sort of themes you will find welcome in the photoplay market.
Wholesomeness is essential. By that I do not mean that your story should necessarily be an epitome on optimism. I mean simply, that it is wise for the screen dramatist to forget his personal grudges, his indigestion and his own irritation over the imperfections of life when he sits down to select a theme and to write a photoplay.
View life from the eye of the aviator, not from the eye of the caterpillar. Get your nose away from the ground. And don't get it too far up in the air, either, by the way! The greatest of our playwrights, the masters of literature, all were men and women who, in spite of personal misfortune or personal failings, were able to see the things of life in their broader aspects, as they affected society, not as they affect one certain individual. They have not considered themselves above the ordinary run of mankind, and neither have they grubbed in the mire of human failures for their material.
Think back ten years in your own life. Do you remember, as most of us can, something which happened to you about that time, and which disappointed you keenly, hurt you grievously? You felt at the time, perhaps, that the world never would be right again, that your heart strings had snapped. And now you smile at the absurd seriousness you evinced at the time. Problems which you have met since were far more difficult of solution; yet, you have solved them. And those matters of ten years ago were trivialities in comparison.
That is what I mean, then, when I urge'you to get the birdseye, the airplane view of that phase of life which you set out to depict for the screen. Ask yourself whether propinquity is not affecting, not warping your convictions on the subject. Make sure that it is not a matter which, after all, can be presented with wholesomeness, cheerfulness, with a note of encouragement to the world, and not a note of despair.
