4.  Length of Comedy Photoplays

Seemingly, the day of the split-reel comedy is past.  A few years ago, when one thousand feet was considered the proper length for the average dramatic subject, a full-reel comedy was the exception.  They ran from four hundred to six hundred feet, the remainder of the reel being taken up with a scenic or other educational subject.  Thus we had what came to be known as “split reels,” as we have previously explained.  Today, even the slap-stick comedies are produced in not less than one full reel, and they usually run to two reels.  On the other hand, there are one or two comedy-producing companies which adhere to the single-reel length for their light comedies of domestic life.

Far more than in writing dramatic scripts, you must be guided in deciding the length of your comedy photoplay by the company to which you are submitting.  This entails taking a chance as to whether you sell at all or not, in the event of your story’s not being suitable for the market at which you have aimed it.  For example, those writers who have both sold to and had scripts rejected by the editor who looks after the wants of such a comedy team as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Drew know that if a script does come back from them it is seldom “placable” anywhere else.  For markets such as this, the fact that a synopsis only is usually called for is a real benefit to the writer, saving him much time and disappointment in the event of non-acceptance.

Another thing that experienced writers know is that certain of the larger producers of slap-stick comedy are not in the market for outside material.  After being deluged with all kinds of “comedy” stories for years, the Keystone Company finally found it necessary to announce that nothing could be considered from free-lance writers, on account of the peculiar nature of the comedies produced by them and the necessity of having them written by inside writers who were familiar with the studio, its players, and the surrounding possible locations.

Thus, in its way, the market for comedy scripts or synopses is more or less limited, and yet there is, as has been said, a good demand for first-class humorous stories for the screen.  One important rule to keep in mind is that they should be, in every case, just as long as, but no longer than, the idea that is back of them.  You must never pad a comedy plot, or even a comedy idea; to do so is fatal to the attainment of artistically perfect results, if not to its acceptance by the editor.

In writing dramatic stories, on the other hand, more freedom is allowed.  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.