Dramatic Cinematography

Karl Struss

IN USING the picture Sunrise as subject matter for a discussion of “Dramatic Cinematography,” there are numerous and various elements to be taken into consideration. In the development of the modern photoplay or motion picture, considerable advance has been made in the psychological treatment of the story chosen to be filmed. Heretofore, unfortunately, stories have been treated in the literary fashion of animated scripts or photo versions of stage plays; that is, a superabundance of conversational titles with incidental action in picture form has resulted. I believe, however, that Sunrise is the fore-runner of a new type of picture play in which thought is expressed pictorially instead of by titles. I am sorry to say that Sunrise as released, contains twice as many titles,-more or less explanatory-v-as the original script contained. This was done as a concession to the great public, which presumably cannot as yet take its entertainment by seeing and thinking for itself. The script of Sunrise, however, written very cleverly by Carl Mayer, has a mood or sense of dramatic feeling and timing, that makes it rather simple to visualize the action. From this script then, dealing with drama in picture form, it became a matter of reducing the action described to definite scenes in sets or settings designed to create a series of impressions, which make up the picture. In the case of Sunrise, some two hundred sketches were made by Rochus Gliese the Art Director or Visualizer, representing the two hundred scenes from the script, from which small plaster models were made of the more important sets. These gave the cinematographers firsthand information before actual photographing commenced so that all the lighting possibilities would be arranged and prepared, before the real sets were finished.

Print ISSN
Published
1928-04
Content type
Original Research
DOI
10.5594/J10224