The American Film Industry

7. Blueprints for Feature Films: Hollywood's Continuity Scripts

Feature Films 1JANET STAIGER Blueprints for Feature Films: Hollywood's Continuity Scripts The manufacture ofHollywood feature films in the 1930s and 1940s included the use of detailed scripts called continuities. These continuities provided a scene-by-scene description ofthe proposed film: camera angles and distances, action, dialogue, and additional information for production crews. These scripts, of course, were related to the written form ofstage plays. However, their relationship to the finished film was much different from that of the drama script to a theatrical performance. The continuity script was a precise blueprint of the film for all the workers. The continuity script assumed its special format in order for manufacturers to maximize their profits. To achieve optimum profits required production methods which would employ efficient and costeffective work processes. At the same time, to attract consumers, the product needed to meet a certain standard of quality. Although these two aims were present from the earliest introduction offilms, the shift from a one-reel (one-thousand-foot) film to the multiple-reel film increased pressure for a new type of script. In tum, the continuity script as it was organized in later years permitted the style of these films to develop in a particular direction. In other words, the style of the Hollywood film is bound tightly to a certain mode of production.I My 1. The mode ofproduction for filmmaking includes far more than the continuity script and planning and writing practices; it includes division of labor, hierarchies of management , work practices, technologies, and physical capital. The linkage suggested is between only one part ofthe mode and the film product. This linkage was not inevitable since other economic practices or standards of product quality might have produced very different work practices and styles. 173 174 Part II / Struggles for Control, 1908-1930 project in this essay will be to trace the transformation ofthe dramatic script into the continuity script and to describe how the continuity script then ensured the stylistic characteristics favored by the filmmakers . One-Reel Films and Their Mode of Production From the first years of filmmaking in the United States, manufacturers used two methods in making their product. The first was generally applied to documentary subjects and news events. A cameraman would select the subject matter, stage it as necessary by manipulating any mise-en-scene and people, select options from available technological and photographic possibilities (type of camera, raw film stock, lens, framing and movement of camera, etc.), photograph the scene, develop, and edit it. In the case of traveling shows, the cameraman might also project the finished product. In this mode of production, the cameraman conceived and executed the filming of a sequence of actions. Advance planning was minimal, and a script as such was seldom-if ever-written down. In the second method-which was generally used for narratives, variety acts, and trick films-the manufacturers increasingly employed two key workers: a director who took over much of the staging activities , and a cameraman who continued to handle the photographic aspects of the work.2 In this mode of production, other workers (such as writers who thought up ideas for narratives, scenic artists who painted background flats, set construction and property workers, and costumers ) filled out an array of support staffwho helped share the work load so that the company could make more films faster. This method of filmmaking approximated theatrical production with the exception of the cameraman's insertion into the division oflabor. Scripts ifwritten were bare outlines of the action. Disadvantages to this system surfaced however. Filmmakers quickly realized that they saved time and money if all the scenes to be shot at one place or on one set were done at the same time rather than 2. During the first years, a single individual-for example, Edwin Porter at Edisonwould assume both of these jobs; on Porter's work see: Charles Musser, "The Early Cinema ofEdwin Porter," Cinema Journal 19 (Fall 1979): 1-38. Production descriptions after 1908 (when trade information proliferates with the appearance of all-film trade papers) suggest that the split was common at that point. I would estimate the split began after 1904-6 as the exchange system and nickelodeon boom encouraged manufacturers to increase product output. Splitting the work allowed faster production with several individuals handling parts of the preparation, shooting, and assembly steps. 7. Staiger: Blueprints for Feature Films 175 photographing them in...