ACTION ANALYSIS
ORPHANS' PICNIC
January 30

[...] he cannot get hold of anything.In later scenes where there
are just a few orphans, one can read the scene and see what
the orphans are doing. In these crowd shots the spectator
cannot focus on anything. There is a feeling usually in look-
ing at picnic grounds that there is just a general splattering
of humanity all over the grounds, but by looking more carefully
at any picnic place or big playground or park it will be found
that there is a certain formation in the field as a whole - kids
playing marbles at one spot - handball at another, but there
is formation. Whenever a large mass of people are not in
formation they can only be treated as a unit, but if they are
close enough for the spectator to look into that group he
should find some formation or some one point to focus on, or
else interest in the group as a whole will be lost. Have one
character or a small group playing thru the mass as a whole,
so that the spectator can follow at least that one or that
small group around.

     SHULL: By flashing to cloesups in the crowd (as is done
     in foreign pictures) the spectator has a chance to get
     feeling of the crowd.

     BERNIE: I think you are building it up too much there.

In the pouring out of the crwod of kids, it is merely a matter
of having one character stand out a little more from the crowd.
Another example - in the scene in MIRRORLAND where the cards
run up to the electric fan, one character can be followed -
there is one point to focus on, and that one card saves the
scene from being confusion because everything pivots around
that one card. In THE ORPHANS' PICNIC, if one orphan, or a
small group of three or four orphans close together could have
been tied thru that scene, the spectator would have felt the
crowd more intensely and felt it scattering over everything.

     FRANK: In this case, I think the Duck was the point of
     the gag.

The whole idea is one of clarification. The spectator should
not see the orphans or be conscious of the one orphan as a
person, but he should have a chance to focus on something.

     ... I don't think that was the impression at the preview
     because when all the kids came on there was a reaction of
     "ahhhh".

     EUGSTER: It was just used to plant the atmosphere more
     than anything else.

     Vote on the scene: The majority reacted favorably; about
     10% thought it could be improved.

We must try to see ways for improving these things. It is not
just whether people laugh at the preview. One cannot judge a [...]