HE WROTE 79.000 WORDS – 10 WERE USED

Northern Advocate, 8 January 1938, Page 2

HE WROTE 79.000 WORDS - 10 WERE USED

A number of authors who have worked for film companies have found in their experience material for satire, said Anthony Richardson in an article in the “News Chronicle.” Fic-tion-stories have appeared sucessfully satirisingtto the lay mind) the nervestorms of stars; the violent acrobatics of a director on the set: the incompetence and ignorance of producers. They make good reading and good fun—on the smallest basis of truth. But this astonishing business of making talking pictures lends itself easily to such leg-pulling. I have been through the mill. I have worked for a company and written over 70,000 words, of which ten (ten words, not ten thousand!) were eventually used. I have written my first script and had it receieved with enthusiasm, only to find that it has been handed over the next day to a writer who was not even on the staff. I have developed stories to lead to a definitely built-up climax, only to find the completed picture has entirely missed the point.

Not Grumbling, I have evolved a character and worked up essential detail, to find the character remains, but. stripped of its small significant actions, so that instead of being an integral part of the story it has become an unhappy ghost wavering through several thousand feet of celluloid. I have worked from nine to five like a clerk in an office, clocking-in and clocking-out. I have worked all through the night, laying down my pen at dawn, and at a ten o'clock story conference torn the whole work up. And I’m not grumbling. I am not grumbling at all. And the reason is I believe that the author has got to play in British pictures of the future a far greater part than he has been permitted to do in the past. A script-writer isn’t necessarily an author. A scenarist’s job is to take a story and adapt it for the screen. He understands what screen-continuity means (the narrating of the story in a cinematic sense as opposed to a literary sense) and what makes telling situations. He knows how to link up his sequences, when to “cut,” to “dissolve,” to “fade in” and to “fade out.” But that doesn’t make him an author. He’s a film-technician. He is adapting material into which the breath of life has already been breathed by its original creator.

Gifted Above His Fellows. Now there are scenarists who exist in Britain, and" who at the same time | have authorship. They are not numerI ous. The man or woman who can j originate a story, put it into treatmentcontinuity, carry the material through | to shooting-script complete with dialogue, is rare. I have heard it said that such a one is gifted above his fellows. I don’t believe it. I wish producers could be made not to believe it. The cause of failure of a great many pictures is because the story in itself is trivial, unconvincing, commonplace. Too many cooks have stirred the turgid soup. The original conception has been lost, the flow of the tale muddled. Tom, Dick and Plany have added their little bit. The cutting-room has sliced away at Harry, Dick and Tom. The clear-cut outlining of a situation has become blurred; the rapier-thrust sword-point of a scene has become blunted. And as an eminent producer said the other day: “Too many pictures end up as a headache on a desk.”

They’ve found a way in Hollywood. I don’t know what it is, but they must have found it. When are we going to turn out something to stand beside,“It Happened One Night,” and “Lady For a Day”? What’s to stop up turning that something out? The old cry of “Lack of money”? I don’t believe it. Fifth Great Industry of TJ.S. But what I do believe is this. If the new Cinema Bill is passed the Americans will come over to Britain. The great American companies will set up their plant and go about their producing with all the knowledge they possess. And we shall, the wise ones of us, hope to discover this deep, this profound mystery that makes the American film business the fifth great industry of the United States.

Wc shan’t find it on thfe- ‘'floor” and on the “set.” The camera-man and the cutter will divulge no secret which is not already known. Someone will look elsewhere. He will look into a department known as the Scenario Department. He will ' investigate methods and manners. He will come to realise a very simple thing: that, above all things, the cinema needs authorship, and he will learn, which again is quite a simple thing to learn, what authorship means.