Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-06-07
BY HARRY o. HoYT
Head Of the Metro Scenario staT

money from them, and is in turn captured
by the police
This is all that is necessary to illustrate
the story In the original play the captain
Is suspicious Of his wife he thinks that
she has given the money to the man who
saved her life, but the little daughter clears
the situation up.
Now pick out the salient points of the
story as we have briefly outlined II. Arbi-
trnrily we will allot ten scenes for the
introduction of the story Perhaps to open
we will show the robber finishing his time
and going his way.
Then we will introduce the police captain
and his wife and child Some little incident
Will be shown to illustrate the jealousy of
the captain and the faithfulness of the wife.
Then we bring In the mother and her
returned son and his vow to live an honor
able life. Perhaps we can make clear that
the imprisonment was Illegal, that he served
time when another committed the crime.
10 DO this we would fade out and into his
story or dissolve out Then we dissolve
back to the convict son. finishing the story.
In any event IL Will probably take 10
scenes to get your characters placed and
their characteristics. We are now ready to
develop the story.
We will now see the convict looking for
work. Call this scene Is, as we probably
want to show something more of the police
captain and his wife. Now we come to the
rescue scene. Suppose we call this, again
arbitrarily, scene 90. The next important
factor in the play is the mothers sickness.
Call this scene %.
Now comes the episode of the money that
the captain has. He is seen hiding this and
leaving. Call 1t scene 29 The next episode
is the little child getting the money for
her doll Call this scene 49, The convict
decides to rob to get money for his mother
probably in scene 80.
In about scene 40 he will arrive at the
house and break in to b. confronted by the
woman From here on the action is fairly
continuous. Set down scene so as the
finish of the play. We have the episode of
the suspicion being attached to the wife
near the finish, and we will call it scene As.
Now we have set down the big moments
OF play, that at its best is highly i'm
but 1t is story of the old
school Now we shall go baCl; and fill in.
Perhaps between Is and 22 we will need
more than Z scenes to tell our story prop
erly. We must have logic and reason for
every action, every move. We must show
him looking for work He is prosecuted by
the police and unable to hold a job. Now
we must plant the complete reformation of
his character. We will show how he re-
covers and returns a purse that a woman
dropped, to indicate this. If we have her
receive 1t coldly without thanks, as he is
rather tough locking character, we excite
for the man.
lt may take ten or Twelve scenes TO get
all this over and get him logically at the
beach and have the police captains wife
there also. That will force us to rear
range the latter part of our script.
We will shove rescue scene % up to an
1ther number that fits, say, 25 or 27. But
we have built character and given reasons |
Why all these things occur.
Now continue and very soon there is a |
lnshed script. If you have the convict |
cave his own home to steal and you want |
o give him time to get to the house of |
ne police captain you can cut to some |
'ery pretty scenes of the little girl playing
With her doll in bed and the money lying |
lround.
You can make perfect continuity with
,ut subtitles in this story, as you have the
little girl, the father and the mother all in
lifferent places. The chances are that the
question of continuity could not bother you
after the convict leaves his home resolved
% rob.
If you pick out the big scenes and de-
'elop them by themselves you will find that
'ou are unconsciously making them bigger
md putting in business and new ideas be-
'ause you are not bothered with what is
coming before or going after Then when
'ou develop the story you give it the
proper atmosphere to make these scenes
ing true.
(Tomorrow-Lesson 6-Construction)