
 the South Seas. 
 
 Everything is accepted by the traveler as 
 being new. Of course it isn't new, but it is 
 new to him, and thus he becomes inspired, and 
 sometimes he is able to give us something 
 which seems new, even though it is as old as 
 creation. 
 
 In the past, the screen author has not been 
 a traveler, but has been content to glean what 
 he thought was necessary for his "atmo- 
 sphere" from books of reference. But the 
 professional photodramatist of today is not 
 satisfied to do that, and many of those who 
 are creating stories for the screen today are 
 men and women who have traveled exten- 
 sively. Many of them have gone abroad dur- 
 ing the past year or two, and some of them are 
 planning to make annual trips to Europe for 
 the purpose of getting material for their work. 
 
 64
 
 Bessie Love
 
 Know Your Subject 
 
 However, I do not think it is necessary for 
 a beginner to travel in search of new ideas. 
 Some very excellent stories are written every 
 year by writers who have not wandered far 
 from their own back-yard. 
 
 One critic declared, after seeing "The New 
 Moon" that it was evident I had gleaned my 
 knowledge of Russia from weekly periodicals 
 and newspapers. I took the trouble to inform 
 that critic that I had had the pleasure of rep- 
 resenting a chain of American newspapers 
 abroad, and had traveled the length and 
 breadth of Russia, and would vouch for the 
 accuracy of the detail in my story. 
 
 So, you see, even though we have had the 
 necessary experience, and have written a story 
 using a background which is familiar to us, 
 we don't always get the credit for our effort. 
 There are more stories, with foreign atmo- 
 sphere, written for the screen than there are 
 books, plays and novels, and the professional 
 moving picture critic should spend some time 
 abroad so that he will be able to intelligently 
 criticise stories with foreign backgrounds. 
 
 65
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CONSTRUCTING THE STORY 
 
 Successful screen writing is merely develop- 
 ing the power of imagination. The better 
 you develop it the better your story will be, 
 and the more money you will receive for it. 
 Do not permit yourself to be bored by doing 
 the same thing over and over again. If you 
 do, then there is no pleasure in your work. 
 If you cannot enjoy your work then you will 
 not find success. Endeavor to make each 
 story better than the last one. Let each story 
 you write be a supreme effort to produce 
 something as nearly perfect as you possibly 
 can make it. Imagination and concentration 
 will accomplish great things for you. 
 
 The collapse of a building is seldom due to 
 its foundation. The cause is usually attrib- 
 uted to poor construction, faulty ironwork or 
 weak walls. It is so with a story. The theme 
 may be a good one, and worthy of sustaining 
 a big, powerful drama, but if the construc-
 
 Constructing the Story 
 
 tion is weak, incoherent and unconvincing, 
 then the whole story collapses. If the author 
 uses imagination in writing the story, and con- 
 centrates on each scene, each situation, and 
 works them out to the best of his ability, 
 there need be little worry about disposing of 
 the completed script. 
 
 It is often said that all that is necessary is 
 an idea. My experience has been to the con- 
 trary. A producer is interested in any good 
 idea, but he is more interested in the way the 
 idea is developed. The theme may be an in- 
 teresting one, but the producer is more con- 
 cerned about the construction of the story. 
 The idea is merely the basis or foundation. 
 
 The first one to be sold on a story is the 
 writer himself. First, he must have a good 
 theme. There must be a good reason for the 
 story, and the theme is the reason. With that 
 as the foundation, work must then be started 
 on the construction. After the story is com- 
 pleted the author should read it carefully. He 
 should put himself in the place of the pro- 
 ducer and try and imagine himself the pros- 
 pective purchaser. If the completed manu- 
 
 67
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 script is fool-proof, and is really a big and 
 meritorious piece of work, it will be sold. If 
 the author tries to make his story "different," 
 if it is. based on a good theme, with plenty of 
 atmosphere, tense situations, dramatic sus- 
 pense, sufficient romance to flavor it, and con- 
 siderable mystery and intrigue, all of which 
 lead up to a strong climax, it will find a ready 
 market. 
 
 Do not inject too much atmosphere. Too 
 much atmosphere interrupts the plot and in- 
 terferes with the smoothness of the story. 
 Don't clutter up the script with a lot of scenes 
 and things which have no direct bearing on 
 the plot or the outcome of the story. These 
 things will only delay the action and cause 
 the picture to drag. There is no better cure 
 for insomnia than a story that drags. Many 
 good stories have been spoiled because the 
 author tarried too long and introduced an 
 over-abundance of atmosphere, and bits of de- 
 tail, which had no connection with the ulti- 
 mate climax. 
 
 Recently I wrote a story around a matador 
 of Spain, entitled "The Siren of Seville." 
 
 68
 
 \ V - 
 
 Eugene O'Brien
 
 Constructing the Story 
 
 The colorful background offered many possi- 
 bilities for innumerable expensive sets. The 
 matador is a very picturesque character; a 
 very heroic and romantic figure. The realiza- 
 tion of this, together with the interesting cus- 
 toms of the Spanish people especially the 
 Sevilanos provided a wealth of material. 
 But it was necessary to ignore everything 
 which could not be conveniently woven into 
 the plot, otherwise the progress of the story 
 would t>e retarded. Every scene should ad- 
 vance the plot. Pretty scenes mean nothing 
 unless they are used as a background for 
 action. Beautiful shots are worthless if we 
 are sacrificing interest in order to show them. 
 Nothing should be introduced unless it has a 
 real important connection with the plot. In 
 a story with foreign atmosphere, the author 
 must necessarily introduce the customs of the 
 people, but he should never stop his story to 
 do it. The customs should play an important 
 part in the plot of the story, so that while we 
 are interesting and amusing our audience, we 
 are instructing and educating them as well. 
 
 69
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 Take the audience with you. Confuse your 
 characters, and lead the audience to believe it 
 is being taken into your confidence. But sur- 
 prise it at the right moment. Permit me to 
 modestly refer to a situation in "The Virgin 
 of Stamboul." Achmet Hamid returns to his 
 harem and finds Resha, his favorite wife, in 
 the arms of the American, Hector Barren. 
 She locks the romantic lover in a closet. 
 Hamid enters and asks her for the key. He 
 then goes to the door of the closet, inserts the 
 key, and even unlocks the door. When I 
 reached this place in the story I paused. Thus 
 far, I had taken the audience into my confi- 
 dence. I had taken it far enough. Now I must 
 add some suspense. The audience would con- 
 clude that Hamid would open the door, permit 
 Barron to come out and then thrash him; per- 
 haps kill him. Well, as that was what the 
 audience would expect, I would inject the ele- 
 ment of surprise. I would surprise the 
 audience by surprising Resha. I would pre- 
 vent Hamid from doing the very thing Resha 
 believed he was going to do. Resha would be 
 amazed. But I wasn't thinking of Resha. I 
 
 70
 
 Constructing the Story 
 
 was thinking of my audience. In order to 
 amaze my audience I had to amaze Resha. 
 The most dignified way of surprising the 
 audience is through the characters. Never 
 deliberately fool your audience. It isn't nice, 
 and your audience doesn't like it. 
 
 Now then, I knew the audience would have 
 at least one excuse for remaining in the the- 
 atre. The cunning Hamid returned the key 
 to Resha, and, apparently confessing his 
 jealousy, expressed a desire to atone for his 
 "fleeting doubt," and promised to bring her a 
 gift, "one worthy of your cleverness, the most 
 costly in all Stamboul." Again, the audience 
 would have an excuse for not going home. 
 Resha wondered what that gift would be. So 
 would the audience. Then I stopped work 
 for two days. I too, began to wonder. What 
 would Hamid bring Resha for a present? I 
 pondered over this for some time. I must 
 have him bring her something she would least 
 expect; something the audience would least 
 expect. Finally, it came to me. I would have 
 Hamid kill Barron and bring Resha the blood- 
 stained dagger! My purpose in doing this 
 
 71
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 was two-fold: to have the audience wonder as 
 to the nature of the punishment Hamid was to 
 mete out to Barron, and the nature of the gift 
 Resha was to receive. But, greater than all 
 else, my ohject was to keep the audience in 
 the theater by holding its attention and inter- 
 est in this picture. 
 
 It is often true that during the writing of 
 a story, the author will be traveling so fast 
 toward the climax that he arrives there before 
 he should. I realized this during the writing 
 of the story just mentioned. I brought Sari 
 into the house where Hamid and Pember- 
 ton were fighting, and discovered I was rush- 
 ing toward a climax which threatened to be 
 usual and commonplace ; perhaps not in keep- 
 ing with the rest of the story. After I brought 
 Sari into the house, and she had heard the 
 fighting going on upstairs, and had seen the 
 plaster fall, I stopped work for another day. 
 As far as I could see, there was only one cli- 
 max to that story: Pemberton would come 
 downstairs, after killing Hamid, take Sari in 
 his arms, and then the fade-out. 
 
 72
 
 Guy Bates Post and H. H. Van Loan
 
 Constructing the Story 
 
 "Fine," I argued with myself, "but why not 
 surprise Sari and the audience just once 
 more?" 
 
 Then I got it. The audience would be 
 looking for Pemberton to descend the stairs 
 to the room where Sari was waiting. All 
 right; but I would delay his coming, and 
 meantime would bring the evil Hamid down 
 first, and lead them to believe that Pemberton 
 had been killed. Then Hamid would drop 
 dead at Sari's feet, as he was aboul to take 
 her in his arms. After Sari and the audience 
 had been sufficiently surprised, I would bring 
 Pemberton down. A very small twist, but ex- 
 hibitors all over the country told me this was 
 the biggest punch in the story. 
 
 My only purpose in citing these exper- 
 iences is to show how much more we can get 
 out of our story if we will spend time, care 
 and thought in its preparation. This will 
 improve the construction. It is not advisable 
 to leave a situation until we are thoroughly 
 convinced we have handled it to the best of 
 our ability. My motto, when I come to a 
 really important situation, is to work it out 
 
 73
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 exactly in the way the audience least expects. 
 The way this is done is by rejecting ideas 
 until you find the right one. 
 
 In writing a photoplay, the author should 
 always keep in mind that the actor merely 
 portrays the emotions the author seeks to 
 arouse in the audience, and unless the actor 
 is given big dramatic situations to interpret, 
 the emotions of the audience will remain un- 
 moved. The author knows when he is doing 
 his best, for his own emotions are the first to 
 be aroused, and if he doesn't get a thrill as 
 he writes he cannot expect the producer or 
 the audience to receive something he has not 
 put into his story. Nobody knows better than 
 the author when he has done a good piece of 
 work. And when he has finished a good 
 story, his judgment of values is capable of 
 deciding whether the story will be sold. He 
 may have to submit it to several producers 
 before it is accepted, but in the end he sees 
 his work has finally been appreciated. 
 
 If I ever sold a story to the first producer 
 to whom I submitted it, I would believe the 
 millennium had arrived. "The Virgin of Stam- 
 
 74
 
 Constructing the Story 
 
 boul," "The New Moon," "The Great Re- 
 deemer," "Fightin' Mad" and the majority of 
 my stories, made the usual rounds, calling on 
 nearly all the producers before they were ac- 
 cepted. One producer said "The Virgin of 
 Stamboul" was a costume picture and would 
 not be received by the public. It was not a 
 costume picture. A costume picture is a pic- 
 ture using for its background a certain period 
 in history. "Deception" was a costume pic- 
 ture; "Passion" also was in that class, and 
 others include "The Queen of Sheba," "Theo- 
 dora," "Robin Hood" and "Nero." "The 
 Virgin of Stamboul" was a story of Turkey 
 and Stamboul as they are today, and therefore 
 could not possibly be a costume picture. It 
 is true that costume pictures have never made 
 much money. This is because the people of 
 today are not particularly interested in the 
 events of yesterday. The present and the 
 future arouses our interest, but we cannot be- 
 come enthused over the ages that have passed 
 and its people of whom we know so little. 
 I would not advise a beginner to write a 
 costume story; in fact, I wouldn't suggest it 
 
 76
 
 "flow / Did It" 
 
 to anyone. They are really a drug on the 
 scenario market. 
 
 I am in favor of the type of story which 
 starts right out with mystery and suspense, 
 and which holds the interest of the audience 
 until the end. For this reason, I like to write 
 crook melodramas. There's lots of fun in 
 writing stories of this nature. I find enjoy- 
 ment in creating them. I have often started 
 a story of this sort and didn't have the slight- 
 est idea where I was going with the plot or 
 how all the mystery was going to be smoothed 
 out in the end. That's where the fun came 
 in. An author, if he takes his work seriously, 
 gets more enjoyment out of a story than any- 
 one else. 
 
 76
 
 CHAPTER V 
 SUSPENSE 
 
 One of the most important things to re- 
 member if you are attempting to write photo- 
 plays, is the interest of the audience. In 
 order to create interest that is sustained 
 throughout the entire story, you must have a 
 well-founded plot. It must be a plot that de- 
 mands action, suspense, drama, tense situa- 
 tions and romance. Take your audience into 
 your confidence, to a certain extent, but do 
 not disclose your climax until you get there. 
 You can confuse your actors all you like, and 
 mislead them as much as you choose, for in 
 so doing you will be amusing and interesting 
 your audience. But, it is a good plan to give 
 your story a different twist at the finish. This 
 acts as a surprise. People don't object to 
 being surprised, but they don't like to be 
 fooled. A story with a different twist at the 
 end will be well liked and the fans will go out 
 and talk about it. Talk is largely responsible 
 for the success of anything. 
 
 77
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 Probably those who saw "The Wonderful 
 Chance," with Eugene O'Brien, did not guess 
 how that story was going to end. I intended 
 that they shouldn't guess it, and those who 
 saw the picture know whether I succeeded in 
 keeping the outcome a secret until the very 
 end. In fact I will admit that I didn't know 
 myself how that story was going to end until 
 I had almost completed it. That's where the 
 fun often comes in for the writer. To live 
 with a set of characters for weeks at a time 
 until they seem to be living, breathing human 
 beings, is an enjoyment few have experienced 
 unless they have written a story. But to see 
 those characters come to life before your eyes, 
 and realize that you created them, and that 
 they are doing the things you prescribed for 
 them, gives the author considerable pleasure; 
 a pleasure indescribable and appreciated only 
 by those who have experienced it. 
 
 "The Wonderful Chance" was a story 
 based on actual facts. The entire first and 
 second reels were a picturization of an inci- 
 dent which transpired in New York City a few 
 years ago and is a part of the police record. 
 
 78
 
 Suspense 
 
 The bird-cage incident actually happened, and 
 the sentimental burglar who released the 
 canary was arrested on suspicion by Inspector 
 Faurot, Chief of the Detective Bureau. The 
 criminal maintained he was innocent, and 
 only confessed when, as he was being put 
 through the "third degree," the Inspector 
 suddenly hurled at him the question, "Why'n 
 Hell did you let that bird out of the cage?" 
 The man, caught off his guard, registered 
 guilt. He realized the game was up and 
 confessed. The criminal had left no clue, 
 apparently, but an empty bird-cage, and it 
 was due to the marvelous deduction of In- 
 spector Faurot that the man was arrested and 
 later sent back to Sing Sing. 
 
 Out of a list of thirty-six convicts released 
 from Sing Sing three days before a certain 
 burglary was committed in Brooklyn, the 
 Inspector picked out the man he believed 
 capable of possessing sentiment enough to 
 release an imprisoned bird from a cage in a 
 home the man had visited and burglarized. 
 The deduction was perfect and one of the 
 finest pieces of detective work on record. 
 
 79
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 The bird-cage incident inspired "The Won- 
 derful chance." It was the motive, premise 
 or theme, and the scene wherein the burglar 
 opened the cage and gave the bird its freedom 
 was the best situation in the story. It was 
 the best because it was the truth, and was 
 stranger than fiction. Of course in the story 
 it was not advisable to send our hero, "Swag- 
 ger Barlow," back to prison. That would 
 have meant a repetition of plot. Therefore 
 the hero was made to reform. Then the 
 next step was to put obstacles in his path and 
 surround him with temptations in order to 
 make the struggle between the good and evil 
 forces. "Swagger Barlow" was the type of 
 man who, through environment and circum- 
 stances over which he had no control, became 
 a law-breaker. He was bad. But he didn't 
 want to be bad; he wanted to be good. He 
 wanted to be a credit to society. He knew he 
 could be a gentleman if opportunity would 
 only give him a chance. His desire had al- 
 ways been to move in the best circles; to be 
 respected and admired by the better class. 
 All his life he had been waiting for the 
 
 80
 
 Tom Mix Appeared in "The Speed Maniac" and "Three Gold Coins'
 
 Suspense 
 
 wonderful chance to be a gentleman. Finally 
 the opportunity came, and it came as it 
 usually does, when it is least expected. Like 
 many other young men, "Swagger Barlow" 
 recognized it when it came and grasped it. 
 He could be a gentleman. He would prove 
 it. He did, and he received a just reward. 
 
 Every story should have a moral. "The 
 Wonderful Chance" had one. It pointed out 
 the necessity for our recognizing opportunity 
 the wonderful chance when it comes to 
 us. It may be thrust upon us, just as it was 
 on "Swagger Barlow," but the main thing is 
 to grasp it. 
 
 Perhaps those who saw this picture went 
 home and talked about it. Supposing that 
 they did, what incident or situation remained 
 stamped indelibly on their minds ? The bird- 
 cage incident. It was "different." Although 
 it may have seemed like fiction, it was fact. I 
 desired to deliver my message through that 
 particular incident. The finer qualities in the 
 soul of "Swagger Barlow," which made him 
 dislike seeing anything caged up, after the 
 long years he had spent in prison, was a beau-
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 tiful sentiment. I do not take the credit for 
 it and it was all the more beautiful because 
 it was lifted from a chapter of life and was 
 something that absolutely happened. It was 
 my reason for writing the story. 
 
 Give your audience something to remem- 
 ber; something they will think about and talk 
 about, after leaving the theatre, and your story 
 will be a success. If you give them only one 
 incident which will remain in their memory, 
 your labor has not then been in vain. If 
 they forget your story the next day, then you 
 have no reason, or right, to be proud of your 
 work. 
 
 Don't preach any doctrines, and refrain 
 from making your story appear as propaganda. 
 People go to the churches when they want ser- 
 mons, and attend lectures when they wish to 
 fill up on any particular subject. Give them 
 thrilling melodrama, and if you wish to con- 
 vey a good thought or show the results of a 
 kindly deed, drop it into your plot. But 
 don't feature it, or gloat over it through the 
 entire story. Your audience is intelligent. 
 The man who recently stated that the average
 
 Suspense 
 
 picture audience is composed of people who 
 have the mind and intellect of a fourteen- 
 year-old should himself be wearing swaddling 
 clothes. The most brilliant minds on earth 
 are regular attendants at moving picture 
 theatres because it is the greatest source of 
 entertainment, amusement and instruction, all 
 combined into one, that the world has ever 
 known. Your audience is intelligent, and if 
 you want to slip it a little message, it will get 
 it without any unnecessary effort on your part. 
 If you have only one scene in your story 
 that will arouse discussion and commenda- 
 tion, your story is a success. People will go 
 out and talk about that one scene. Try and 
 put a message in every story you write. See 
 that it has a moral in it. Avoid sordid things. 
 Make them laugh a little and cry a little, but 
 send them away feeling good, and if pos- 
 sible, in better spirits than when they en- 
 tered. Make your heroes real, manly men, 
 and don't let them do absurd things. Keep 
 your heroines sweet and above adverse criti- 
 cism. Try to show the beautiful things there 
 are in the world, and don't continually depict 
 
 83
 
 / Did It" 
 
 the unpleasantness about us. Don't make 
 your heroine a poor stenographer who falls 
 into the evil arms of her employer. Other 
 girls in other walks of life are just as suscep- 
 tible to temptation and stub their toes just as 
 easily. Don't always pick on the stenographer. 
 Lots of them are good and not all of them are 
 poor. 
 
 Waste no superfluous words. The main 
 thing to bear in mind is, first, to establish a 
 reason for your story, and then start for the 
 climax. Perhaps the best definition of any 
 story is a premise and a chase. It is better to 
 limit the number of characters to as few as 
 possible. Too many principals confuse the 
 audience and tend to complicate matters and 
 involve the plot. This results in the audience 
 mixing labor with its amusement. Those who 
 go to the theatre are seeking relaxation from 
 personal or business cares and they want to be 
 amused and interested without any great 
 mental effort. Too many leading characters 
 make it hard for the audience to follow the 
 story, and subtract instead of adding to the 
 interest.
 
 William Desmond Made a Phenomenal Hit in "Fightin" Mad"
 
 Suspense 
 
 The most important element in a photoplay 
 is suspense. A story that has plenty of thrill- 
 ing suspense is sure to be a success. Every 
 successful photoplay has it. Who can forget 
 that remarkable scene in "The Miracle Man," 
 when that little youngster, who had been 
 physically twisted and distorted since birth, 
 hesitated as he gazed with eyes filled with faith 
 towards "the miracle man." There was sus- 
 pense. The audience sat breathless as it 
 wondered what was going to happen next. In 
 order to prolong that suspense, Director 
 Tucker cut from the boy to Thomas Meighan, 
 Betty Compson and Joseph Bowling. Both 
 Betty Compson and Meighan stood motionless 
 as they stared toward the boy. The situation 
 was worked up to such a height that the 
 audience by this time was experiencing every 
 emotion reflected by the actors, and, when the 
 boy dropped his crutches and started stumb- 
 ling unaided up the path toward Joseph Dow- 
 ling, it was the culmination of a suspense 
 never before equalled on the screen. That 
 scene, alone, was sufficient to make that pic- 
 ture a success. 
 
 86
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 In that great Thomas H. Ince production, 
 "Behind the Door," there was some tremen- 
 dous suspense. The commander of a German 
 submarine seizes the wife of the captain of a 
 merchant ship and submerges with her while 
 her husband is powerless to interfere. He 
 knows what her fate will be, and as the grin- 
 ning face of the commander appears at a port- 
 hole, the captain shakes his fist at him and 
 vows that he will find him some day, and when 
 he does, he will skin him alive! 
 
 Months later, the merchant ship is at- 
 tacked by a submarine and she fights back 
 and sends the evil craft to the bottom. There 
 is one survivor. That survivor is the man 
 who stole the captain's wife. From the mo- 
 ment the German commander is brought 
 aboard the ship, until the last scene in the pic- 
 ture, the entire sequence is filled with sus- 
 pense. It was thrilling, and the audience sat 
 there tense and speechless, enjoying every 
 foot of it, and never relaxed until the last 
 scene in the picture was reached. The popu- 
 larity of "Behind the Door" was due to that 
 two reels of suspense. 
 
 86
 
 Suspense 
 
 Both of these stories were written by 
 authors who know the value of suspense. 
 Frank L. Packard handled it like a master in 
 "The Miracle Man," and the same can be said 
 of Gouverneur Morris and "Behind the Door." 
 The directors and casts deserve great praise 
 for the way in which they interpreted their 
 roles, but the stories were fool-proof. A fool- 
 proof story is bound to bring forth the best ef- 
 forts of a director and his actors because they 
 are inspired to do their best. 
 
 Who can forget the masterful way in which 
 Griffith handled suspense in "Orphans of the 
 Storm?" He tore the blind Louise from her 
 sister, Henriette, and then took all the time he 
 desired in bringing them together again. And 
 all this time he was working on the emotions 
 of his audience to such an extent that when 
 the scene is reached where Henriette sees 
 Louise from the balcony and yet is unable to 
 reach her, the patron is not occupying one- 
 half of the seat which he paid for when he en- 
 tered. It's hard to equal that sort of sus- 
 pense, and it's always sure-fire. But it's 
 nothing more than every-day, dyed-in-the- 
 
 87
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 wool, blown-in-the-bottle melodrama. But 
 Griffith is a master at it. He knows the value 
 of suspense and he always gives it to us. He 
 gave us a lot of it in "Way Down East." 
 There, it was the famous ice scene, when Lil- 
 lian Gish is floating down the river on a cake 
 of ice and Barthelmess is trying to reach her. 
 He prolonged that suspense until the girl gets 
 to the very edge of the falls, and by that time 
 the spectator is almost a nervous wreck. But 
 the audience loves it. The public loves to be 
 thrilled. That's why there's always a crowd 
 around an accident or an arrest. That's why 
 the newspapers devote considerable space to 
 deeds of daring. We love to be thrilled, and 
 the writer who can thrill his audience by giv- 
 ing it excellent suspense is sure to find his 
 work in great demand. 
 
 88
 
 Guy Price, Dramatic Editor of the Los Angeles Herald, and "Real Pal' 
 
 of the Author
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 PERSISTENCY 
 
 The secret of success in any walk of life is 
 merely to know what the public wants, and 
 then being able to serve it in the most attrac- 
 tive manner. For those who can do this, and 
 who manifest an infinite capacity for taking 
 pains, there is great reward. The world refers 
 to such persons as geniuses. The first one to 
 discover your worth, your possibilities, is you. 
 If you honestly and sincerely believe that you 
 are capable of writing photoplays you will win 
 out. It is unfortunate that the struggle to 
 succeed is difficult and usually demands con- 
 siderable sacrificing and suffering, but this is 
 because our whole system of things is wrong. 
 But as it is too late now to change that sys- 
 tem, we will probably have to be contented 
 with it. 
 
 Study your public and find out what it 
 wants. Also find out what it doesn't want. 
 While you're doing this, you must aim to 
 
 89
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 please the women. A story that doesn't inter- 
 est the feminine portion of your audience is 
 not a success. If the women endorse a pic- 
 ture it is certain to be a success. Wives in- 
 form their husbands of their likes and dis- 
 likes. The young man asks his sweetheart 
 which one of the current productions she 
 would like to see. He goes where she wants 
 to go. Then, too, you must remember that 
 women always outnumber the men in any 
 amusement place. The success of Cecil B. 
 De Mille's pictures is due to the fact that he 
 appeals to the women with his productions. 
 The majority of his productions feature the 
 feminine sex, and in addition to this he 
 usually dresses his pictures well. He provides 
 the feminine stars with fashionable clothes 
 and surrounds them with great luxuries. Nat- 
 urally, this all interests the women, even 
 though such an atmosphere is entirely beyond 
 their expectations. 
 
 There has never been a time when the pro- 
 ducers were so eager to get good screen sto- 
 ries, and there has never been such a theatre- 
 going public as there is today. 
 
 90
 
 Persistency 
 
 "The era of good films is arriving," says 
 Thomas H. Ince. "The most important of 
 all factors having to do with the continued 
 popularity of the screen is new story material 
 for pictures, stories of sufficient interest and 
 basic theme to hold the attention of American 
 and European audiences. 
 
 "There has been much talk during the last 
 year of motion pictures having lost the good 
 will of the American public and of American 
 pictures losing their great international fol- 
 lowing. 
 
 "After a five months' sojourn in New York, 
 during which I came into contact with most 
 of the leaders of every branch of the industry 
 and having every opportunity to study every 
 phase of the picture screen away from my 
 studios, I am convinced that pictures, partic- 
 ularly the splendid American productions of 
 the finished type, are just coming into their 
 greatest day. 
 
 "I intend to devote more attention than 
 ever before to the story foundation for it has 
 been my observation that the picture-going 
 
 91
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 millions have never been indifferent toward a 
 good screen story." 
 
 The trouble in the past has been, to a great 
 extent, a lack of sufficiently good stories. We 
 have been conscious of a pronounced lack of 
 truth, or originality and spontaneous appeal 
 in the story. There has been a continued 
 foisting upon audiences of threadbare and ill- 
 chosen plots. Also poor stories, and the dis- 
 tortion of both plot and characters, and even 
 titles, when a picture was supposedly made 
 from some well-known book or play. The 
 public is tired of sex pictures, western melo- 
 dramas and pictures which are imitations of 
 "hits." As soon as one particular type of 
 story has made a "hit," a group of the smaller 
 producers have been in the habit of sending 
 out a hurry call for a similar one. Recently 
 a picture based on a rather sensational hymn 
 was favorably received in certain sections of 
 the country, and immediately there was a 
 great deal of excitement, on the part of some 
 of the independent producers to make more 
 like it. I submitted a Spanish story to a pro- 
 ducer about this time and he handed it back 
 
 92
 
 Persistency 
 
 to me with the remark: "Go and write me a 
 story like 'Where is my Wandering Arbutus 
 Tonight?' Within a week, I received three 
 requests to write "wandering" stories. I 
 havent' written one of them yet. 
 
 The public wants simple, wholesome, hu- 
 man stories, with sincere men, faithful women, 
 and if the public ever wearies of motion pic- 
 tures it will be for the reason that they haven't 
 appealed to the best that is in it. 
 
 Some people think that the moving picture 
 has injured the legitimate stage. Those who 
 know will deny that. There is no clash at 
 all, and each will continue to attract its 
 audiences. When the pictures give us stories 
 that are more consistent, truer reflections of 
 human life, human conflict, human tears and 
 human smiles, rather than sensational and 
 indelicate themes, the moving picture will be 
 more popular than the stage. 
 
 The root of the whole matter lies in its 
 youth. It has left its infancy and is develop- 
 ing into a big, ruddy youngster. Youth is 
 susceptible, and the public is to blame for 
 not asking for something better than it has
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 had. If some of the pictures have been sala- 
 cious, it has been because the public wanted 
 it. The producer plays up to the public de- 
 mand, and the public gets what it wants. If 
 the public manifested enough interest in the 
 Bible, and desired to see it on the screen all 
 of it, from Genesis to Revelation the pro- 
 ducer would gladly satisfy that demand. 
 
 Some people have been of the opinion that 
 the progress of the moving picture is limited 
 and that it hasn't much farther to go. It has 
 made tremendous strides; it is here to stay, 
 and it will make a very noticeable advance- 
 ment in the future. Its progress will amaze 
 the public, because the producer, the author 
 and the director are determined that it shall 
 improve. 
 
 Let us look into the future and prophesy 
 a little. In the first place, there are going to 
 be fewer pictures. But they are going to be 
 bigger and better, because the author is going 
 to spend more time on his stories. Those 
 authors who have been writing ten or fifteen 
 stories a year will not write more than three 
 or four in the future. They will be better 
 
 94
 
 Persistency 
 
 and bigger stories, and the producer is going 
 to spend more time in making them into pic- 
 tures. There will be a greater expenditure 
 of money on each production. Thus, when 
 the producer sells his picture he will get more 
 money for it. The exhibitor will take these 
 pictures and run them for an indefinite period 
 in his theatre, and will charge the public more 
 money for seeing them. The public will quite 
 willingly pay the increased admission. The 
 public is always willing to pay a good price 
 for quality. The pictures will be handled 
 very much like legitimate plays and will be 
 booked for a run in each city. The exhibitor 
 will keep the picture in his theatre until the 
 community has seen it. The pictures will 
 probably be shown in only one theatre in each 
 city, and this will enhance their value to the 
 exhibitor, from a box-office viewpoint. 
 
 The name of the author will be featured 
 and he will receive the credit for the success or 
 failure of the production. In the past, he has 
 usually received full credit only when the 
 picture was a failure. The success or failure 
 of future productions is going to be solely up 
 
 95
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 to the author, and he will not be able to es- 
 tablish a reasonable excuse if it fails. If his 
 stories are good his name will be a box-office 
 attraction and the public will know him by his 
 work. 
 
 Certain stars will always enjoy a consider- 
 able amount of popularity. But the star's era 
 has passed, and if the author makes good the 
 star will never return to those glorious days of 
 the past when his name outside of a theatre 
 was sufficient to make the public flock to that 
 particular house. In the future he will 
 merely be included in the cast of characters 
 and will receive the praise he deserves for his 
 interpretation of a particular role. 
 
 Grim persistency is responsible for most of 
 the success in this world, and if you haven't 
 got that then you had better be satisfied to re- 
 main in the procession and trot along with the 
 parade. If you have got an indomitable will 
 power to make good, then some day you'll find 
 yourself up there with the drum major, lead- 
 ing the procession. In fact, you'll be ahead 
 of the drum major. 
 
 96
 
 Warner Oland Plavrd the Male Lead in the Pathe Serial, "The Third Eye"
 
 Persistency 
 
 You can't write a story overnight. If 
 you do you won't sell it, because you couldn't 
 possibly give it the thought and care it is 
 rightfully entitled to, in that length of time. 
 If you write for one solid year and never sell a 
 line, don't be discouraged. You are receiving 
 a valuable training, during the meantime, and 
 after you've broken the ice and sold your first 
 story, you will look back on those days per- 
 haps days of discouragement as the days of 
 your apprenticeship. If it's worth an attempt, 
 it's worth patience. 
 
 I wrote for nearly two years before I sold 
 my first story. And like many others, it 
 was quite by accident that I sold it. For the 
 benefit of those who are inclined to become 
 discouraged, I will relate how I came to dis- 
 pose of my first screen story. 
 
 While the World War was in progress, I 
 picked up the evening paper one day and 
 read a remarkable story by an Associated 
 Press correspondent. He had succeeded in 
 getting through the German lines. For some 
 time he was held a prisoner, but later suc- 
 ceeded in making his escape. While within 
 
 97
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 the German lines, he happened to be in a 
 small town in France one day while the Ger- 
 mans were marching their captives to the 
 rear. Included in this procession were a large 
 number of attractive French girls, who were 
 being transported to Germany to do manual 
 labor. 
 
 As the procession passed, the correspondent 
 noticed that the bosom of each woman was 
 bared and on the center of each woman's 
 breast was painted an ugly cross, in red. The 
 newspaper man was horrified, and he stepped 
 up to a German lieutenant and asked him 
 what the insignia meant. The lieutenant 
 sneeringly replied that these girls had re- 
 mained obstinate they would not bend to 
 the German will and, as a warning to others 
 in the towns through which they would pass, 
 they had been branded with "the cross of 
 shame." 
 
 A few months later I was engaged by a film 
 company to make a trip around the world, 
 making scenic pictures. I got as far as Hono- 
 lulu. The company decided to go into the 
 steel business and I found myself without a 
 
 98
 
 Persistency 
 
 job, and about 7000 miles from New York. 
 However, the company had been kind enough 
 not to leave me stranded, and cabled me 
 enough money to return to New York, if I 
 cared to come back; if I didn't, they weren't 
 particularly interested. 
 
 Arriving in San Francisco, I decided that I 
 would run down to Los Angeles and see "how 
 the movies are made." I did. I liked the 
 place. In fact, I liked it so much that the 
 first thing I knew I had spent my carfare. I 
 was a stranger in a strange land, and decided 
 about the best thing for me to do would be to 
 write some stories, sell them, and then go on 
 to New York. All of which was easier said 
 than done. 
 
 So, I started to write. And, the interesting 
 part of it is, that I didn't attempt to write 
 scenarios; it never occurred to me to do so. I 
 was going to write fiction stories, and I was 
 only 3400 miles from the place where they 
 buy such things! 
 
 At the time I made the resolution that I 
 would write, I had no idea what I would 
 write about. In fact, with the exception of 
 
 99
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 two short stories which I had managed to get 
 out of my system a few years before, I had no 
 concrete proof that I could do what I had re- 
 solved I must do. 
 
 Finally, I recalled that story of "the cross 
 of shame." I would write a novelette around 
 that fact. The news item had made such an 
 impression on my mind at the time of read- 
 ing that I remembered every word of it. So 
 I began writing the story, and gave it the title, 
 "The Cross of Shame." 
 
 One day, a little later, my wife returned 
 from a shopping jaunt and told me of a very 
 fine picture which was being exhibited in a 
 downtown jewelry store window. It was a 
 painting of Mary Pickford, in the role of a 
 Red Cross nurse. She was kneeling beside 
 the cot of a soldier as she dressed his wounds. 
 The soldier was Wallie Reid. 
 
 That evening I sought out this window and 
 studied the painting. It was a beautiful work, 
 with fine tones and excellent lighting, and 
 seemed like the work of a famous artist. As 
 I gazed at this painting I decided that the 
 artist that painted this picture ought to make 
 
 100
 
 Earle Williams. Star of "The Highest Trump," "A Rogue's Romance," 
 "When a Man Loves," and "Bring Him In"
 
 Persistency 
 
 some illustrations for my story, "The Cross of 
 Shame." The signature was that of Olga 
 Printzlau, who later worked with William 
 De Mille, and is responsible for such excellent 
 adaptations as "Conrad in Quest of His 
 Youth," "The Bachelor Daddy" and many 
 other successes. I made a note of the name 
 and the next morning found her address in the 
 telephone book, and, calling her up, made an 
 appointment for an interview. 
 
 The next afternoon I called at her home, in- 
 troduced myself and told her the purpose of 
 my visit. She then told me the story of the 
 picture I had admired so much. It had been 
 ordered by Mary Pickf ord, and it was the first 
 time this famous screen star had ever posed 
 for a painting of herself. Being an ardent 
 admirer of Miss Printzlau's work, she had 
 commissioned her to make the painting, and 
 had paid an excellent price for the picture. 
 
 I related to Miss Printzlau the story I was 
 just completing, and asked her if she would 
 make the illustrations. Even though she was 
 very busy at the time, she promised to make 
 every effort to do this work. She was quite 
 
 101
 
 "Hot* I Did It" 
 
 enthusiastic over my story and asked me if I 
 had disposed of the picture rights. I con- 
 fessed I had not thought of the screen, and 
 was not interested in that sort of work. I 
 confided to her that I had listened to the 
 grievances of many of my friends who had 
 spent hours and days waiting outside the office 
 of scenario editors, and had resolved long be- 
 fore that I would not subject myself to such 
 embarrassment. 
 
 Miss Printzlau then said that she thought I 
 had a "sure-fire" sale in this story, and ad- 
 vised me to waste no time in getting it before 
 a scenario editor, as she was convinced it 
 would result in an immediate sale. I smiled, 
 and raised a protesting hand. You see, I was 
 being forced into it. But she was persistent, 
 and asked me to go and see C. Gardner Sulli- 
 van, scenario editor at the Ince Studios, and 
 let him read the story. I confessed that almost 
 all the manuscript was in the office of the pub- 
 lisher in New York for I had succeeded in 
 selling the story upon submitting the first two 
 chapters and that all I could give Sullivan 
 
 102
 
 Persistency 
 
 would be a verbal synopsis. She pleaded with 
 me to take that to him. 
 
 "Go and tell it to him," she said. "That's 
 all you need to do. There is such a demand 
 for good stories today that an editor is satis- 
 fied merely to get an idea." 
 
 I promised her I would think it over. But 
 I admit that I dismissed it from my mind, and 
 when I saw her a week later, and in reply to 
 her questioning, confessed that I had not done 
 anything about it, she seemed greatly disap- 
 pointed. Then I gave it serious consideration. 
 For a stranger to take such an interest in my 
 story was indeed extraordinary. So partially 
 because of this, and in order to show her that 
 I appreciated her interest, I agreed to act on 
 her advice. 
 
 Accordingly, I went to the Ince Studio and 
 succeeded in obtaining an interview with 
 Sullivan. I told him I was not there of my 
 own free will; that I had never taken the 
 screen seriously, and had no copy of the story. 
 You see, even though I had gone this far, I 
 was still prejudiced. Sullivan was most 
 courteous and gave me two hours of his time 
 
 103
 
 "flow / Did It" 
 
 as he listened to my verbal synopsis. He said 
 nothing during that length of time, and gave 
 me no outward sign of what he thought of my 
 story. I had decided, long before I com- 
 pleted the narrative, that we had both lost two 
 valuable hours. 
 
 But imagine my surprise when he said, 
 after a slight pause, when I had finished; "It's 
 a great story ! . . . Just the thing we've been 
 looking for. . . . It'll make an excellent ve- 
 hicle for Dorothy Dalton. . . . How much do 
 you want for it?" 
 
 This was too much, even for an underfed 
 writer to withstand all in one breath, and I 
 was so excited that I requested a little more 
 time in which to think it over. I left him, 
 agreeing to phone him in a day or two. 
 
 I did phone him, as I had promised, and 
 sold the story to Mr. Ince within a week. I 
 stipulated that C. Gardner Sullivan must write 
 the continuity, for I had long been an admirer 
 of his work. This was agreed, and he made 
 an excellent adaptation of the story. Mr. 
 Ince personally supervised the production and 
 gave it some beautiful settings; in fact, the 
 
 104
 
 Eugene O'Brien and H. H. Van Loan Discussing "The Wonderful Chance"
 
 Persistency 
 
 "Ince standard," which always means the very 
 highest of quality in pictures, was maintained 
 throughout the entire production. Dorothy 
 Dalton was very enthusiastic over the role of 
 "Jeannette Bouchette," and gave one of the 
 finest performances of her career. It was one 
 of my favorite stories, and to this day it has 
 remained my favorite picture because of its 
 high-class presentation by a man who has the 
 largest number of successes to his credit and 
 who has consistently maintained a high stand- 
 ard of film productions. The picture was re- 
 leased under the title "Vive la France!" 
 
 That story changed the whole course of my 
 career, and instead of turning my steps 
 toward magazine writing, I decided to devote 
 all my efforts to creating stories for the 
 screen. It opened the way to greater things. 
 Since then I've sold every story I've written, 
 and I attribute it to Mary Pickford's decision 
 to have a portrait of herself painted; secondly, 
 to her having chosen Olga Printzlau to do the 
 work, and thirdly, to my wife's persistent 
 habit of gazing into shop windows. 
 
 106
 
 "Hotc / Did It" 
 
 So it is probable that "America's Sweet- 
 heart" has never known until now how much 
 her picture accomplished for one poor, strug- 
 gling writer for the story is told here for the 
 first time. 
 
 I have told this story simply to encourage 
 others who are trying to write for the screen. 
 If God has given you the gift to create plots, 
 all I can say is, "Keep at it." Let nothing de- 
 tract you from your work. Stick to it until you 
 reach the borders of purgatory, and then put 
 on an asbestos suit and wade through the in- 
 ferno. But never permit your courage and 
 faith to weaken for a moment. That same 
 rule can be applied to all walks of life. It is 
 called "persistency." It eventually brings suc- 
 cess. How often we hear the statement, "If 
 I'd only stuck a little longer, I'd have made 
 a fortune." It's the "sticking" quality that 
 wins. The one who sticks is the one who 
 succeeds, even though he has to crawl on his 
 hands and knees. To finish to be among 
 those who endured that is what counts. 
 
 106
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 TITLES 
 
 Devote considerable thought to the main 
 title of your story. Don't accept the first title 
 that comes to you. It won't be the best title 
 for your story. Spend as much time in the se- 
 lection of your title as you spend on the 
 story itself. Of course many times the pro- 
 ducer changes titles, but when you send your 
 story to him you have every reason to believe 
 he will retain the original title. If it is really 
 good, he will probably use it. 
 
 Often we find, upon completion of a story, 
 that the working out of the plot has provided 
 us with a better title than we had in the be- 
 ginning. Perhaps this wouldn't occur to you. 
 But think it over, before and after, and see if 
 your title is a good one. Make certain that 
 your title delivers the message. The title 
 should attract attention, arouse interest and 
 create desire. If it does this it is a drawing 
 power for the box-office. In the majority of 
 
 107
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 cases the title sells the story, both to the pro- 
 ducer and the public. The title is the adver- 
 tisement of the story and the producer de- 
 pends on it to get the exhibitor to book it 
 and the exhibitor depends on it to draw the 
 patrons to his theatre. 
 
 In addition to this, be sure to keep the 
 length of your title short. Use as few words 
 as possible. Remember the average space re- 
 served for the incandescent lights announcing 
 the current production in front of a theatre 
 will not accommodate more than a dozen let- 
 ters. It peeves the exhibitor to have a long 
 title, with four or five words, and he has to 
 fret and fume as he ponders how he is to dis- 
 play the name of the production without 
 eliminating some of the words. When he is 
 compelled to reduce the number of words in 
 the title it affects the neatness of the front of 
 the theatre. But more important than all 
 else, it registers a noticeable decrease in re- 
 ceipts. 
 
 The writer of photoplays must realize that 
 the title is just as important as the story itself. 
 Many stories have been sold to producers 
 
 108
 
 Titles 
 
 because the title had a "punch" in it. The 
 title is the first thing the producer reads, and 
 if it is a good snappy one, it doesn't require 
 much effort to make him read the script. A 
 good title will always arouse curiosity. Ches- 
 ter Bennett, an independent producer, told me 
 he bought a story recently because of its 
 title. The title was "Rock of Ages." That 
 is a good title for a story. On the other hand, 
 if the title is not a good one the interest of 
 the producer fails to be stirred. Perhaps he 
 decides that such a mediocre title will prob- 
 ably be followed by a mediocre story, and he 
 will not even take the time to read it. 
 
 However, the judgment of the experienced 
 screen writer and the producer are not always 
 correct in the choosing of titles. Every sea- 
 son there are many good photoplays, with fine 
 plots, portrayed by excellent actors, which fail 
 to reap financial harvests predicted for them, 
 because of poor titles. I will cite an expe- 
 rience of mine along this line. 
 
 When I sold "The Great Redeemer" to 
 Maurice Tourneur I especially requested that 
 he retain the original title. He was some- 
 
 109
 
 "How 1 Did It 
 
 what opposed to it, and said he feared it was 
 too religious and would keep a good many 
 people away from the theatre. I disagreed 
 with him, and much to his regret, he kept my 
 title. 
 
 I happened to he in San Francisco when 
 the picture was showing at the California 
 Theatre, and I asked Eugene Roth, the man- 
 aging director of the house, what sort of busi- 
 ness he did with the picture. He shook his 
 head as he informed me that receipts fell be- 
 low the average that week. At the end of the 
 run, he said, he called a meeting of his staff 
 in his office and solicited their opinions as to 
 what caused the slump. He had expected to 
 do a big business with the picture, and he was 
 at a loss to understand why he didn't. It 
 played during a profitable season of the year; 
 the weather was good, and the general com- 
 ment of the audience as it passed out was that 
 it was a fine picture. In view of these things, 
 the concensus of opinion of his staff was that 
 the title was against it. People paused in 
 front of the theatre, looked at the title, "The 
 Great Redeemer," and passed on down the 
 
 no
 
 Titles 
 
 street. It evidently was a religious picture. 
 Therefore, they didn't want to see it. Man- 
 ager Fred Miller, of the California Theatre in 
 Los Angeles, told me he booked the picture 
 for two weeks because he believed he would do 
 a great business with it. Like Mr. Roth, he was 
 disappointed, and his reason was the same. I 
 then realized I had make a grave mistake in 
 insisting that the original title be retained. 
 
 The title must have a pulling power. It is 
 a fact that a good story with a poor title will 
 deny the producer thousands of dollars which 
 he is rightfully entitled to on the merits of his 
 production. It is also true that an excellent 
 title will very often put a poor picture over. 
 Such titles as "Don't Change Your Wife." 
 "Ladies Must Live," "Reported Missing" and 
 "Passion" arouse the curiosity of those who 
 attend picture theatres. They also attract the 
 attention of the floating population, who 
 wander aimlessly up and down the main 
 thoroughfare of a city wondering where to 
 seek amusement. If they pause before a 
 theatre which illuminates a striking title they 
 will undoubtedly want to see the picture. 
 
 111
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 They are attracted inside because they believe 
 there's something promising behind that par- 
 ticular title. 
 
 One often hears it said, among producers, 
 "The title made that picture," and it is very 
 often true. 
 
 Be sure and give your story the very best 
 title it is possible for you to give it. It may 
 be the means of your selling the story, and the 
 selling of your story may be the means of 
 breaking the ice for you and starting you on 
 the road to success. Concentrate on the title. 
 I cannot impress this too forcibly on the aspir- 
 ant. A few years ago, a producer paid me 
 two hundred and fifty dollars for a title. I 
 wrote a story and called it "The Mirth of a 
 Nation," and Julius Stern, producer of Cen- 
 tury Comedies, liked it so well that he asked 
 me if I would sell him the title, alone. I did, 
 and he paid me the above-mentioned sum. 
 
 Only recently a producer offered to buy the 
 title, "The Siren of Seville" for one thousand 
 dollars, and another asked me if I would sell 
 him "Thundering Silence" for the same 
 amount. But I refused both offers, because 
 
 112
 
 Titles 
 
 they absolutely fit the stories. I had spent 
 weeks in thinking up those titles. On another 
 occasion, a producer thought up a good title 
 and paid me to write a story around it. 
 
 us
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 PRESENTATION 
 
 Don't attempt to write continuity unless 
 you know how. It is a separate work in itself 
 and should not be written, or attempted, ex- 
 cept by those who have made a study of it. 
 Today every studio has a very efficient staff of 
 continuity writers who are paid very good 
 prices for putting stories into technical shape 
 for the screen. They are writers who have 
 made a study of this line of work and are 
 experts in it. 
 
 Very few screen authors write the con- 
 tinuities for their stories. Very few of them 
 like to do it because it is too mechanical. The 
 majority of screen writers have found that in 
 writing continuity they have not done their 
 best work because it required too close atten- 
 tion to technical detail and thus interfered 
 with the smoothness of the plot. In other 
 words, there is so much mechanical labor con- 
 nected with it that it prevents the writer from 
 doing his best on his plot. 
 
 114
 
 Presentation 
 
 However, it will do no harm for the writer 
 who desires to devote his efforts to writing 
 for the screen to take up a course in contin- 
 uity. I helieve that in two or three years from 
 now the leading screen authors will be writ- 
 ing their own continuities. It must eventually 
 come to that, for seldom is a continuity writer 
 willing to follow the story as written origin- 
 ally. This is because no two writers would 
 write the same story in the same way. 
 
 The continuity writer has his own ideas 
 about the working out of a situation. In the 
 past, he has been left alone to work out the 
 plot as he saw fit and the result has often been 
 disastrous and good stories have been muti- 
 lated and massacred beyond recognition. A 
 great deal of this destruction has been elimi- 
 nated by the author himself. For of late the 
 screen author has kept a more watchful eye 
 over his brain children and the producer is 
 quite willing to have him chaperon his script 
 through the various stages of growth until 
 it reaches the screen. 
 
 In the next year or two, the audience is 
 going to note quite frequently, "Produced 
 
 116
 
 "Hot* / Did It" 
 
 under the personal supervision of the author." 
 Today the producer is anxious and eager 
 to consult and confer with the author of 
 the story and get his ideas concerning 
 certain effects and situations. The fact that 
 he has been ignored in the past is due 
 solely to the author himself. He has not 
 been willing to realize the importance of 
 the photoplay and the tremendous influence 
 it has with all classes. He has persistently 
 refused to take the screen seriously. I am 
 referring now to the novelist and famous short 
 story writers. The result has been that the 
 screen has developed and introduced its own 
 authors, and they are writers who are willing 
 to devote all their time to writing photoplays 
 and who realize it is a very serious profes- 
 sion, demanding serious work. Those who 
 are willing to take the screen seriously are go- 
 ing to be the ones who will reap the big 
 benefits. 
 
 To those who aspire to write exclusively 
 for the screen, I cannot impress too much 
 the importance of being sincere and earnest. 
 Do not sit down and write the first idea
 
 Presentation 
 
 that comes into your head and rush it to a 
 producer. If you do, you'll get it back just 
 as fast as the producer can get it to you. He 
 gets hundreds of scripts written that way ev- 
 ery week, and they are all returned to their 
 respective authors. If you take your work 
 as lightly as that, you mustn't be surprised 
 when you get it back. You deserve to have 
 it returned. The office of a producer it not 
 a receptacle for slipshod scripts and slovenly- 
 written plots. It's a high-class institution for 
 the serious efforts of those who are sincere in 
 their desire to contribute something really 
 worth while to a great art. 
 
 Spend a month, if necessary, in mental 
 construction of the story you intend writing. 
 Be absolutely certain that you have given it 
 the thorough and careful consideration it is 
 entitled to, and then sit down and start put- 
 ting it into shape. 
 
 Don't be satisfied with the first writing of 
 it. Go over it with a critical eye and put your- 
 self in the position of the purchaser. Study 
 the action and go over each situation carefully 
 with a view to seeing if you have gotten the 
 
 117
 
 "Hotu / Did It" 
 
 most out of your story. If there's any doubt 
 in your mind lay the script aside and ponder 
 over it. Don't seek to interest the producer 
 with a lot of pretty words and beautiful 
 phrases which have no direct bearing on the 
 action of your story. He cannot photograph 
 a lot of nice words. He wants plot and ac- 
 tion. Don't worry about the length of the 
 story. If it is a good story it can't be too 
 long; providing it is all good material and 
 not a mere jungle of words. 
 
 Write your own subtitles. Make them 
 as short as possible and only put them where 
 they are actually needed and where they will 
 clarify the action. Visualize each scene and 
 describe it as you see it. Your description 
 will receive serious consideration, for you 
 are the creator of the scene and thus better 
 qualified to explain it than anyone else. 
 
 "The Great Redemer" contained about 
 thirty thousand words in the original script 
 and "The New Moon" about forty thousand. 
 In fact, most of my stories average that 
 length. I spent six weeks in writing "The 
 Great Redeemer," five weeks in completing 
 
 118
 
 Presentation 
 
 "The New Moon," two months in writing 
 "The Wonderful Chance," six weeks in writ- 
 ing "Fightin' Mad," two months was spent 
 on "Thundering Silence" and four months on 
 "The Siren of Seville." 
 
 It is not necessary to spend more than three 
 hours each day in actual labor. If you work 
 continuously on your story and complete it 
 in two or three sittings it will not represent 
 your best work. It couldn't be your best, 
 for no writer completes a story in that length 
 of time. Work on it when you feel inspired. 
 
 In "Fightin' Mad" you will note that the 
 story begins with the first subtitle. Immedi- 
 ately there is action. It is action which is 
 absolutely necessary to the progress of the 
 plot. There are no superfluous scenes, no 
 unnecessary action. Everything that is done 
 has a direct bearing on what is to transpire 
 later. There is heart interest in the affection 
 of "Bud McGraw" and his three pals. In 
 emphasizing the finer qualities of this modern 
 D'Artagnan, we command for him the sym- 
 pathy and respect of the audience. His desire 
 for adventure appeals to the youthfulness 
 
 119
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 which is in all of us. We introduce "Peggy 
 Hughes" in order that we may have the ele- 
 ment of love and romance; without which no 
 story is complete. In order to test his affec- 
 tion for her, we place her in danger. Then 
 we inject the great element of suspense, 
 upon which the success or failure of a story 
 usually depends. We take a mental inventor) 7 
 and find that we have a plot, romance, adven- 
 ture and lively action. That is all any story 
 needs, and if they are apportioned carefully, 
 and lead up to a thrilling climax, our story 
 will pass the most critical mind. 
 
 A leading producer informed me some time 
 ago that he noticed a decided decrease in the 
 number of scripts received from the public. 
 He also stated that those received showed a 
 marked improvement, indicating that more 
 care and thought are being taken by aspirants. 
 If those who are endeavoring to write for the 
 screen would appreciate how much depends 
 on the presentation of their story they would 
 spend more time in its preparation. An in- 
 ventor will spend a long time perfecting his 
 invention before he is willing to apply for a 
 
 120
 
 Presentation 
 
 patent. He realizes there is no need for rush- 
 ing it, and for each improvement he makes the 
 greater will he his reward in the end. A writer 
 is an inventor of plot and he depends on 
 his ingenuity and creative ability to develop 
 a story. The more time he spends on it the 
 greater will be his chances of having it ac- 
 cepted. There's no need of rushing it. 
 
 There is one virtue which the average em- 
 bryo writer doesn't seem to possess. It is 
 patience. Fifty per cent of the scripts which 
 are sent to the producers are accompanied 
 by urgent requests that immediate action be 
 taken and a decision rendered at once. Those 
 who are attempting to write for the screen 
 should understand the importance which goes 
 with decision. The cost of producing the story 
 may mean anywhere from thirty thousand to a 
 half a million dollars. A fortune may be at 
 stake. Perhaps the producer is going to put his 
 last dollar in his next production. He must 
 take time, in fairness to himself and to those 
 who are manifesting their faith in his judg- 
 ment by putting up the capital. To expect 
 him to render a quick decision on a story 
 
 121
 
 "Hot* I Did It" 
 
 which may mean an outlay of a hundred 
 thousand or perhaps more, is not fair. Many 
 producers work with very limited capital and 
 are only financed for each production. The 
 story must be fool-proof; it must have all the 
 evidences of a box-office attraction a picture 
 that will make money. The producer may read 
 the story and spend days reflecting over its 
 possibilities of being a success. He may like 
 certain things in it and decide he will hold it 
 for a little while, and, if nothing better comes 
 along, use it. 
 
 On the other hand, he may lack sufficient 
 capital at the present moment, or perhaps he 
 is waiting for the return of his investment 
 on his last picture before beginning work on 
 his next production. There are many ele- 
 ments which enter into the purchase if a 
 story, and they are all foreign to those on 
 the outside. Give a producer a reasonable 
 length of time in which to make his decision. 
 
 Producers are as a rule charitable, kind- 
 hearted and generous. But they cannot af- 
 ford to purchase a script because it happens 
 to have been written by "a poor widow, with 
 
 122
 
 Presentation 
 
 six fatherless children to support," or a youth 
 who is trying to "make enough money to pay 
 his college tuition." A novelist wouldn't send 
 such a letter to a book publisher and a play- 
 wright wouldn't repeat it to a stage producer. 
 Then why pour out a letter like that to a 
 film producer? Producers cannot spend a 
 hundred thousand dollars on the production 
 of a story because the writer happens to be 
 living in an alms house or is "trying to get 
 enough money to pay for mother's operation," 
 Such a condition should bring out the best that 
 is in anyone. Few rich men write successful 
 novels, books, plays or photoplays. But peo- 
 ple have been known to become rich writing 
 them. 
 
 123
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 ADAPTATIONS 
 
 In a recent issue of one of America's most 
 popular periodicals there appeared an article 
 on moving pictures which should interest 
 every individual who is endeavoring to be- 
 come a photodramatist. It said, in part: 
 
 "The next important evolution in the mo- 
 tion picture industry will be a marked ad- 
 vance in the quality of the stories filmed. 
 Scenario writing is the most experimental and 
 undeveloped end of the business. The pic- 
 ture producers are aware that an art which is 
 a copy is never as good as a copy of Nature. 
 For this reason they are looking forward to 
 the day when original stories will be the 
 thing."" 
 
 That day has already arrived. The pro- 
 ducer admits today that the original story is 
 the thing. He will confess he has had his 
 fill of adaptations of books and plays, which, 
 in order to make screen material, have been 
 
 124
 
 Adaptations 
 
 distorted and twisted and turned until they 
 could hardly be recognized. The producer 
 will further admit that he has made these 
 adaptations against his better judgment. The 
 public demanded them. In the future, the 
 majority of photoplays will be made from 
 original scripts, written by photodramatists 
 who know their screen and its technique. 
 
 When Mary Pickford and Douglas Fair- 
 banks returned from Europe, the Screen 
 Writer's Guild gave a dinner in their honor 
 one evening which was attended by nearly all 
 the screen authors in Los Angeles and Holly- 
 wood. After the dinner was over, Mary made 
 a very interesting talk. She announced that 
 she was through with adaptations of books 
 and plays, and that henceforth she wanted 
 tailor-made stories, written especially for her 
 by authors who know their screen. 
 
 This statement was a radical departure 
 from her attitude in the past. For those who 
 have been writing for the screen have always 
 realized that she preferred books and plays 
 which had been popularized before they were 
 made into pictures. A year or two ago she
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 would not have entertained an unpublished 
 story, and screen authors knew better than to 
 take their material to her for a reading. But 
 at last she has seen the light, and realizes that 
 the successful photoplays of the future will 
 come from the pen of writers who are famil- 
 iar with the screen and know how to write 
 for it. 
 
 Nine of the biggest successes last year were 
 original productions from original stories. 
 The pictures grossed approximately $500,000 
 and $750,000 each. In the future the screen 
 author will be supreme. At present producers 
 are employing the best literary talent obtain- 
 able to write their stories. Some of these 
 writers are being paid as much as $75,000 a 
 year. Isn't that goal worth striving for, dear 
 reader? Producers are paying as high as 
 $10,000 for an original script today, and they 
 are willing to pay even more in order to get 
 what they want. 
 
 However, bear in mind that the writers 
 who are receiving these big prices for their 
 stories are the ones who spend care, thought 
 and time in the development of their work. 
 
 126
 
 Adaptations 
 
 They realize that the screen is a wonderful 
 medium of entertainment and instruction, and 
 has 25,000,000 admirers who enjoy its com- 
 edies, dramas and tragedies, every week. 
 These writers take their work seriously and 
 they are entitled to the reward they receive. 
 Some of them are going to be content to write 
 not more than four or five stories a year in 
 the future. If the producers pay such writers 
 $25,000 each for four or five stories, they 
 will still be able to make a handsome profit on 
 those stories, because they will be the best 
 that the best screen authors will be able to 
 write. 
 
 It is almost impossible to put a valuation 
 on the work of an individual's brain. A story, 
 providing it is good, is worth just as much as 
 the writer thinks it is. It's worth more prob- 
 ably than he will ever get for it. If it is 
 "just the sort of story that the screen needs" 
 the producer will be quick to discover it. 
 
 Those who write their stories in long-hand 
 must be satisfied with the reception those 
 stories receive from the producer. Those who 
 spend many real, serious hours each day over
 
 "flow / Did It" 
 
 their work in their desire to turn out a story 
 that will bring results, must not become dis- 
 couraged if it is returned. The producer 
 may have a very good reason for rejecting it. 
 One producer may like the story very much, 
 but perhaps he hasn't a star to fit the role. 
 Another may turn it down because it would 
 cost more money to produce than he is in a 
 position to spend. A third may return it be- 
 cause it is not the particular type of story he 
 wants to produce. Some producers like 
 stories dealing with domestic problems ; others 
 prefer all-star productions, wherein there are 
 a number of strong roles; others want "spe- 
 cials," without featuring any particular actor 
 or actress, while others want big spectacles. 
 If the aspirant is thin-skinned and easily dis- 
 couraged, then it is better he put an end to his 
 ambitions as far as the screen is concerned, 
 and take up some other line of work. 
 
 To get anywhere, to do anything, requires 
 a tenacity of purpose, a will that cannot be 
 crushed and a determination that refuses to 
 acknowledge defeat. If you really desire to 
 become a successful photodramatist, you will. 
 
 128
 
 Adaptations 
 
 Stick to it with a grim persistency, and 
 though your script comes home a dozen times, 
 send it out once more, and maybe the next 
 time it will be accepted. The one who suc- 
 ceeds is the one who sticks to his task. You 
 can't continually fail doing any one thing, un- 
 less there's something wrong with you. 
 
 I submitted the original script of "The 
 Great Redeemer" to everyone in the industry 
 before Maurice Tourneur finally accepted it. 
 "The Virgin of Stamboul" I wrote especially 
 for Norma Talmadge and finally sold it to the 
 Universal for Priscilla Dean. "The New 
 Moon" I wrote for Dorothy Dalton, and 
 Norma Talmadge purchased it. "Bring Him 
 In" I wrote for Lewis S. Stone, and Earle Wil- 
 liams bought it. "Fightin' Mad" was origi- 
 nally written for Jack Dempsey, and in the 
 end it was enacted by a carefully selected cast 
 including William Desmond, Virginia Brown 
 Faire, William Lawrence, Rosemary Theby, 
 Doris Pawn, Joseph Dowling and Emmett 
 King. 
 
 I could go on reciting innumerable expe- 
 riences to prove that when a story is com- 
 
 129
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 pleted the author's work is only half done. 
 It requires just as much patience in disposing 
 of the script as it did in writing it. I wrote 
 a detective story for Earle Williams once and 
 it finally came out as a serial, called "The 
 Third Eye," with Warner Oland and Eileen 
 Percy. If I had become discouraged with the 
 first few refusals of these stories, I would 
 probably have every one of them now resting 
 in the bottom of my trunk. 
 
 I believe the screen writer, especially the 
 one who lives far from the studio centres, will 
 find much encouragement in the attitude that 
 has been assumed by James Young, the noted 
 director, in searching for a screen adapter to 
 build up Charles H. Hoyt's stage-play, "A 
 Texas Steer," so that it will be thoroughly 
 screenable. 
 
 This will be no easy task, for "A Texas 
 Steer" is "talky" and lacking in love interest 
 and other important essentials of real picture 
 material. To quote Mr. Young's own estimate 
 of the play, as it stands now it contains but 
 twenty-five per cent of pictorial value. 
 
 130
 
 Adaptations 
 
 Mr. Young lives in Hollywood, where more 
 than ninety per cent of the world's output of 
 motion pictures is made. He could easily 
 locate a score of competent adapters and con- 
 tinuity experts who would make his play into 
 acceptable photodrama, or in this instance 
 "photofarce," but he has taken a new angle 
 on his ideas along this line. 
 
 Mr. Young visited the offices of the largest 
 institution for the instruction of the technique 
 of photoplay writing in the country and un- 
 folded this story: 
 
 "I am the owner, with Sam Rork, the pro- 
 ducer, of the screen rights of the late Charles 
 A. Hoyt's 'A Texas Steer.' I will soon be 
 ready to produce it as a motion picture, but 
 like a great many stage plays it is far from 
 containing adequate picture material. If you 
 will put your student-body in competition 
 with one another in an effort to give me a 
 screen adaptation of this play, I will see that 
 the successful adapter is paid well for his 
 work. Mind you, I do not say that I will 
 want an adaptation that will absolutely fill all 
 my requirements, but will accept the best ef- 
 
 131
 
 "flow 1 Did It" 
 
 fort turned in by one of your students, and 
 pay him accordingly." 
 
 When it is considered that a great many of 
 the students of the institution to which Mr. 
 Young applied live all over the country, and 
 that the great majority of them have never 
 been even near a studio, it rather arouses 
 one's curiosity to know just why Mr. Young 
 passed up the Hollywood community of screen 
 experts in favor of the fellow out in the 
 sticks. 
 
 And here is the reason he himself gives : 
 "The student screen author who lives in 
 the smaller communities has less means of 
 diversion than those who are in the larger 
 centres. The fellow from the small town, as 
 it were, finds that moving pictures provide 
 his principal form of entertainment, and he 
 patronizes them quite liberally. Thus he be- 
 comes a close student of the picture. His 
 critical and analytical powers are vastly im- 
 proved and increased and he acquires a 
 greater knowledge of story value. He does 
 not necessarily have to complete his tuition 
 in screen authorship in a studio, for the tech- 
 
 132
 
 Eileen Percy Played the Feminine Lead in the Pathe Serial, "The Third Eye"
 
 Adaptations 
 
 nique of the studio is quite mechanical, and 
 can be, and actually is being reduced to 
 form, so that it can be taught by correspond- 
 
 ence." 
 
 For a director like James Young to take 
 such a step as this should be considered as 
 quite flattering to the writer or student-writer 
 who lives away from the production centres, 
 for Mr. Young's position in the screen world 
 is a very notable one. It will be recalled that 
 when George Arliss was to be presented in his 
 first motion picture starring venture, James 
 Young was chosen by the producers as the 
 logical directorial genius to give the artistic 
 guidance over the wide chasm between the 
 stage and the screen to this most distinguished 
 actor. Likewise when Richard Walton Tully, 
 the noted stage producer, decided to turn his 
 activities and those of his star, Guy Bates 
 Post, toward the motion picture screen, James 
 Young was promtply engaged to direct the 
 first two of the Tully-Post productions, "The 
 Masquerader" and "Omar the Tentmaker." 
 
 My admiration of his ability comes partly 
 from a pleasant association with him in the 
 
 133
 
 "How 1 Did It" 
 
 production of several of my stories, including 
 "The Highest Trump" and "A Rogue's Ro- 
 mance." In assisting him in the picturization 
 of these stories I found him always consider- 
 ate and most willing to accept my sugges- 
 tions. The same cannot be said of many di- 
 rectors especially in the past who have 
 heen inclined to ignore assistance from the 
 author and have preferred to give their inter- 
 pretation of another's creation. 
 
 When I told Mr. Young that I intended 
 writing a book for the purpose of aiding 
 those who aspire to write for the screen, he 
 was most enthusiastic and pointed out that 
 while the majority of screen writers and 
 adapters are located in Hollywood, yet it 
 would be folly to assume that there are not 
 equally as good writers in other localities. It 
 would be unreasonable to suppose that all of 
 the screen-writing talent is to be found in one 
 definite center, he declared, for are not the 
 great playwrights and authors of the country 
 scattered throughout the various states? 
 
 134
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MARKETING THE STORY 
 
 "Where shall I send my story? How can 
 I reach the producers or stars who buy the 
 stories of free-lance writers?" 
 
 These questions are put to me probably 
 more than any others concerning the writing 
 and marketing of photoplays. I rarely try to 
 answer either of these queries. But if you 
 will absorb carefully the information I will 
 give you here, I think you will be on a fair 
 way to find the proper persons to consider the 
 stories you desire to sell. 
 
 In the first place, more than ninety per cent 
 of American picture production is in Los An- 
 geles, and Hollywood, which is really a part of 
 Los Angeles its northerly suburb, so to 
 speak. There is very little production in New 
 York or Miami, Fla. Of course, small units 
 are scattered about, but it is of the larger con- 
 cerns that I will advise you now. 
 
 136
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 I presume that when you write a story you 
 have your idea as to whom it would suit 
 whether it be a star or balanced cast of fea- 
 tured players. If you live in a fairly small 
 centre, your first source of information lies 
 through your exhibitors, or theatre managers. 
 If they are willing to help you, with a little 
 patience you can get the information you 
 desire. 
 
 Suppose you have written a story you 
 think would be fine for House Peters, or Eu- 
 gene O'Brien. There is no way of your find- 
 ing out that House Peters is a "free-lance" 
 player and does not star or have a company of 
 his own. For this reason it would be of no 
 use to send Mr. Peters your script. Eugene 
 O'Brien's contract with Selznick Pictures re- 
 cently expired and his future is not settled, as 
 far as he is concerned. In the meantime he 
 is not buying stories and no one is buying for 
 him. Later, if you should see a paragraph in 
 some paper stating that Eugene O'Brien has 
 signed a starring contract with "Blank Produc- 
 tions," of Los Angeles, clip the announcement 
 and file it away. Then, when you have a ve- 
 
 136
 
 Marketing the Story 
 
 hicle that you think would be a good one for 
 Mr. O'Brien, mail it to the "Scenario Editor, 
 Blank Productions, Los Angeles, Cal." 
 
 Watch the papers. Get one that has a live 
 moving picture page, even if from another 
 city. If you are writing for the screen you 
 must keep abreast of its innumerable twistings 
 of stars and players. 
 
 All producers and distributors of motion 
 pictures employ competent publicity staffs 
 who supply all the papers of any size in this 
 country full reports of their interesting do- 
 ings. If your home town paper is lacking in 
 proper screen news, tell its editor. If he has 
 opposition papers he will listen to you. The 
 film news pours in on him every week and 
 costs him nothing. 
 
 You've just finished a story that should fit 
 Ethel Clayton, we'll say for argument's sake. 
 We all have associated Miss Clayton with 
 Lasky's for years. But she recently finished 
 her Lasky contract and signed with Robertson- 
 Cole, in Hollywood. You probably have not 
 heard of it yet, but if you read of her change, 
 you should, on general principles, cut out this 
 
 137
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 clipping and index it. You can get the ad- 
 dress of any film star, producer or player, by 
 writing to the fan magazines, but it is some- 
 times weeks before your answer is printed. 
 Suppose you sent a story to Lasky's Holly- 
 wood Studio marked for Ethel Clayton. It 
 is probable they would return the script with 
 Miss Clayton's new address. But suppose 
 they didn't. You get your story back and you 
 are at sea as to where to locate Miss Clayton. 
 Go to one of your neighborhood moving 
 picture theatres and ask the manager if he 
 knows with what concern Ethel Clayton is now 
 identified. Maybe he never played Para- 
 mount-Lasky pictures when Ethel Clayton 
 was with Lasky, and maybe he is not booking 
 Robertson-Cole pictures, which will include 
 Ethel Clayton productions. But just the 
 same that exhibitor reads a number of trade 
 journals and is alive as to the star changes and 
 movements. If he knows for a certainty that 
 Ethel Clayton is with Robertson-Cole, you are 
 on the right track; but if he is in doubt, ask 
 him to get this information for you. He can 
 find out from the exchange where he buys his 
 
 188
 
 Marketing the Story 
 
 pictures, or from the road salesmen, if he is 
 willing to go this far for you. There are ex- 
 changes, or branch salesrooms, of the big dis- 
 tributing corporations in many big centres. 
 The exhibitors frequently go from their towns 
 to these centres, or see the salesmen on tour. 
 These exchanges are generally in one section 
 of a town, and it is not a great deal of trouble 
 for your theatre man to ask among the ex- 
 change managers the whereabouts of a certain 
 star or producer. 
 
 A great many writers read in the papers 
 that Norma Talmadge, Constance Talmadge, 
 Nazimova, Jackie Coogan, Dorothy Phillips 
 or Ruth Roland are at the United Studios, 
 Hollywood. They send stories they believe 
 suitable for these stars to United Studios, 
 thinking that these United controls these 
 companies. Either that or they send any sort 
 of a story to United, believing that a big plant 
 will buy stories of all kinds. This is a vital 
 mistake. These are only commercial studios, 
 making no pictures as an organization, but 
 simply renting space and facilities to pro- 
 ducers and stars. If the scripts are marked
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 "for Constance Talmadge" or "Nazimova," 
 they are turned over to these companies. But 
 otherwise, United, with no scenario depart- 
 ment, simply returns the stories to the senders 
 with a slip saying it does not buy scripts. 
 
 In contrast to this situation at United, 
 where the fifteen or so tenant companies buy 
 their own stories, is the condition at Fox's, 
 Lasky's, Universal, and others. 
 
 The Lasky-Paramount is a combination 
 which makes and distributes its own pictures. 
 Therefore, stories for Lasky's stars, or for bal- 
 anced casts of Lasky stock players, are sent to 
 the scenario editor of the Lasky Studios, in 
 Hollywood. The same may be said of the 
 Universal and William Fox and Goldwyn. 
 Their studios and scenario departments are all 
 on the West Coast Lasky and Fox in Holly- 
 wood, Universal at Universal City, and Gold- 
 wyn and Ince at Culver City, Cal. 
 
 There is always a cry for stories for the 
 screen, and many are never placed because the 
 writer cannot find the producer and the pro- 
 ducer cannot find the writer. 
 
 140
 
 Marketing the Story 
 
 There are several agents in Los Angeles 
 who do nothing but sell scripts on a commis- 
 sion basis, but they will not relish my printing 
 their names, as for some reason or other they 
 rely solely on known authors for stories to 
 peddle to the producers. 
 
 The proposition of marketing your story 
 will require much care on your part for if 
 you send it around indiscriminately, you will 
 lose months, and get practically no results. 
 
 For example, suppose I am appointed 
 scenario editor by Director Frank Lloyd, who 
 directed Norma Talmadge in "The Eternal 
 Flame" and Jackie Coogan in "Oliver Twist." 
 The formation of Mr. Lloyd's production unit 
 is announced in the papers. The deluge of 
 scripts commences. The publicity has made 
 it plain that Mr. Lloyd will not star or feature 
 any player, but will make balanced-cast pro- 
 ductions. Along comes a story from Wakoola, 
 Alabama, or Fifth Avenue, New York City, 
 about an individual who will be the outstand- 
 ing personage of the production. A star- 
 story that cannot be changed for balanced- 
 cast purposes. I find that my script is unsuit- 
 
 141
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 able for Mr. Lloyd, and back it goes with many 
 others, with a printed slip. I would like to 
 tell the writer, "This story might do for Miss 
 Dupont, send it to Universal." But I can't. 
 I haven't the time to do this, nor has any 
 other scenario editor. 
 
 Let me advise you once more: 
 
 Read the papers. Carefully note star and 
 producer changes. File and index their ad- 
 dresses. Know your story. Know fairly well 
 whom it would suit, and then proceed. 
 
 As an example of just how far behind the 
 times some writers are, stories are still being 
 mailed to the Robert Brunton Studios, marked 
 for "Bessie Barriscale" and "Frank Keenan." 
 The Robert Brunton Studios are a year out 
 of being (having become United Studios), 
 Robert Brunton has quit production, and Bes- 
 sie Barriscale and Frank Keenan are picture 
 stars no longer. "J. Warren Kerrigan Com- 
 pany, Brunton Studios," is also the address on 
 scripts still arriving from writers who do not 
 know that J. Warren Kerrigan was off the 
 screen for some time. 
 
 141
 
 Marketing the Story 
 
 Think, before you mail your script. You 
 certainly would not send Mary Pickford a 
 story in which you would have her appear 
 as a Spanish adventuress, and you would smile 
 at the thought of trying to get Charlie Chaplin 
 to become a virile cowpuncher of the plains 
 for the purposes of your story. Very well 
 then set your mind the best you can as to just 
 which star could do your story, or which pro- 
 ducer might consider it as a balanced-cast 
 picture.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 HIGHLIGHTS OF PRODUCTION 
 TECHNICALITIES 
 
 Although I have written hundreds of arti- 
 cles designed to assist the aspiring photodra- 
 matist, and to "polish off," so to speak, the 
 writer who has already "arrived," I have 
 never given out for publication any data or in- 
 formation concerning the production of mo- 
 tion pictures from the technical standpoint, 
 for the reason that I considered I would he 
 divulging some of the pet secrets of the 
 business. 
 
 I feel now, however, that I should give the 
 writer some of the highlights of production 
 technicalities, for the reason that a better idea 
 of just how far the technical experts of a 
 studio can go in the making of a picture with 
 unusual angles, should give the writer a 
 broader view, and lessen a marked inclination 
 of many photodramatists to fear submitting 
 stories with supposedly difficult requirements. 
 
 144
 
 Highlights of Production Technicalities 
 
 It has been apparent to me for several 
 years that many writers have become obsessed 
 with the idea that stories they have completed 
 in their minds, but have never put on paper, 
 are too big to be produced. Without any 
 knowledge of the great resources that are at 
 the command of the up-to-date producer, they 
 allow good plots to slumber, undeveloped and 
 unrecorded, because they imagine the physical 
 requirements of their scripts would take the 
 producer and his players to remote corners of 
 the earth, or put him to some outrageous ex- 
 pense because of some extraordinary locales 
 that play an important part in the filming of 
 the narrative. 
 
 To offset this very prevalent idea, let me 
 touch lightly on the facilities the producer or 
 director has at his finger tips that will make 
 possible the filming of almost any conceivable 
 type of screenable story. 
 
 All of the large studios are well-stocked 
 with properties, furniture, tapestries, etc., and 
 have on their stages and on the exterior acre- 
 ages standing sets, both rain and fire-proof, 
 of all the countries of the world. If there is 
 
 146
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 anything wanted, it is built, accurately and 
 in a hurry. 
 
 Every well-equipped studio has a location 
 department, whose attaches are veritable walk- 
 ing atlases of the world, and in addition they 
 have on file thousands of photographs, de- 
 scriptions and accurate measurements of 
 structures and localities of practically all the 
 countries of the world. Lumber, beaver- 
 board, plaster and paint will serve for the 
 building of a replica of the Houses of Parlia- 
 ment, the Capitol at Washington, a street of 
 India, or an igloo of the Far North. 
 
 The individual, or independent producer, 
 who has only a small operating plant, can 
 rent anything in the line of sets or furniture 
 from the larger plants. 
 
 One large studio in Hollywood has eleven 
 warehouses stocked with period, character 
 and modern furniture, from the latest concert 
 grand piano, to the Louis XVI bed, beauti- 
 fully carved and with tapestried canopy. And 
 then there are period and modern vehicles, 
 from the coach of Napoleon and the old Rus- 
 sian droshky to the old New York high-back
 
 Highlights of Production Technicalities 
 
 taxicab of 1910, to the finest of "traps," and 
 even locomotives, fire engines and aeroplanes. 
 The tapestries and paintings of all ages are 
 available. All of these things have been made 
 in the studio mill, and by its craftsmen and 
 artisans. They will reproduce anything that 
 hands can make. 
 
 In this studio, a trip through the exterior 
 acreage, where the permanent sets are erected, 
 we find the tank, Mexican village, with three 
 complete units ; the old California or Mexican 
 hacienda, with patio frontage ; the Italian fish- 
 ing village, Egyptian temple ruins, cave or 
 mine entrance, New England and Southern 
 streets, New York or London tenement dis- 
 trict, Inca ruins, old New York trolley car 
 and horse-drawn car, New York street of 
 1880, Western streets, New York dock-front 
 street, railway and freight stations, street of 
 India, London residence of 1850, old English 
 castle, courtyard of a Hindu home, Brahmin 
 temple ruins of India, Chinese street, large 
 French chateau, early French houses and 
 streets, rural homes, Indian clubhouse and a 
 log cabin. 
 
 147
 
 "flow / Did It" 
 
 Nothing in the line of sets, whether it be 
 on the stage or in the open, is ever overbuilt. 
 The construction is kept within the line of the 
 camera, so that no labor or money is wasted. 
 
 As the skill of the studio artisan develops, 
 trips on "location" are becoming less and less 
 frequent. Journeys away from the studio cost 
 a great deal of money, and in the majority of 
 cases the producer can build or secure his "lo- 
 cation" right in the studio. 
 
 By the trick of camera, lighting and con- 
 struction, scenes of almost any country of the 
 world can be made on the studio stage. Rain, 
 ice and snow devices are a very important 
 asset to production within the studio walls, 
 as is the tank. 
 
 Rain is made by a system of overhead pipes 
 and sprinklers; fallen snow is imitated with 
 salt, and flying snow consists of powdered 
 asbestos released from a wire-net turnstile, 
 and is blown by the propeller of a wind- 
 machine. This device will provide a light 
 breeze or a furious gale. 
 
 On even the warmest day in Hollywood, 
 while the sun is shining brightly, a log 
 
 148
 
 :> ! K A N D 
 
 A i. A : 
 
 d 
 
 _ 
 
 " STRAND 
 
 
 
 During the Run of "Three Gold Coins," at the Strand Theatre in San Francisco, 
 
 November, 1920, the Name of a Photodramatist was Featured 
 
 for the First Time
 
 Highlights of Production Technicalities 
 
 cabin is covered with black canvas for night 
 effect, and is lighted from within by the usual 
 equipment. The villian drives the heroine 
 out into a fearful blizzard. He opens the door 
 of the cabin and we see snow piled about the 
 door, ice laden trees are dimly outlined, and 
 the snow and wind force the girl back into the 
 hut. Another shot outside shows her en- 
 veloped by the storm, and the whole thing has 
 all the earmarks of having been made in a 
 Far Northern country. 
 
 The tank is used for marine scenes and 
 what are known as "miniatures." The tank 
 is, simply a very large and bare concrete con- 
 tainer, which will hold probably 450,000 gal- 
 lons of water. On a few hours' notice it is 
 filled and dressed to become a millionaire's 
 swimming pool, a Dutch mill pond with mill- 
 wheel and cottage, creeks, rivers, the turbu- 
 lent ocean, the sewers of London or the 
 lagoons of Venice. 
 
 In a corner of the tank is constructed the 
 private landing of a yacht club, a rocky beach, 
 on which a lifeless body is cast, or the wooded 
 edge of a rural lake. 
 
 149
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 When you see, in a motion picture, a large 
 vessel burning or sinking at sea, with light- 
 ning breaking the masts, can you imagine a 
 producer waiting for a storm, or venturing 
 into it for some photographic effects? He 
 never leaves the studio. Miniatures are made 
 mostly at night, with skillful lighting being 
 employed to aid the deception. The vessel to 
 be sunk or burned is rarely larger than five 
 feet in length. Mechanical devices disturb 
 the water to the desired degree, and aid in 
 burning and sinking the vessel. 
 
 The duplicate of a lightship, rocking in a 
 furious storm, can be built in the studio tank. 
 The helmsman can be swept overboard by a 
 great "wave," which is simply a great volume 
 of water released from an elevated wooden 
 tank. If the leading man or feminine star do 
 not like to fall into the cold water, fire engines 
 heat it with pumped steam. 
 
 The tank is about one hundred and fifty 
 feet long, and is built like a "T." From either 
 end of the tank to the other, at that distance, 
 the camera will not record a great width of 
 constructed set, and the side of a great ship 
 
 150
 
 Highlights of Production Technicalities 
 
 can be placed so that it will appear as if the 
 entire vessel were broadside to the camera. In 
 one of the best sea pictures ever made, the 
 tank was used for the attack on a merchant 
 vessel by a submarine, and the sinking of the 
 "U" boat by the vessel's guns. 
 
 The little matter of putting a range of 
 mountains directly at the background of a set 
 when there is not even a hill within camera 
 range gives absolutely no concern to the 
 present-day producer. 
 
 Suppose he is making a "Western" melo- 
 drama and utilizes one of the typical wild-and- 
 woolly streets in the studio acreage. He puts 
 his camera in place, but finds that at the end 
 of the street there are showing the minarets 
 of a Persian palace that are part of an adjoin- 
 ing set. Does the producer set up a howl to 
 the studio manager and demand to have the 
 Persian settings pulled down? Not if he is 
 fully abreast of the latest methods of making 
 the moving picture camera a first class liar ! 
 
 He has inspected this particular "Western" 
 street previous to utilizing it. He has noted 
 the Persian background to his mining town 
 
 151
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 thoroughfare. A day or so ahead of time the 
 technical department of the studio puts an 
 artist to work painting the mountains that are 
 required on a piece of glass about five feet by 
 seven. The mountain range is painted in oils 
 on the centre of the glass so that the painted 
 area takes up about three or four feet by one 
 foot. 
 
 When the artist has completed his work the 
 camera is focused properly on the street, and 
 the glass with its painted mountains is placed 
 about six feet in front of the lens and ar- 
 ranged so that when the cameraman looks 
 through his finder he can see a mountainous 
 background in perfect position. When these 
 "takes" are projected on the screen it is practi- 
 cally impossible for even a trained eye to dis- 
 cover the illusion. 
 
 The last time I saw them working the 
 "glass" was at a studio where they were utiliz- 
 ing the tank as an outdoor swimming pool of 
 a millionaire's home. The camera was shoot- 
 ing toward the house, which was indeed pala- 
 tial, only it was but one story high, strangely 
 enough. I was just wondering why the resi- 
 
 152
 
 Highlights of Production Technicalities 
 
 dential part of the estate was so "squatty" 
 when I looked toward the camera again and 
 saw our old friend the "glass," with the up- 
 per story of the home painted upon it. 
 
 This innocent device saves a lot of con- 
 struction money and many trips to location. 
 
 It never helps the motion picture business 
 any to tell its secrets to outsiders, but I am 
 speaking of these few devices, the others be- 
 ing the tank and the rain, snow and wind 
 machines, to make clear the fact that the stu- 
 dios will meet almost any requirements your 
 story forces upon them. My publishers are 
 not encouraging the curious to purchase this 
 volume, so I feel I am not hurting the busi- 
 ness any by telling the studio tricks. 
 
 A lot of airplane "stunt stuff" that looks 
 on the screen as if it were made high in the 
 air is photographed only a few feet above the 
 ground or studio stage, in the latter instance 
 in front of a painted "drop." 
 
 When Rudyard Kipling consented to have 
 his "Without Benefit of Clergy" made into a 
 motion picture, he wanted the producer to 
 agree that the filming would take place in 
 
 153
 
 "Hott> / Did It 
 
 Lahore, where the locale of the story is laid, 
 and where he, Kipling, spent his boyhood. It 
 was hard to convince Kipling that an exact re- 
 production of the environment of Lahore 
 could be effected under the shadow of the 
 Southern California mountains. But he was 
 finally prevailed upon to loan the producer his 
 personal photographs and sketches of Lahore. 
 When the picture was completed in Holly- 
 wood, and shown to Kipling in his English 
 home, he declared that he might believe him- 
 self back in Lahore, so faithfully had the story 
 been filmed. Dr. Horace R. M. Maddock, a 
 former resident of India for forty years, and a 
 friend of Kipling, was engaged in Hollywood 
 as technical adviser for the picture. Later he 
 was engaged for a Ruth Roland serial, which 
 had an Indian locale, and for Norma Tal- 
 madge's "The Voice from the Minaret." 
 
 164
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 L'ENVOI 
 
 In the series of articles which compose 
 this book, I have endeavored to cover every 
 phase of photoplaywriting. I have tried to 
 show those who aspire to write for the screen 
 where the majority of ideas are gleaned; how 
 to differentiate between the good and the bad; 
 how to construct the story; the way to build 
 up dramatic situations and startling climaxes; 
 .the time, care and thought necessary to bring 
 about success to the aspirant; how to market 
 the completed product; the prices being paid 
 for good stories; the great demand that there 
 is for tailor-made screen stories, and the real 
 scarcity there is at the present time of good 
 photoplays. In fact, I have attempted to 
 give the reader the benefit of my experience. 
 What I have written has not been overheard, 
 or the results of what I have read. It has been 
 a reproduction of my own personal expe- 
 riences in writing for the screen. 
 
 155
 
 How I Did It" 
 
 I have not attempted to teach you. I do 
 not wish to be understood as a teacher, or in- 
 structor in the art of photoplaywriting. But 
 I am always willing to give whatever aid I can 
 to those who are desirous of making sincere 
 contributions to the screen. If I have suc- 
 ceeded in inspiring new courage in those who 
 have attempted and, in their own eyes, failed, 
 then this book has not been written in vain. 
 If I have been responsible in arousing a little 
 more enthusiasm in those who have been dis- 
 couraged, then I am indeed satisfied. For I 
 really believe that if the aspiring screen 
 writers have studied this book carefully, and 
 have digested what I have put before them, 
 they should be able to make considerable 
 progress along the trail. 
 
 But, unless the aspiring writer has real 
 creative ability, and can construct a story 
 which will run smoothly, with logical se- 
 quences, then all I have written will be of no 
 avail. Unless the student has a natural, God- 
 given talent for constructing plots, and is able 
 to decide what makes a good story, then he 
 may as well give up and turn to some other 
 
 156
 
 VEnvoi 
 
 line of work. Creative ability is the funda- 
 mental basis of all writing, and unless you 
 have it you cannot write. No one can give it 
 to you ; it has to be born in you ; it comes into 
 the world with you, and it goes out with you 
 when you leave. 
 
 A couple of years ago there were about 
 20,000 amateur writers submitting stories to 
 the various film companies of Los Angeles and 
 New York. During the past year, less than 
 10,000 scripts were received by the producers 
 of Los Angeles. The trouble at present is 
 that not enough people are trying to write for 
 the screen. Some have sent in stories, and be- 
 cause they happened to be rejected, these 
 writers have grown discouraged and decided 
 that they were not fitted for this work. There 
 is a great famine right now for good screen 
 stories, and those who are willing to take the 
 screen seriously and refuse to allow them- 
 selves to become discouraged will reap the 
 harvest. 
 
 I know of one firm that received only 
 3500 scripts from amateur writers last year. 
 This firm is one of the largest in the industry. 
 
 157
 
 "How I Did It 
 
 What has become of those who were trying 
 to write photoplays? My only answer is that 
 they must have grown discouraged. 
 
 About two years ago, I assisted in the prep- 
 aration of a questionnaire for the Palmer 
 Photoplay Corporation. This corporation is 
 the only institution of its kind, as far as I 
 have been able to learn, that enjoys the en- 
 dorsement and support of the leading pro- 
 ducers. Besides instructing in the art of 
 screen writing, it produces motion pictures 
 from stories written by the students whom it 
 has trained, and was the first producing or- 
 ganization to pay royalties, or percentage of 
 profits, to photoplaywrights. The Palmer 
 questionnaire consists of a number of ques- 
 tions asked aspiring photodramatists, with a 
 view to ascertaining whether they have crea- 
 tive ability. It is really a creative test, and 
 the Palmer people refuse to enroll those who 
 cannot answer the questions I prepared sat- 
 isfactorily. 
 
 It might be of interest to the reader to know 
 50,000 applicants last year failed to pass this 
 test. This will surprise a great many people 
 
 158
 
 UEnvoi 
 
 no doubt, and it is a remarkable evidence of 
 the sincerity of that organization in its quest 
 for new screen writing talent. Those 50,000 
 were all prospective students, and by rejecting 
 them, the Palmer people sacrificed what 
 would have been a huge financial gain. But 
 they preferred to do this rather than accept 
 tuitions from students they knew they could 
 never develop into screen authors. 
 
 There are hundreds trying to write for the 
 screen who have no creative ability, and there 
 are thousands who have plenty of natural 
 talent and this so-called creative ability, who 
 are not making an effort to contribute to this 
 great art. The latter are probably of the 
 opinion that the office of the average producer 
 is flooded daily with manuscripts. But that 
 is the wrong conception. The trouble at pres- 
 ent is that there are not enough people writ- 
 ing for the screen. The screen is in need of 
 stories, better stories. There is a scarcity of 
 good material and there will be just as long 
 as those who are capable of writing good 
 stories permit themselves to become dis- 
 couraged because they do not sell their work 
 
 169
 
 "How I Did It" 
 
 to the first producer to whom they submit 
 their product. 
 
 (The End.) 
 
 160
 
 THE VAN LOAN LETTER 
 
 
 
 Every time you attend a motion picture theatre, how 
 would you like to have H. H. Van Loan beside you, so 
 that at the end of the performance he could go over the 
 production with you, giving you the high lights of the 
 story, and a liberal discussion of its theme, plot construc- 
 tion, unities and sequences? 
 
 Or better still, wouldn't you like to receive an advance 
 letter from Mr. Van Loan containing a constructive and 
 critical analysis of the important photoplays of the day ? 
 
 We can readily anticipate your answer, and believe you 
 will receive with intense enthusiasm the announcement 
 that for the first time in the history of the motion picture, 
 a noted screen authority is to coach the aspiring photo- 
 dramatist by means of criticism and comparison. 
 
 Just pause a moment and think what this will mean 
 ,to you! You will have as a basis for your study the 
 actual motion pictures that come to your theatre from day 
 to day! In advance of each picture Mr. Van Loan will 
 send you his analytical review. You can peruse it before 
 the picture is shown. Afterward, you will be enabled, 
 with the aid of his guidance, to thoroughly analyze the 
 various qualities of the picture whether they be meri- 
 torious or faulty. 
 
 Perhaps, at this stage of your study of the technique of 
 photoplay writing, you find yourself unable to properly 
 dissect, so to speak, the various twistings and turnings of 
 the screen stories of the day. You readily perceive the 
 novelties or oddities in story construction, but find your- 
 self unable to apply them toward helping you to write 
 better stories. 
 
 "The Miracle Man," "Behind the Door," "Dr. Cali- 
 garfs Cabinet," "The Golem" and "Blind Husbands" 
 had unusual twists of story construction. The student of
 
 screen writing who saw these pictures undoubtedly found 
 much food for thought in every one of them. They repre- 
 sented radical departures in theme, unusual situations and 
 startling climaxes. These were all typical screen stories 
 and had all the elements necessary to make of them defi- 
 nite successes. 
 
 When you saw these great masterpieces, you would 
 have profited much more from their unique construction 
 had an authority of Mr. Van Loan's attainments pro- 
 vided you with a critical and constructive analysis of 
 them. 
 
 The "Van Loan Letter" will soon be a reality. It will 
 not only furnish you with an unprecedented means of 
 study of the photoplay, but will also serve as a guide for 
 the members of your family who are interested in the 
 motion picture solely as a source of entertainment. It 
 will advise them what pictures to see, and what pictures 
 not to see. It will be issued monthly and will contain no 
 motion picture advertising. 
 
 Mr. Van Loan's reviews of the current photoplays will 
 be honest and unbiased. They will be compiled by a 
 recognized authority whose long experience as a success- 
 ful photodramatist and critic equips him to command the 
 confidence of the aspiring screen writer and the theatre- 
 going public alike. 
 
 The "Van Loan Letter" will be available through 
 direct subscription only, and will not be sold on news- 
 stands. We will be glad to inform you of the date of 
 the first issue and the subscription rate, if you will send 
 your name and address to "H. H. Van Loan, Incorpor- 
 ated, Security Building, Hollywood."
 
 DC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 III I Illl MM 
 
 A 001 034 586 6