How They Do It — The Scenario Writer (1925) 🇬🇧

This is the second of a series covering every phase of the movie industry, from the selection of the story to the final scrapping of the film.

by Charles Gartner

To most people a scenario writer means just another name cluttering up the main title of a motion picture. Who he is and just what he does, seems to be, to the layman, another one of those unfathomable studio mysteries. People know, in a general way, that the scenario writer is the man who writes the scenario for a picture, but just what a scenario is used for. and how it is written, seems somewhat hazy in the minds of the uninitiated.

When a story is bought by a producing company for immediate production it is turned over to the scenario writer to scenarise. The scenarist arranges for a conference with the director and together they lay out the plans for the script. The scenario writer then gets busy, and in anywhere from three to eight weeks has the script ready for the director.

Perhaps the proper thing to do, before going any further with this article, is to explain what a scenario is and why it is necessary.

In brief, a scenario is a manuscript containing a detailed account of all the action and spoken titles in a photoplay. It is used by the director during the actual filming of the picture and by the costume, art and property departments as a guide for the clothing, sets, articles of furniture, etc. necessary for the production.

It is also used by the Research Department in getting a line on the locale of the different scenes in the picture so that this department may collect all the data necessary to make the finished product authentic in all its details.

Following is an exact copy of a page from the scenario of The Only Thing, the Joseph Henabery production for Paramount which stars Rudolph Valentino. This scenario was written by Forrest Halsey, one of the best known writers in the industry.

INTERIOR: DIVE CLOSEUP OF CARMELITA

Tears drenching her face as she dances.

INTERIOR: DIVE CLOSE SHOT AT DOOR

Don Luis entering. He shows his disgust and apprehension of the place. Luis exits from shot.

INTERIOR: DIVE CLOSE SHOT OF ALONZO’S TABLE

Alonzo greets Luis, who says:

SPOKEN TITLE “You live in this place. Some day you will die in it — suddenly.”

Alonzo laughs. Luis protests, why do you do it? Alonzo becomes serious, says:

SPOKEN TITLE “Some day ‘El Tigre’ will show himself here, where he was once a bartender.”

He finishes title. His face is a mask of vengeance. Don Luis protests that that’s fancy. Alonzo says:

SPOKEN TITLE “I will bank on his vanity. He will want to show his old friends how great he has become.”

INTERIOR: DIVE CLOSEUP ALONZO’S EYES

They gleam like a tiger’s.

INTERIOR: DIVE CLOSEUP ALONZOS TABLE

Luis shrugs hopelessly, says:

SPOKEN TITLE “Through anxiety for you I am missing the event of the day — our man-killer has returned from Paris and is displaying herself in public.”

He finishes title. Alonzo casually questions him. Luis expresses surprise, says:

SPOKEN TITLE “Even you, absorbed as you’ve been, must have heard of the lady of the three suicides.”

When a story is turned over to a scenario writer for scenerisation the writer must not only put the story in shape suitable for the screen, but he must also eliminate all unnecessary scenes from the original. And very often in order to emphasise certain incidents, or to build up certain characters, he must make radical changes.

This explains why so many original stories are greatly changed after their transference to the screen. In fact, the methods of telling a story in print and telling one on the screen are 50 vastly different that a comparatively small number of original stories are suitable for immediate transference to the screen. Take for instance, Monsieur Beaucaire, the recent Sidney Olcott production for Paramount which starred Rudolph Valentino. In the original story the character of the Princess de Bourbon-Conti does not enter the story until the very end, when the Duke de Chartres returns to France to marry her.

The readers of the book know onlv of the Princess by reference to her by the Duke. Forrest Halsey saw immediately that if the character were left as it was in the book — that is, unknown except for a few mentions of her by the Duke — the scene showing the Duke returning to France to plead for the hand of the Princess in marriage would be unsatisfactory from the movie fan’s standpoint.

Realising this, Mr. Halsey built up the character of the Princess by inserting an entire episode at the beginning of the photoplay in which the character of the Princess was indelibly impressed on the minds of the audience.

Another important duty of the scenario writer is to get the most effective settings at the lowest cost.

In Monsieur Beaucaire, Forrest Halsey created the impression of an enormous, elaborately furnished palace by inserting just a few scenes showing large pillars, corners of rooms hung with tapestries and fitted with expensive furniture, etc.

A less skilful man than Mr. Halsey could have easily doubled the cost of the settings.

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From top:

• Clara Beranger, scenario writer for Paramount,
• Forrest Halsey, one of the most prominent scenarists in modern pictures,
• June Mathis, head of the National scenario department.

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Below: Jeanie Macpherson, who writes most of the Cecil de Mille productions.

Below: Bess Meredyth, who wrote Don Juan and Ben Hur for the screen

Above: Henry James Forman, co-author with Walter Woods who made The Covered Wagon.

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Previous Month: Selecting the Plays.

Next Month: “The Casting Director.”

Collection: Picturegoer Magazine, December 1925