{"id":230,"date":"2016-12-06T17:40:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-06T22:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/?p=230"},"modified":"2016-12-06T17:40:25","modified_gmt":"2016-12-06T22:40:25","slug":"who-was-lewis-helmar-herman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/?p=230","title":{"rendered":"Who was Lewis Helmar Herman?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you happened to read the memoirs of successful twentieth-century American screenwriters, you might have come across\u00a0 anecdotes about how upon being offered their first screenwriting assignment and not having the slightest idea of how to write one\u2014most of them were novelists or playwrights\u2014they headed down to a nearby all-night bookstore and purchased a book on screenwriting.\u00a0 Most likely the book they purchased was A Practical Manual of Screen Playwriting<\/em> by Lewis Helmar Herman.\u00a0 First published in 1952, the book is still in print.\u00a0 But just who was the author of one of the most widely-read books on screenwriting?\u00a0 Oddly, on the back cover of my copy of the book there is absolutely no information about the author.\u00a0 Even the Wikipedia has no entry for him\u2014and they have entries on just about anyone.\u00a0 Given what I believe is Herman\u2019s importance, and spurred by curiosity, I undertook my own investigation on the internet of this very remarkable man.\u00a0 Unfortunately, my investigation didn\u2019t turn up a great amount of information.\u00a0 I did learn that he was born in 1905; however, I couldn\u2019t confirm when he died, or if\u00a0 in fact he was still living\u2014which would make him 111 years old\u2014though my sleuthing has led me to believe that he passed away in New York City some time during the 1990\u2019s.<\/p>\n

My investigation revealed some interesting aspects about the man.\u00a0 Herman was a type of writer who is very rare today:\u00a0 a writer who makes a living writing plays, books, articles and short stories. \u00a0(In my library I have a copy of a book he wrote on American dialects)\u00a0 Furthermore, in the 1940\u2019s Herman went to Hollywood to write screenplays, which I surmise was only for a few years.\u00a0 Additional investigation reveals that he most likely headed-up the United States Army\u2019s motion picture center in New York City during the 1950\u2019s.\u00a0 Unfortunately, for the last thirty or forty years of his life, the trail went cold for me.<\/p>\n

But just what is Herman\u2019s importance besides the fact that his book has been so widely read?\u00a0 Well, perhaps it has something to do with the fact that during the 1980\u2019s film academics in the United States proclaimed that during the 1930\u2019s. 1940\u2019s and 1950\u2019s American cinema had enjoyed a \u201cclassic\u201d period\u2014never to be equaled again\u2014and the secret of its success was indeed \u201csecret.\u201d\u00a0 This spurred film scholars and a new crop of manual writers and script gurus to delve into the archives of the major film studios in search of Hollywood\u2019s most closely guarded \u201ctrade secrets.\u201d\u00a0 However, what these film scholars and would-be gurus failed to realize or acknowledge was that these supposed trade secrets were hiding in plain sight\u2014in Herman\u2019s all -encompassing 1952 screenwriting manual.<\/p>\n

Herman revealed all, particularly the mainstay Hollywood plot gimmicks, particularly \u201cthe plant,\u201d \u201cthe old switcheroo\u201d and \u201cthe weenie\u201d\u2014referred to as \u201cthe MaGuffin\u201d by Alfred Hitchcock.\u00a0 Although Herman knew all the gimmicks, he was critical of their overuse by Hollywood.\u00a0 He complained that \u201cIn Hollywood the gimmick is the most overused stock in trade.\u00a0 It is because of the gimmick that Hollywood pictures stress plot to the detriment of genuine characterization.\u201d\u00a0 Herman did not simply dwell on gimmicks; he even provided an exposition on a \u201cthree-act\u201d structure.<\/p>\n

Although Herman worked primarily in Hollywood, he was well aware of foreign (non-U.S.) films, particularly their strengths and weaknesses.\u00a0 He noted that while American films often opened literally with a \u201cbang,\u201d e.g. someone being shot in the opening scene, European films\u2014and British films in particular\u2014began at a much slower pace.\u00a0 He noted the following:<\/p>\n

It is obvious from their pictures that the British believe the gradual \u2013and therefore natural\u2014development of character is vitally important.\u00a0 So they begin their pictures with an overall visual exposition of the milieu in which the action will take place . . . .\u00a0 This done, they go in from the general to the specific, by showing the people who will be involved in the action as they go through their normal workaday lives.\u00a0 From this they become more specific, and single out the protagonists and antagonists, so as to set them up in their proper relation to each other, and to the story line.<\/p>\n

Only when these expository preliminaries have been attended to do they begin to get into the action itself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Herman went on to note how this slow build and slower tempo persisted throughout almost the entire length of a British film, picking up only at the end.\u00a0 Although Herman understood the logic of this type of slow build, he noted that it did not always produce good results; in fact in some instances he found that there was an almost robot-like adherence to its employment.<\/p>\n

Lewis Helmar Herman: the author of the only screenwriting manual you will ever need<\/em>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you happened to read the memoirs of successful twentieth-century American screenwriters, you might have come across\u00a0 anecdotes about how upon being offered their first screenwriting assignment and not having the slightest idea of how to write one\u2014most of them … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,6,4],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criticism","category-screenplays","category-theiory","tag-lewis-helmar-herman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions\/231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/screenplayasliterature.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}