Moving Images, Understanding Media

254 Moving Images: Making Movies, Understanding Media

and to reduce their ability to communicate, and in no area was this more

eff ective than with screenwriters. Certain Hollywood practices developed that

continue to be industry norms to this day, such as having numerous writers

rework scripts in a signifi cant quantity of draft s, sometimes at the same time,

and keeping the writers separate from directors during the various phases

of the production process.

Struggles over legal rights to written material have recurred throughout

the history of screenwriting. Th e studios held all rights to original stories

written by screenwriters under contract until writers banded together in

unions during the 1940s and were able to secure rights to material they

authored and to establish procedures for applying proper screen credit on

projects (although that has remained a contentious issue since that time). In

the early twenty-fi rst century, the Writers Guild of America engaged in a long

strike over compensation for motion pictures appearing on the Internet and

in other media, which halted many television productions for months.

Developing Narratives for the Screen

In the early 1900s, movie studios also actively solicited stories from the general

public. One of the most celebrated and talented screenwriters of the early

cinema got her break this way. Anita Loos was in her early twenties when

she sent in her story “Th e New York Hat” to Biograph studios in 1912. Th ey

bought it to make a movie directed by D. W. Griffi th with star Mary Pickford.

Biograph proceeded to invite her to visit because they were buying many

stories from her. Loos later said that upon her arrival they thought that her

mother was the writer. Soon, her charisma, sense of style, and wit charmed

moviemaking society. Her talents for craft ing original narratives uniquely

suited for moving images led her to become one of the authors who would

help to establish the norms of writing for the screen. At the beginning, Loos

provided brief story outlines typically consisting of a page or two. By the

1920s, she was writing scripts that were about fi ft y pages long.

When American fi lm studios had sought material to make early short

motion pictures, they were looking for stories written in the style of short

fi ction for magazines. As motion picture storytelling traditions grew, eff ective

approaches to writing for the screen evolved as well. It had taken a number of

years to recognize the need for scripts in the preparation for a motion picture,

and then to develop an approach to writing for fi lm. However, once this

occurred, the norms that were established proved to be remarkably resilient.

Th e basic principles that are refl ected in the motion picture scenarios of the

late 1910s and the 1920s are still quite evident today.

Th is can be seen in the screenwriting manuals that were published during

the time, such as Anita Loos’s own How to Write a Photoplay (credited to Loos

and her husband John Emerson). Many of the approaches described in the

pages of this book are echoed in screenwriting books from over a half-century

later, including employing one sympathetic protagonist to drive the story,

basing the plot on a clear confl ict with a central antagonist, structuring the

VIEWFINDER

“I like to learn things

when I’m writing

something, because you

have to empathize with

the characters and you

have to try to listen to

them.. .”

–Paul Weitz–

Director and writer whose

movies include About a Boy

(2002), American Pie (1999),

and American Dreamz (2006),

produced with brother

Chris Weitz

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