Kinetophone Scripts

This item appeared as part of Epes Winthrop Sargent's "The Photoplaywright" column. In it, Horace Plimpton outlines the criteria for a Kinetophone script. Particularly significant are the requirements that the script be limited to six minutes (the maximum length of recording) and that there be no scene changes.

Mr Horace G. Plimpton, Manager of Negative Production for Thomas A. Edison, Inc., answering our inquiry as to the market for scripts for the new talking pictures, is good enough to reply very fully and to the point. He writes:

Answering your card, we are open for plots for Kinetophone work, this being the name used for the talking motion picture. I am enclosing a copy of a form letter which we are sending out and which indicates in a general way the requirements. I would suggest that in anything which you may see fit to print on this subject you not minimize the difficulties. We are beginning to be flooded with plots and I am sure in a short time it will be just as bad as it is now with the regular picture scenarios. Therefore it occurs to me that it would be just as well to let the public understand that on the whole it is pretty hard work.

In talking pictures all of the dialogue and all of the leading business should be indicated and carefully timed. The requirement that the length shall not exceed six minutes and that the action shall be held to one scene will operate against the novice and, speaking more plainly than Mr. Plimpton has, we would suggest to the beginner to keep out. The talking pictures at present are for the trained writer. These are the rules laid down by the Edison company:

The following information will guide those who wish to submit plays for the Edison Kinetophone (talking-motion pictures):

1. Each play should be figured to run six minutes, making due allowance for the time taken in movement or incidental business.
2. The characters should be few and the action laid in one set.
3. Either dramas or comedies will be considered for acceptance provided they are clean and free from offense. Great care should be exercised to avoid infringement upon any copyrighted work, either story or play.
4. A stamped and self-addressed envelope should accompany each plot.
5. The Company will exercise due care in handling and returning plots, but distinctly disclaims any liability for their safe keeping or return. If sent they are entirely at the author’s risk.
6. Prices vary in accordance to the Company’s estimate of the value of the plot. The author may, if he wishes, affix his own price, in which case it will be considered on that basis.
7. Address all plots to the Edison Studio, Bedford Park, Bronx, New York City.

Source: Epes Winthrop Sargent, “The Photoplaywright,” Moving Picture World 1 March 1913, 881.

Surprisingly, given that Plimpton above claimed his department was overwhelmed with scenarios, Edison himself was apparently soliciting them from Harvard students. At least, that's what this little item from 22 March 1913 claimed:

College Students Writing Scenarios

In the columns of “The Crimson,” the Harvard college daily, there appeared a letter from Mr. Thomas Edison inviting the students to write scenarios for use in the kinetophone. These “talking-plots” are limited to six minutes in length, and must be clean, with free range of subjects. Now that we have school children writing compositions on the pictures they have seen, and college students writing scenarios; there can be little doubt that the moving picture is making great head-way among the educational powers of today. Hitherto the original writings in the class-room have had no profit beyond the immediate object for which they were written, now however, with both a literary and financial attraction before them, new zeal will be given to this branch of study with good results to all concerned.

Source: “College Students Writing Scenarios,” Moving Picture World 22 March 1913, 1199.

Talking Pictures and Silent Drama

This article, by Epes Winthrop Sargent, a regular columnist for the Moving Picture World on advertising and screenplay writing, evaluates the threat of Edison's Kinetophone to the future of the silent film. Sargent sees the Kinetophone as playing a niche role in moving picture exhibition and thinks it will be more of threat to live vaudeville than to the silent drama. He also notes that the Kinetophone rights as well as those of other talking picture systems have been purchased by vaudeville interests rather than those with specific interests in motion picture exhibition.

Talking Pictures and Silent Drama

Ever since the announcement that the Edison Talking Pictures had become a commercial possibility, there has been coming into the office of The Moving Picture World a storm of letters from the exhibitors of photoplays, most of whom seem to argue that the appearance of the talking play means the end of the silent drama. The expressions of opinion run all the way from a slight note of dread to a revelation of abject fear for the future of the photoplay today.

Without in the least seeking to detract from the undoubted value of the Talking Pictures as an important contribution to amusement devices, this writer, after a careful survey of the photoplay, vaudeville and dramatic situations, is not inclined to believe that the talking pictures will in any way interfere with the prosperity of the silent drama. He has discussed their value with leading photoplay men, with important vaudeville factors and men of moment in dramatic affairs, and the consensus of opinion seems to agree with his own belief that the talking picture will find a niche of its own and will not to any marked degree interfere seriously with the filmed drama without words.

Those most concerned over the appearance of the talking picture are the vaudeville men. They have suffered long from the superior attraction of the photoplay. They have sought to counteract the effect of the cheaper and more popular form of amusement, and they have hailed with delight the supposed appearance of a stronger attraction; and while one powerful body of vaudeville managers have made a long time contract with the Edison company, others have trafficked with John Cort for his device and with the promoters of a foreign scheme, but practically none of the leading photoplay managers have sought the rights to the talking pictures, for they, of not the lesser managers, realize that the place of the talking picture is and probably always will be, in the vaudeville theaters; not so much those houses that mingle pictures with cheap vaudeville, but the better class of places where the single reel shown ends the performance and even those who would gladly sit through three or four reels in a picture theater, troop out when the picture is announced.

The talking picture belongs to the talking stage, just as the silent drama thrives best in its own house. Vaudeville booking agents resent the appearance of the device because they know that it will cut down their commissions, but they seem to be about the only men in the amusement world who have a reasonable excuse for hostility against the talking picture.

To take a concrete example; the other day the Edison company filmed and phonographed Miss Cecelia Loftus, one of the highest priced single entertainers in vaudeville. Miss Loftus was paid handsomely for the service, a sum that would represent several weeks of professional engagements in the vaudeville houses, but now the smallest vaudeville theater may announce Miss Loftus where before her single salary would represent a sum in excess the cost of the entire bill. And the pictures of Miss Loftus will replace a “headline” feature for which some agent would have received a commission.

But the appearance of Miss Loftus in a city does not appreciably hurt the business at the photoplay houses, and it is difficult to perceive that the appearance of the talking pictures of Miss Loftus in the smaller towns will to any great extent lessen the takings of the photoplay theaters. The vaudeville manager may be able to advertise Miss Loftus instead of some three hundred dollar act or a thousand dollar act, but will he hurt the photoplay theater to any great degree? Personally we think not. We know the Palace Theater, London, and the Orpheum theater, San Francisco, and unless we are greatly mistaken we think that the talking pictures, once the keen edge of novelty is worn off, will not draw ten dollars from the photoplay theaters.

It is true that the photoplay has drawn many patrons from the vaudeville theaters, but not as many as is popularly supposed, and they are not real vaudeville lovers but photoplay patrons who merely waited for the arrival of a better appreciated form of entertainment. The photoplay audiences have been drawn largely from the galleries and balconies of the dramatic houses and not a few of the orchestra patrons as well.

They find in photoplay the vaudeville of the drama. Instead of the twenty minute sketch, unfolding but a single point, there is the eighteen minute drama complete in itself or an act or a two, three, or four part play. Vaudeville’s greatest charm always has been the diversity of the performance that the brevity of the individual acts made possible. Photoplay has done the same thing for the drama. It has done more than this. It has made possible the actual showing of scenes that in the dramatic play must be alluded to, because of the impossibility of making numerous sets. It has given to the smaller towns and the smaller houses of the large cities a grade of acting that is five or ten times the price of admission could not command.

It has done more than this. It has presented the old play favorites in a new and delightfully compact form. “The Prisoner of Zenda,” for example, offers a more complete story in less than one half the time required by the dramatic version and does this in a wealth of stage settings that would be an absolute theatrical impossibility. The production is made but once and is not moved from the studio. Instead of the long explanations of events occurring off the stage these events are shown in addition in appropriate settings. The action is retained. The tiresomeness of the dialogue is eliminated. Given the talking pictures, the dialogue would be replaced. It would be interesting if we could get Mr. Hackett’s fine voice as well as his spirited action, but not at the cost of an additional two hours of time.

To regard it from another angle, the silent drama makes possible much that must be avoided in stage versions. As one competent commentator put it the other day, “I like to watch the western plays, but I’d hate to have my wife hear the dialogue that would go with some of that stuff.” Talking pictures can never supplant the silent drama if for no other reason than the impossibility of supplying the fifty to one hundred plays required each week. There are not a sufficient number of dramatists in the world to supply this demand adequately. Plays of a sort could be written, but not plays with the proper sort of dialogue, for it is the absence of dialogue and the lack of necessity for technical skill in the handling of dialogue that makes possible the success of the photoplay. Each season scores of dramas are withdrawn from the stage for no other reason than that the dialogue is not commensurate with the plot.

From whatever angle the situation is viewed, the intelligent observer arrives at but one conclusion. The talking pictures are an entertainment idea admirably suited to vaudeville. They may, in a sense, aid the silent drama, just as the publication of the phonograph record has not seriously damaged the popularity of records of the popular songs, nor will the combination of film and phonograph ever overset the popularity of pictures without dialogue.

The photoplay is a distinct and, we think, a lasting form of amusement, not to be deposed by the newer device nor even threatened by the combination of voice and view.

For a third time Mr. Edison has contributed importantly to the entertainment of the amusement lover, but he has not supplanted his earlier devices by the third. He has merely augmented the sources of amusement.

Source: Epes Winthop Sargent, “Talking Pictures and Silent Drama,” Moving Picture World 22 February 1913, 756.

Music as an Advertisement

Here is an interesting excerpt on how to use the musical program as part of the advertising campaign for a theater. It comes from Epes Winthrop Sargent's 1915 book on motion picture advertisement. Sargent wrote a column in The Moving Picture World, and much of the material for this book was drawn from that column. He also wrote a book on screen writing.

At the beginning of this chapter, Sargent makes the claim that treating music as a co-attraction is an Australian innovation. He then outlines the criteria a manager should look for in a leader (i.e., musical director) and weighs the advantages and disadvantages of different instrumental combinations for accompanying pictures. Note that he specifically advocates against both the illustrated song and the piano and drum accompaniment unit—both of which would have been associated with just that nickelodeon-style show against which the picture palace aesthetic is beginning to define itself.

CHAPTER V.
MUSIC AS AN ADVERTISEMENT

Music makes for business—Value of music as a talking point—Best musicians not always the best picture players—Credit the house and not the leader—Making music help dull days.

Music—the best you can afford—is a distinct and valuable advertisement. More than one house has been raised from failure to success through a change in the music, and many Exhibitors have found that it pays to adopt the Australian idea of making music a co-attraction with the pictures instead of merely an accessory.

[32] If you can get a good one, an orchestra is the best form of music, but there are very few really good orchestras in motion picture theatres. In this sense "good" means not alone competent players but musicians competent to play the pictures. Above a certain point the skilled musician is not well fitted to become a picture player. This does not mean, of course, that the worst musicians make the best picture players.

A really high class musician, particularly a leader, is apt to regard playing the pictures as beneath the dignity of his professional standing. He may consider the pictures to be of vastly inferior importance to the work of his band and will build a musicianly program and adhere to it through the thunders of Wagner's mightiest moments disturb the death bed of the heroine and the lilting measures of Mendelssohn's Spring Song fill the house while battle rages. The picture is not overdrawn. It has happened and is happening daily.

On the other hand, an effort to strictly play the pictures with an orchestra will be equally futile. The rapid changes in the tempo of the story would require an abrupt shifting of the selections that would be quite as disturbing to the patrons. The aim should be to establish in the leader's chair a man familiar with the library of good music. Let him see a rehearsal of the pictures before the regular performance opens, selecting then a program that will be in general accord with the pictures to be shown, not playing entire selections through, but not changing with each shift of scene.

Where they can be had, men who have played vaudeville of burlesque houses are better suited to the work than men from the dramatic houses, for they are more used to quick shifts and changes and to "following the act." Most orchestras are led by the first violin, but the Turner and Dahnken houses report excellent results with their leaders at the drums; these players having less to do. A system of lights at each desk is employed instead of baton signals.

Where possible, the orchestra pit should be sunken, not alone because the glare of light on the white music sheets

[33] fights the screen, but because music from an unseen source is more in accord with the general idea of picture presentation.

As a reward for playing the pictures properly, and for other practical reasons, a short selection should be played as a number between subjects. This not only gratifies and appeases the vanity of the players, but it serves as a break between stories, enables the lights to be thrown on that the house may clear without confusion and rests tired eyes.

These musical interludes may be made a distinct asset. Flash a slide to the effect that Mr. Chopin will be glad to play request selections. Ask the patrons to write the names of desired selections on cards to be had at the rear of the house, as in Figure 6.

Figure 6.—Request card for musical selection.

If the selection can be played, notify the patron by a form post card filled in with the address from the request card. The form in Figure 7 is recommended. The cards should be filled in with the name of the selection and the day and date. By assigning request selections to dull days, some extra business may be created.

Feature your orchestra in the advertising. Play them up, but before you start tactfully explain to "Professor Chopin" that you are going to do some press work for him that must not be taken by him too seriously. He is liable to acquire too good an opinion of himself and

[34] want more money. In the same way it is better to feature the house orchestra than the leader and his band. If he resigns, or is dismissed, you still have the attraction.

Next to an orchestra, the better class of mechanical orchestras are best. For some reasons a device of this sort is to be preferred to a band, since the music is handled by one man and changes can be more evenly made than when there are many players, some of whom think more slowly than others and always are a little late in changing over. Another advantage is that part of the musical appropriation may be diverted to paying for the instrument and at the same time more money can be paid the operator and better results had.

Figure 7.—Notification card for musical selection.

Third in value comes the pipe organ. This is not as flexible as the orchestral device, but on the other hand it can give the sustained note that is the best form of accompaniment and can be swelled in tonal volume for the big scenes. The best accompaniment is never intrusive, and the aim of the players should be to supplement the effects on the screen instead of sharing the honors.

With all of these forms of music it is possible to work direct advertising. Give morning musicales or Sunday afternoon performances in towns where pictures may not be run on that day. Concerts at an admission price may be countenanced where pictures will not be. If no fees are permitted, make them invitation affairs without charge, getting your tickets, where possible, into the hands of the better class of your patrons and giving programs that

[35] will appeal to them. Do not confine your efforts to the patrons. Reach out for the people you are not getting. They may come to a concert where the pictures will not attract, and once they get to know your house, they will be more apt to form a habit of coming.

Do not let your programs be too heavy, nor yet permit them to become cheap, and give the program with as much style as possible. If you introduce vocal numbers do not use stuff of the illustrated song type. Perhaps the local music teacher can help you to get some good talent cheaply in return for advertisement for herself. Get up the sort of concert that will create a demand for more. Work the local papers for special mention. If there is a musical club in town enlist their interest. Make the scheme work in as many ways as possible.

At the regular performances give the same prominence to the music. Have a program printed for the day or print a list of selections for the week and announce that the daily program will be taken from these, the selection being shown by card or program letter or number. This should be done only with selections presented as such and not while the picture is running on the screen.

Failing even an organ, recourse must be had to piano either alone or in combination with other instruments. The once popular combination of piano and drums was a hideous thing that has been outgrown. The drummer was handy to work his traps, but today it is the picture that counts and not the sound effects. Piano and cornet lacks the balance of piano and strings. The second instrument should be strings, and a cello rather than a violin, if possible. If a third player can be added a saxaphone [sic] will give the combined tone of brass and wood. If this may not be had use a clarinet. If piano alone is used, it is a good plan to have some relieving novelty, such as a chime of bells or a xylophone. These should not be used while a picture is on the screen, but for a brief interlude.

Because you can afford only a piano is no reason why you should not give proper care to your music. Indeed it will pay to be even more careful, since you

[36] have so little to offer. The smaller the volume of tone the better it should be.

No matter what form of music you employ, be willing to spend money for a musical library. Get the new selections and see that these are played; not the jingly stuff from the cheap houses, but the hits from the musical comedies, good marches and the like. Of course you will need the product of the popular song publishing houses, but set apart some of the dull nights as "popular" nights and use them then.

Though it is contrary to accepted belief, NEVER permit a popular song hit to be played during a drama, and in a comedy only when it fits in. Consciously or otherwise, the patrons will mentally repeat the words of the song and interest will be divided between music and the screen. This is one of the little things, seldom noticed but always important.

Trade slides should be discouraged, but there is no objection to a slide stating that "all of the music played at this theatre may be had at Jones' Music Store, Holtoa Block." If Jones is a live wire he will see that you get the newest and best, either free or at reduced cost.

There are three kinds of music. One kind keeps patrons away, a second is barely good enough to pass, and a third makes business. The latter means constant alertness some expense and a lot of worry—but it is worth it.

Source: Epes Winthrop Sargent, Picture Theatre Advertising (New York, 1915), pp. 31-36.