Screenwriting Advice From The Past: Cutting The Picture [Part 1]

Yes, you read that right. A studio. Calling in the writers. To cut the movie. After the director has shot it.

If you are a screenwriter, you should know about Anita Loos. Loos was one of the most influential writers in the early stages of American cinema, associated with 136 film projects per IMDb.

Married to writer John Emerson, the pair wrote one of the first books on screenwriting in 1920: “How to Write Photoplays”. I have been running a series based on the book.

Today: Cutting The Picture [P. 79].

While a feature photoplay usually contains from 4,500 to 7,000 feet of film, the director in making the picture, may probably take 70,000 to 100,000 feet by expanding upon ideas as they occur to him and by taking his scenes in several different ways for close ups, long shots, and so forth.

It is therefore obvious that some one must condense this fifteen miles or so of motion pictures back into the conventional commercial length.

The studio that calls you in to cut a picture will supply you with a hand projector, a mechanical device which enables you to grind the film into animation without the necessity of projecting it on the screen. A laboratory will take your orders as to sequence and length of scenes.

Yes, you read that right. A studio. Calling in the writers. To cut the movie. After the director has shot it.

I mean… Holy Shit!

For years, the WGA has been negotiating to bring the writer even slightly more into the production and post process. And here we were 100 years ago when writers — WRITERS!!! — would routinely cut movies.

Mind-boggling.

Then along came the auteur theory, directors became the Big Dogs, and the rest is, as they say, is history.

Well, I say screw that. The next few weeks, we will learn what these writers saw as essential knowledge in cutting a movie and how that relates to the writing process.

Tomorrow: More screenwriting advice from the past.

You can read “How to Write Photoplays” via Google books online here.

For the rest of the series articles:

Introduction
Getting Ideas
Conflict and Crisis
Situation
Theme
Star Sympathy
Action: Part 1
Action: Part 2
Action: Part 3
Action: Part 4
Action: Part 5
Story Synopsis
Continuity: Part 1
Continuity: Part 2
The Title
Marketing the Script
Writing for the Camera
Scenery for Scenarios
The Actor’s Angle: Part 1
The Actor’s Angle: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 1
Character On The Screen: Part 2
Character On The Screen: Part 3
Character On The Screen: Part 4
The “Interest”: Part 1
The “Interest”: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 1
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 2
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 3
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 4
The Kinds of Stories That Sell: Part 5
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 1
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 2
What to Write and Not to Write: Part 3

Note: I ran this series originally in 2012. Unfortunately, the individual articles got bungled up on the site in some sort of technical snafu. So, I am recovering them one by one in this reprise of the series.