To be sure, here padding is bad also, but in a dramatic
subject the central idea is almost always big enough to justify one of
the several lengths to which screen dramas now run; but, largely
because comedy action is played so much faster than dramatic action,
you must firmly refuse to allow yourself to expand a humorous story by
even so little as a single scene beyond its logical and natural end.
Comedy ideas, perhaps more than any others, should be carefully
classified, and in classifying you should try to determine, from the
very first, the length to which that particular story ought to run.
Having once arrived at your decision, keep to it. It is
quality--clever situations and funny action--and not quantity that
counts in the writing of humorous photoplays. Most of the good comedy
themes have been worked over so often, either by the authors
themselves or by the director, that it requires considerable skill to
give them that much-desired new twist[30] that is necessary to make
them acceptable. In the writing of dramatic photoplays, a word or two
will often suggest the necessary "business" of a certain character,
but in comedy it is especially important that every action, every bit
of by-play, should be made to count; and for that reason it is
necessary to give each scene a much fuller treatment in the script
than would be necessary in describing dramatic action.
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