ing 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.

It is very important to keep this point constantly in mind. Seldom is
it today that the cast appears on the screen exactly as prepared by
the author. Almost all the big companies at the present time are given
to long sub-titles, and to lengthy statements in connection with the
introduction of the principal characters. Many readers will see the
similarity between the second of the foregoing descriptions of the old
miser and the printed statement, in connection with a similar
character, shown in the Triangle and Paramount pictures written by C.
Gardner Sullivan, as well as in many others. The statement on the film
which introduces a principal character, today, is much more in the
nature of an actual leader than it is a mere announcement of the names
of the character and the player. Thus, in Universal's feature
production of "The Kaiser,"