d of "comedy," just as
comedy-drama, tragedy, melodrama, and historical plays are classed as
"dramatic." These two broad classifications will be used throughout
this work except where finer distinctions are needed in order to treat
varieties of subjects. The regular spoken play naturally invites these
distinctions more than does the photoplay, at least at present. In
preparing your manuscript, however, you will be taught to follow the
accepted form among photoplaywrights and, in writing the synopsis,
after the title, specify the class of subject, as "dramatic
photoplay," "farce," "comedy-drama," "historical drama," "society
drama," etc.]

True, a genuine photoplay may contain scenes and incidents which would
almost seem to justify its being included in one of the foregoing
classes. One might ask, for instance, why Selig's film, "On the Trail
of the Germs," produced about five years ago, was classified as
"educational," while Edison's "The Red Cross Seal" and "The Awakening
of John Bond" (both of which were produced at the instance of the
National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis, and
had to do with the fight waged by that society against the disease in
the cities), were listed as "dramatic" films or photoplays. Anyone who
saw all three of the films, however, would recognize that the Selig
picture, while in every respect a subject of great human interest, was
strictly educational, and employed the thread of a story not as a
dramatic entertainment, but merely to furnish a connecting link for
the scenes which illustrated the methods of curing the disease after a
patient is discovered to be infected. The Edison pictures, on the
other hand, were real dramas, with well-constructed plots and abundant
dramatic interest, even while, as the advertising in the trade papers
announced, the principal object of the pictures was "to disseminate
information as to what becomes of the money that is received from the
sale of Red Cross stamps at holiday time." So we see that the
distinction lies in the amount of plot or story-thread which each
carries, and that a mere series of connected pictures without a plot
running through it obviously cannot be called a photoplay any more
than a series of tableaus on the stage could be accurately called a
play.

Therefore, learn to think of a photoplay as being a story prepared for
pantomimic development before the camera; a story told in _action_,
with inserted descriptive m