regular extras are experienced actors and actresses, and most of them
continue to report daily in the hope that, being given a small part to
play, they may in this way attract the attention of the director and
eventually be offered positions in the stock company. Many of the best
known photoplayers in the country today made their start in
moving-picture work in this way after having forsaken the "legitimate"
stage.

_5. Planning the Cast_

Strictly speaking, it is no longer advisable, nor even possible, to
plan your cast ahead, when writing photoplays, any more than it would
be possible to state exactly in advance how many characters you would
introduce if you were setting out to write a novel. Today more than
ever before the demand is for good _stories_. Given a good story, a
competent director will do the rest. He will not hesitate to engage
for that production just as many people as may be necessary, whether
they are special "type" players, male or female, or for "straight"
parts. Your cast, in other words, must inevitably be a result of the
final working out of your story. The one thing you _can_ do in advance
is determine whether you are going to write what is simply a good
story or is a story designed as a vehicle to exploit some particular
"star."

This latter procedure is always a risky one for the writer to adopt.
The story planned and worked out to fit the talents of a certain star,
especially if designed to feature the very unusual work of such a
player as Douglas Fairbanks, may not sell at all if it fails to sell
to the one for whom it was planned, and the writer's work goes for
naught. By far the wisest plan is to write for certain particular
stars _only under contract_, or at least to write only stories that
stand a chance of selling elsewhere if rejected by the firm at which
they were first aimed.

If you _are_ writing "to order" for a certain star, and if you are
reasonably sure that the supporting players are permanent members of
that particular company, you may plan your story so as to give the
director a chance to use all the people at his disposal to the best
advantage, for today, while character-actors are just as busy as ever,
it is the actual "type" that is usually cast for a certain part if
such a man or woman is procurable at all.

As for whether a certain "small" part is played by an "extra" or by a
regular member of the stock company, you need not worry. The director
will do his best