Chapter VII

_Camera-consciousness and a way to cure it--Why it is_
_fatal to imitate--Some scenes_
_in “Intolerance.”_

The several qualities most likely to succeed upon the screen having been discussed, and the importance of knowing the story, make-up and costuming having been established, my candidate is now ready to go before the camera.

All that has been done before is but to build up to this vital moment. The camera tells at once and usually in no uncertain terms whether one is possessed of star possibilities.

It is a sort of court from which there is no appeal. For that reason every expression, every movement, every feeling and, I verily believe, every thought are important once the camera has begun to turn.

Now the actress or actor is standing entirely upon her or his own feet. Previously they have had the benefit of all the advice and help that the many departments of a studio could proffer. In a word they have been able to lean upon someone else and to correct mistakes at leisure.

It is different before the camera. The beginner will at once feel very much alone and terribly conspicuous. This tends toward self-consciousness, or camera-consciousness, which must be immediately overcome or success is impossible. Camera-consciousness is the bane of the beginner. I think most of us have suffered more or less from it. I have known actresses who possessed it to such a degree that, finding they could not rid themselves of it, they left the screen. By extreme good fortune this never happened to be one of my troubles.

Self-consciousness on the screen is much the same thing as stage fright in the spoken drama and proceeds, I suppose, from the same source, which is the inability to forget one’s self.

When a dear friend of mine first began playing small parts she found that she suffered from it. She also saw that it would certainly be fatal if she didn’t cure it.

“For that reason,” she said to herself, “the best thing to do is to think so hard about the part that I am playing that I won’t have time to think of anything else.”

She gave herself good advice. Anyhow it worked and I am sure it will be successful in the case of the average beginner. If so, then camera-consciousness will really be a blessing in disguise, for it will have taught the actress concentration upon her part and concentration, in every fiber of one’s being, I believe, is the big secret of screen success.

I remember the case of one young actress who came to me in tears saying that when she rehearsed her part in the privacy of her own home, or dressing room, she felt every inch of it, but once under the gaze of the director, the assistant director, the cameraman, possibly the author and perhaps a number of privileged persons about the studio, she seemed to wilt.

“Look at it this way,” I advised. “When you are acting the director has his work to do and is doing it. So has the assistant director. Likewise the cameraman and the assistant cameraman have their work to do and are doing it. So are the other actors. As for the lookers-on, request that they leave. Then imagine you are in a big schoolroom where everyone is busy at his or her lessons. You have your lesson to get which is concentrating upon your part. Go ahead with it.”

It helped the girl in question. She has become a very excellent and charming star and while she still prefers to work upon a secluded stage she does not find it positively necessary, as do some actresses. In any event there is no trace of camera-consciousness in her acting.

Camera-consciousness having been eliminated the beginner can now throw himself or herself entirely into the part being played. By throwing one’s self into the part I do not mean forcing it. Nothing is quite so bad as that. I mean feeling it. If you do not feel the particular action being played then the result will certainly be a lack of sincerity. We have already decided that that is fatal.

Let me illustrate:

While we were playing “Intolerance,” one cycle of which is still being released as “The Mother and the Law,” I had to do a scene where, in the big city’s slums, my father dies.

The night before I did this scene I went to the theater--something, by the way, I seldom do when working--to see Marjorie Rambeau in “Kindling.”

To my surprise and gratification she had to do a scene in this play that was somewhat similar to the one that I was scheduled to play in “Intolerance.” It made a deep impression upon me.

As a consequence, the next day before the camera in the scene depicting my sorrow and misery at the death of my father, I began to cry with the memory of Marjorie Rambeau’s part uppermost in my mind. I thought, however, that it had been done quite well and was anxious to see it on the screen.

I was in for very much of a surprise. A few of us gathered in the projection room and the camera began humming. I saw myself enter with a fair semblance of misery. But there was something about it that was not convincing.

Mr. Griffith, who was closely studying the action, finally turned in his seat and said:

“I don’t know what you were thinking about when you did that, but it is evident that it was not about the death of your father.”

“That is true,” I said. I did not admit what I was thinking about.

We began immediately upon the scene again. This time I thought of the death of my own father and the big tragedy to our little home, then in Texas. I could recall the deep sorrow of my mother, my sisters, my brother and myself.

This scene is said to be one of the most effective in “The Mother and the Law.”

The beginner may learn from that that it never pays to imitate anyone else’s interpretation of any emotion. Each of us when we are pleased, injured, or affected in any way have our own way of showing our feelings. This is one thing that is our very own.

When before the camera, therefore, we must remember that when we feel great sorrow the audience wants to see our own sorrow and not an imitation of Miss Blanche Sweet’s or Mme. Nazimova’s. We must feel our own part and take heed of my favorite screen maxim, which is that thoughts do register.

It is true that we have good and bad days before the camera. There are times when to feel and to act are the easiest things imaginable and other occasions when it seems impossible to catch the spirit that we know is necessary. In this we are more fortunate than our brothers upon the spoken stage, for we can do it over again.

It is also very often true that even when we are entirely in the spirit of our part, and believe we have done a good day’s work, that there will be some mechanical defect in the scenes taken which makes it necessary to do them over, possibly when we feel least like so doing.

In this event it is a good thing to remember that it doesn’t pay to cry over spilt milk. We must learn to take the bitter with the sweet. Fortunately the mechanics of picture taking are constantly improving.

The hardest dramatic work I ever did was in the courtroom scenes in “Intolerance.” We retook these scenes on four different occasions. Each time I gave to the limit of my vitality and ability. I put everything into my portrayal that was in me. It certainly paid. Parts of each of the four takes--some of them done at two weeks’ intervals--were assembled to make up those scenes which you, as the audience, finally beheld upon the screen.

Therefore, when first going before a camera it is well to resolve to put as much into one’s performance as possible. We cannot too greatly concentrate upon our parts. If we do not feel them we can be very sure they will not convince our audiences.