Writing the Photoplay | Page 8

then there comes a fade out, and then a fade in, and the scene that comes up is what he tells of or is thinking about. This again fades out, and the fade in brings back the original scene with the character thinking or talking; but each of the three scenes used has its own consecutive scene-number in the manuscript. The fade out may also be used to end a scene, or be used at the close of the photoplay.
FEATURE: See Reel.
FILM: The strip of translucent material, resembling celluloid, upon which the scene is recorded; a series of pictures one inch wide and three-fourths of an inch in height, taken at the rate of approximately sixteen a second, and sixteen pictures to one foot of film. These small pictures are technically termed "frames."
FOOTAGE: The amount of film consumed in the making of an individual scene, insert, or the entire picture.
FRAME: See Film.
IDEA: An incident, or a situation, that suggests a plot; in other words, the plot "germ."
INSERT: Anything introduced into the film to aid in telling the story or to explain a point of the plot. "Leaders" are also inserts; but, as generally used, inserts refers to letters, telegrams, newspaper paragraphs or personals, or any matter other than cut-ins, or dialogue, inserted into the film during the progress of a scene, thus becoming practically a part of that scene.
INTERPOSE: A term used to indicate the process by which a scene merges into the next, one dying as the other comes up, so that there is no blank screen between them, as in the case of the fade out and fade in. As in the dissolving views of a stereopticon, the scenes merge one into the other. This device is used for the same purpose as the fade out and fade in, but, being more difficult to accomplish, from the camera standpoint, is used only rarely.
LEADER: A sub-title used before a scene to assist the spectator in getting a clear idea of what the picture is to portray.
LOCATION: When the setting for an action is out of doors, and takes advantage of some natural environment, such as the front of a house, a barn, or a lane, or a lake, it is called a "location." So, while any environment for action is broadly a "setting," one usually refers to an interior setting as a "set" and an exterior setting as a "location."
MULTIPLE REEL: See Reel.
NEGATIVE: The original emulsated film used in the camera when the actions of the participants in the photoplay are recorded.
PLOT: The original idea worked into a compact number of scenes and individual situations, all of which in a series carry out the general idea. Sometimes this "plot" is referred to as the "skeleton" of the photoplay. "In its simplest, broadest aspect, plot is the scheme, plan, argument or action of the story."[3] Henry Albert Phillips calls it "the 'working plan' used by the building author."[4]
[Footnote 3: J. Berg Esenwein, Writing the Short-Story.]
[Footnote 4: The Plot of the Short-Story. See also our later discussion of the nature of Plot.]
POSITIVES: The copies printed from the negative. These positives bear the same relation to the negative as "prints" do to a photographic plate.
PRINTS: The "copies" or "positives." The profit to the manufacturer lies, of course, in selling as many prints as possible to the exchange managers of the world.
PRODUCER: See Director.
REEL: A full reel of film contains, approximately, one thousand feet. Sometimes two pictures of five hundred feet each, or of different lengths, may constitute a full reel, and it is then termed a "split reel." If a photoplay is produced in two or more reels, it is put on the market as a "two-reel" or a "---- -reel" subject and becomes a "multiple-reel" subject. The term "feature" is usually applied to a picture of five parts and upward. When referring to a multiple-reel play, photoplaywrights now favor the use of the word "part" instead of "reel" and say "two-part," or "three-part" story or play. Incidentally, it is well to use "picture" in place of "film" as much as convenient. Earnest workers in the photoplay-writing profession are anxious to eliminate the old atmosphere of cheapness.
REGISTER: To register an effect is to "show" it to the spectators in a way which cannot be mistaken. It is sometimes said that an effect, a bit of "business," or an emotion which an actor is endeavoring to portray, "will not register," meaning that it will not be understood by the audience in the way intended by the director. Very often a lighting effect does not "register" as it was thought it would. Again, an actor may wish to "register" disgust or hatred, and yet he may convey the idea that he is portraying only fear. The word covers various meanings. In writing your story