Thomas Harper Ince (November 6, 1882–November 20, 1924) was an Americanfilm director. He invented many mechanisms of professional movie production, like the usage of a detailed "shooting script", which also contained information on when who was in the scene, and the "scene plot" which listed all interiors and exteriors, cost control plans and so on. He helped create a standardized and mechanized mode of production. He also was one of the first who had a separate writer, director and cutter (instead of doing everything himself).
Ince's movies were mainly early Westerns, which were successful because of their beautiful images and their rhythm.
On November 19, 1924, the silent film producer and "father of the western" died of a heart attack while on a weekend boat trip with William Randolph Hearst, Marion Davies, and several other prominent Hollywood personalities. Rumours that Hearst shot Ince and used his power to cover up the truth circulated. A 2001film, The Cat's Meow, tells a tale based around these rumours. However, the general opinion seems to be that such a cover-up is highly unlikely.
Ince, called Ince in Makerfield to distinguish it from Ince Blundell in the same hundred, lies immediately to the east of Wigan, of which it is a suburb, and from which it is separated by a small brook, the Clarenden or Clarington.
22) Thomas was a convicted recusant in 1628, (fn.
It appears to have been Anne, the daughter and heir of the younger Thomas, who carried the manors of Ince and Aspull to her husband John Gerard, a younger son of Sir William Gerard, third baronet; and the manors were afterwards sold to Richard Gerard, uncle of John.
Almost instinctively, Ince hit upon the formula of carefully pre-planning his films on paper (something Griffith never did), then meticulously breaking down the shooting schedule so that several scenes could be shot simultaneously by assistant directors.
The Ince product of the mid teens was impressive, though when seen as a whole one finds a tiresome reliance upon tragic endings -- which were hailed as "realism" at the time but which now seem contrived.
The more likely theory that high-living Thomas H. Ince died of acute indigestion (or from one of his many other overindulgences) has been ignored by the scandalmongers, to whom Ince was more significant for his death than for the remarkable achievements of his life.
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