Ah, pre-show warnings. They’re in every theatre. DON’T USE YOUR CELLPHONE IN THE THEATRE. They’re as common as popcorn now, and it would be odd for a movie theatre to be without them. But what about before cellphones? Believe it or not, early movie theaters (nickelodeons) also had warnings. One of them said “Please don’t […]
And so with all things: names were vital and important. — Algernon H. Blackwood NOTE: The following is my own particular bias about names as a reader and writer + name lists. This means that I can be totally wrong in my estimation of names in literature. I am picky about names. No, I don’t just mean […]
Posted in Biographies, How They Got Their Start, Silent Film
Silent Film: How They Got Their Start – Mary Pickford
You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing that we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down. — Mary Pickford It’s no secret to anyone who knows much about what I have been working on with my current project that I absolutely adore Mary Pickford. A […]
Now, I have very strong memories of Crayola crayons as a child. I don’t know about you, but every year I wanted that collection of 64 crayons with the built in sharpener. There was something about the smell of the wax crayons that filled my senses and made me feel extremely creative, and that the […]
I like to use all sorts of quizzes to help me figure out more about my characters. It’s not just the results that give me new information to develop them, but sometimes the questions themselves give me rich ideas on how to deepen my characterization. One quiz that I’ve never seen anyone else talk about […]
Guess where I am? Los Angeles! It’s my birthday and, as I said in the last post, at Disneyland! So it’s just about the right time to talk about one of the most iconic places in movies–HOLLYWOOD! It can be hard to imagine a time when the capital of movies wasn’t Los Angeles. But the […]
I’m not really here right now. This is a scheduled post… Because I’m in Disneyland! We’re visiting the happiest place on earth for my birthday. But I didn’t want the blog to languish, so I’m giving you a link to inspiration board on Pinterest. I hope that you’ll enjoy glancing through some images of silent […]
I have this thing. It’s called a deadline. No, I don’t have a publisher waiting eagerly for something from me (oh, how I wish!), but I strongly believe in setting goals and achieving them (and, if not, trying not to fall too far from the mark). The great news is that Scrivener has an awesome […]
Everyone knows of the cliché ‘Stick ‘em up’ Western type film. But the first of it’s kind, and the one that set the stage for all of them yet to come, was created in 1903 and debuted in January of 1904. This film–”The Great Train Robbery” was astronomical in it’s scope at the time. There […]
She was iconic, she was the height of fashion. She was a woman who was going places. She was – The Gibson Girl. Charles Gibson was an established a cultural icon when he created the Gibson Girl. He combined both the voluptuous woman with the slender woman, creating a woman who was slender and yet […]