According to Sargent (1916), what should a beginner check before choosing a photoplay plot so that a US studio and the medium can use it?
1916 practice (Sargent, Technique of the Photoplay, third edition, Ch. XX): choose a plot that is a real plot (not a peg for a spectacle), can be produced cheaply, has a small cast (about five or six principals), can be made in one place at one season, has few time jumps and few complications, avoids crime or vice as its sole reason and avoids offending any group, and ends happily. The chapter closes with a nine-item recap. These are Sargent's assertions about what US editors and studios wanted, with no data; his examples (warships, Alaska and Mexico, train wrecks) illustrate them. He also says the points can be relaxed later in a writer's career.
1916 practice (Sargent, Technique of the Photoplay, third edition, Ch. XX): choose a plot that is a real plot (not a peg for a spectacle), can be produced cheaply, has a small cast (about five or six principals), can be made in one place at one season, has few time jumps and few complications, avoids crime or vice as its sole reason and avoids offending any group, and ends happily. The chapter closes with a nine-item recap. These are Sargent's assertions about what US editors and studios wanted, with no data; his examples (warships, Alaska and Mexico, train wrecks) illustrate them. He also says the points can be relaxed later in a writer's career.
Curator qualifications: Plot-choice, new-twist and true-story rules verified as Sargent's claims. Market assertions and unsupported numbers (7-29 plots, 0.5-2% acceptable) are flagged as such by the producer. The note that Sargent says nothing on rights or libel in ch. XX-XXII holds.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
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"url": "https://archive.org/stream/techniqueofphoto00sarg/techniqueofphoto00sarg_djvu.txt",
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- [sourced_fact] 1916 practice (Sargent, Technique of the Photoplay, third edition, Ch. XX): choose a plot that is a real plot (not a peg for a spectacle), can be produced cheaply, has a small cast (about five or six principals), can be made in one place at one season, has few time jumps and few complications, avoids crime or vice as its sole reason and avoids offending any group, and ends happily. The chapter closes with a nine-item recap. These are Sargent's assertions about what US editors and studios wanted, with no data; his examples (warships, Alaska and Mexico, train wrecks) illustrate them. He also says the points can be relaxed later in a writer's career. · locator: sar.flat (a3cff7eb) offsets per candidate source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |