Motion Picture Directing: The Facts and Theories of the Newest Art

Practically anyone who has given any thought, whether serious or not, to picture production, thinks deep down in his heart that he could direct just as well if not better than t...

It appears after all that Cecil De Mille is the only director in the producing art who doesn't believe in showing his players how to play a scene. Here comes Marshall Neilan wit...

What is the fundamental asset that makes the great motion picture director? The requisite that distinguishes the real artist from the rank and file? It is really the same asset...

As a general rule there is no love lost between directors and scenario writers. This is particularly the case in the big producing companies where directors work more or less on...

Mention of one of the De Milles immediately brings to mind the other. Cecil and William are as easy to say in one breath as Anthony and Cleopatra, Nip and Tuck and Mutt and Jeff.

No volume on the subject of directing would be complete without the mention of D. W. Griffith. And yet it is utterly impossible to deal with D. W. Griffith in any comprehensive...

One of the most highly publicized tasks which fall to the lot of the director, highly publicized because of its mere freakishness, is the routine which decrees that he must ofte...

Earlier mention has been made in these pages to German pictures. Lest this term be confusing to those without the picture trade and in the hinterlands, it may be explained that...

The usual critic of the motion picture is given to prating long and seriously about the art and the business of it with relation to the Griffiths, the De Milles, the Ingrams, th...

Earlier in these chapters reference was made to the number of capable and skilled men, as yet unproven with respect to the extent of their emotional experience, who were eagerly...

I am not going to try, in conclusion, to list the best directed pictures made during the life of the picture producing art. Such a list would necessarily be overlong while those...

Tempo is such an intricate subject that the more that is said of it, the more it obtrudes itself on the matter of directing. If a director isn't careful, watching the progress o...

Few people who closely follow the screen will need an introduction to Rex Ingram, the young director who startled the whole screen world with the artistry of his work in “The Fo...

So much discussion has been set down in these pages regarding the results obtained when a director prepares his own continuity or when he works without a continuity in his hand;...

The foregoing words on D. W. Griffith have brought to mind the matter of motion picture spectacles, those pictures telling a personal story before a background of masses of peop...

One of the most important matters concerned with the direction of a picture is that of tempo. Tempo is a term borrowed from the music world but it applies to pictures as accurat...

From the standpoint of producing pictures with tremendous popular appeal and at the same time investing them with artistic settings, settings that fairly belie description, and...

Mack Sennett's principle of keeping the tricks of his studio to himself and not spreading them broadcast through a publicity department and acquainting audiences with the “how”...

Before going further into the requirements of actual directing and the methods employed by certain directors, the various processes through which a scenario goes before the actu...

Most of the chapters in this book, when dealing specifically with the work of directors, have been keyed in the general tone of praise. The reader might thus absorb the idea tha...

All our directors are not great. There would be no fun for the picture audiences if they were. Fans would be deprived of that greatest of all pleasures; writing to the magazines...

One of the most difficult details of production that confronts the director in the ordinary routine of affairs, is that of “stealing” exterior scenes. Those who have consistentl...

The question of detail has come up so often in the discussion of various directors and in their various discussions regarding directing that a few more words are, perhaps, due o...

Those who cry down the methods employed by Thomas H. Ince with respect to the directors who work in his studio often state that the Ince school of directing snuffs out any origi...

Many directors use music to inspire from their actors and actresses the best performances. The idea is plausible and often productive of the desired results. Often, too, it is c...

No better illustration of the value of Mr. De Mille's foregoing remarks can be found than in the case of Charles Chaplin. Mr. Chaplin as well as being the world's greatest comed...

Many artists have found the field of motion picture directing exceedingly attractive. The majority of them have entered the new field in the capacity of art directors, planning...

This, of course, is but a section of a script. Moreover, it is as technically perfect as anyone could desire. And yet here the scenario writer has Richard denouncing Mary in a c...

_Lubitsch, on his first visit to American shores, gives some few of his ideas on picture directing.—“Passion,” “Deception,” and “The Wife of Pharaoh” are proof of his skill but...

_In which it is noted that the more famous De Mille, besides employing the method of production described by his brother, places unusual faith in the intelligence of his actors...

_A survey of the Ince method of production with due realization of the fact that he stakes everything on the picture continuity.—Proof of his success and a few of the reasons fo...

_Wherein it is shown that the continuity writer and not the director is the actual creator of the motion picture in its motion picture form.—Proof is offered by the directors th...

_The director of “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” and “The Conquering Power,” two of the screen's greatest achievements, has something to say about settings and atmosphere....

_Lack of proper attention to tempo often results in a director finding himself at a loss when it comes to cutting his picture.—The severe task faced by the director of the two r...

_The director of “Humoresque” and “Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford,” a born creator, an instinctive picture director, believes there is not enough true characterization on the screen...

_The producer and director of “The Birth of a Nation,” “Hearts of the World,” “Way Down East,” and “Orphans of the Storm” works with amazing disregard of system.—Others attempt...

_The director of the knockabout comedy grossly neglected in the parcelling out of praise.—The inventive genius of Mack Sennett, king of comedy, and a digression on the “discover...

_Do you actually know what you could be up against if tomorrow you were given the opportunity to direct a picture? What do you know about light, camera angles, makeup, exits and...

_Facts regarding the manner in which the majority of pictures are made.—The new order of producing pictures “in continuity” with some interesting remarks on the subject from Wil...

_Proving that the illusion once created by the double exposure has been completely spoiled by giving it so much publicity.—And so the spoiling process is begun on a number of ot...

_A partial list of directors schooled under Thomas H. Ince who have made successes as individualists elsewhere and who, because of their successes, are actual refutations of the...

_Every director who consistently derives a living from picture making has in more or less degree the power of visualization.—Without it he would be unfit for his position.—The c...

_In which the business of slamming directors in general is freely indulged.—Directors have created an array of utterly false conventions by their constant use of them.—A plea fo...

_Mr. Neilan, whose moods run the range of human emotions, believes that many directors forget to put themselves in the places of their audiences.—Loss of proper perspective resu...

_Why D. W. Griffith has been more successful in producing spectacular features than other directors.—His ability to step from the mountain to the molehill with agility and delic...

Host and hostess stand at door in f.g. receiving late guests. General dancing and ad lib activity in b.g. Run for a few feet and then bring in Mary escorted by John. They exchan...

_Emotional experience and the capacity for enduring and retaining mental pictures of such experiences—these constitute the chief asset that distinguishes the master director fro...

_The matter of tempo is strictly of the technical side of directing. Edward Dillon explains how comedy pictures can be “made” or “broken” through close attention to this angle o...

_In which it is pointed out that in three of Mr. May's pictures he displays more qualifications to be heralded as Germany's best artist than Mr. Lubitsch.—“The Indian Tomb” a su...

_The value of music in inspiring the proper mood in a company of players.—An argument in favor of this aide to the director and the recitation of an occasion where a director we...

_Explaining how directors sometimes film scenes on busy streets in broad daylight without passers-by becoming aware of the fact.—An amusing incident that arose when one director...

_An amusing incident of studio life that might be seen by a visitor any day in the week with the moral “Never be shocked by anything you see in a motion picture studio”_

_The routine attached to a director's task before he begins actual production.—Also some instances of stellar temperament, which, though mildly amusing in their relation, are so...