SCREEN STORIES.

Star (Christchurch), Volume XLIV, Issue 714, 18 March 1933, Page 24 (Supplement)

SCREEN STORIES.

Methods Used in Selecting Suitable Material. Hollywood contacts with writers have provided some of the best stories at the expense of the famous capital of filmland. There is, for example, the story of the producer, who, after welcoming Maurice Maeterlinck, the famous Belgian writer, said, at the close of the interview, “ Well, Mr Maeterlinck, I am glad I have met you, and I am sure you are going to make good.” There are at least a hundred firstrank film writers in Hollywood to-day, according to A. J. Harman, in the London “ Evening News.” Two of the leading companies each employ about fifty writers at a time, and there are about 300 people regularly employed in writing screen stories. They earn from £SO to £IOO a week. But in one notable case, at least, the writer is paid for each story separately, and receives £SOOO a time. Yet with all the wealth of authors the right kind of story is far from common. Even 300 good waiters cannot produce Hollywood’s requirements of 600 good stories a year. The latest plan to get the ideal film story is to put six or eight people on to writing it. Experts in each department are emplo'yed so that the plot will be a “ winner.” By this means also the producer hopes to secure a story to appeal to a wide variety of tastes. Every studio in Hollywood has a bureau which does nothing but examine the flood of fiction which pours out from the world’s publishing offices each

week, so that any stories likely to make good films are detected. Ideas are eagerly sought and competition is still tremendous for the right ones. £50,000 is sometimes paid for a successful play, £IOOO to £SOOO for a successful novel and £2OO to £2OOO for a short story. Stories already published bring more than others on the principle that a story already well known to the public is a sure attraction. After a story is accepted it starts on its journey through the hands of a treatment and dialogue expert before a scenarist is given the job of writing a “ continuity ” for it. This is a detailed analysis of the story for the camera-man and producer, with careful plotting of camera angles, close-ups and other details. The preliminaries of preparing the story for production occupy anything up to three months. m