Book Description

From the INTRODUCTION TO SECOND EDITION of 1913. It is less than eighteen months since the first edition was placed in the market, following serial publication in the columns of The Moving Picture World, but those eighteen months have been marked by great changes in photoplay needs and construction. Then the cut-back was merely a device for avoiding the showing of unpleasant or prohibited action; now it figures importantly in the development of the story. The "punch," too, was then a thing unnamed, though the punch has always been the requisite of the real story. The past year has also seen the acceptance of the multiple-reel as a regular release instead of an occasional novelty. These and minor changes have rendered it expedient to issue a completely new volume under the old title. With the exceptions noted above there is little herein contained that may not be found in the first edition, but all matters are treated in greater detail and an effort has been made to teach rather than to set forth the rules, and leave the writer to make his own application of the same. Instead of one there are four complete sample manuscripts, for two of which we are indebted to the Lubin Manufacturing Company and to Lawrence S. McCloskey, their Editor-author, and in addition there are many examples in explanation of certain developments. An effort has been made to set forth clearly all of the matters treated, but this information will be useless to he who merely reads and does not study this little volume. It is not a magic wand to be waved over the typewritten page. It is a text book for the earnest student who seeks to make progress, and to all earnest students, who realize that the Photoplay is by no means the least of the branches of literary work, this volume is dedicated in the hope that they will find as much pleasure in the study of its pages as has the writer in preparing the work. --New York, June, 1913. Epes Winthrop Sargent.