Scott Lord Silent Film: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921)

Motion Picture News during 1921 readily boasted that more than seven different types of "exploitations" were used to advertise the film "The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" starring Rudolph Valentino. Motion Picture Directing, published in 1922, showed a director Rex Ingram using a white, square canvass reflector to exploit sunlight during the filming of exterior scenes.

Author Benjamin B Hampton, in his volume A History of Movies, discusses the rise of screenwriter June Mathis to producer with the film "The Fourhorseman of the Apocalypse" and her effort to "plan the details of camerawork before photography began. This process of planning had been shared by Tucker and a few other directors who called it 'shooting the story on paper before shooting it on film'. 'Shooting on paper'...requires highly trained technical knowledge, clear thinking, a power of visualization and a rounded conception of the picture before camerawork begins. Its advantages are low cost production."

The film was based on the novel writtenby Vincente Ibanez.

Silent film Rudolph Valentino