But
the point is that there is no longer the frantic striving to keep
everything as "short and simple as possible" that once existed, and
this applies to everything in the nature of inserts quite as much as
to the names used for characters in the picture. Little by little
"art" in motion picture production is becoming a reality instead of
being merely a high-sounding word used occasionally by the
press-agents.
_8. Describing the Characters_
Since there is no restriction placed upon the way in which a cast of
characters is made out, the writer may choose between the simple
statement-form, when giving the names of his characters, and that in
which the appearance and dominant traits of the character are set
forth. You can say:
Silas Gregory, a miser,
or you can draw a picture of the man himself in the very way you
describe him, thus:
Silas Gregory, an extremely wealthy and eccentric miser; a bachelor
and a man who both by his appearance and his nature repels the
friendship of his fellow men; inclined to practice petty cruelty on
children and animals; suspicious of and seeming to hate everybody
except his old body-servant, Daniels, to whom he is strangely
attached.
While the foregoing is a rather long description of a character to be
included as part of the cast-outline, and while some of the points in
connection with Gregory's nature could be more forcibly demonstrated
by having him _do_ little things in the action that would make them
apparent, the point is that you are supplying these items of
information for the benefit of the editor and the director, and that,
as must be apparent, the fuller their understanding of your meaning in
everything you write, the better will be their interpretation and
production of your story.
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