MOVING PICTURES 



398$ 



MOVING PICTURES 



pictures practically every day in the year. 

 Around Los Angeles the studios cluster by the 

 dozen. But it is absurd to refer to these plants 

 as studios, for they are actually manufacturing 

 plants, a little more picturesque than the ordi- 

 nary factory- Universal City is the largest of 

 the big plants, and as it is also a model plant. 

 embodying all the newest features of picture 

 production, it deserves a detailed description. 



Universal City. Universal City, so-called, is 

 the largest picture-producing plant in the 

 world. It is an actual city, with a population 

 of more than 1,500 people, with broad, paved 

 streets, with a main boulevard six miles long, 

 with its own gas and electric light plants, with 

 a mayor and police and fire departments, with 

 two hospitals and a restaurant, with offices and 

 studios. There is even a race track with a huge 

 grand stand that will accommodate thousands 

 of people. When a great scene is being filmed, 

 such as the bullfight in Carmen, these seats are 

 sold to the thousands of interested people who 

 come out from the near-by cities, and the direc- 

 tor is spared the necessity of hiring a crowd of 

 "extras," as they are called, to fill the seats. 



Everything in Universal City has a double 

 usefulness. A building may house the scenario 

 department within, while without it is designed 

 to furnish a background for pictures. The 

 buildings are all built with a different facade on 

 each side, so they may figure in not one, but 

 four, different scenes. As for equipment, there 

 are horses by the dozen, Arabian mares and 

 Shetland ponies, mustangs and mules and bur- 

 ros; there are forty different kinds of horse- 

 drawn vehicles and as many motor cars; there 

 is a tribe of Indians, one of the largest in the 

 United States; and there is a great "zoo," one 

 of the greatest in the world. In addition there 

 are shops where practically everything needed 

 in the production is made; carpenter shops, 

 machine shops and dressmaking shops facto- 

 ries for turning out everything demanded by 

 the exacting director. 



The Scenario Department. The scenario 

 editors for some of the large companies actually 

 write all the plays produced by those com- 

 panies and receive large salaries for the work. 

 But it is more usual for the scenario editor 

 simply to put into shape all the ideas which are 



supplied from a dozen sources. If a great novel 

 is to be produced the scenario editor turns it 

 into a play. Stories are bought from magazines 

 and shaped into plays. Ideas submitted by 

 amateurs are often bought and made into plays. 

 And the scenario department also puts into 

 acting form any ideas furnished by producers 

 and directors. When a scenario is complete it 

 is turned over to the director who is to pro- 

 duce this particular play. 



The Director. Only one copy of the scenario, 

 which is really the text of the play, is needed, 

 and that is in the hands of the director. When 

 he receives a scenario he sets about ordering the 

 properties, stage settings and costumes which 

 will be needed. To each of the principal actors, 

 if it is a modern play, he furnishes a "dress 

 plot," a list of the number of scenes for which 

 they will need changes of costumes. If it is a 

 "period" play, that is, a play representing a by- 

 gone day, the director furnishes all the cos- 

 tumes. When all the preparations have been 

 made, the play begins. 



Acting a Moving Picture Play. The director 

 posts on a bulletin board a list of the actors 

 who will be needed for a particular scene, and 

 the actors, who are generally expected to arrive 

 at nine o'clock in the morning, go at once to 

 this board to get their orders for the day. 

 When all are assembled the director rehearses 

 them in the scenes until they are perfect; then 

 the camera-man begins his work and the pic- 

 ture is taken. None of the actors, as a rule, 

 knows what the play is about, for the scenes 

 are seldom taken in consecutive order; it would 

 be too wasteful a method. Once the stage is 

 set, all the scenes which take place in the set- 

 ting are acted and photographed, one after an- 

 other, regardless of the order in which they 

 occur in the finished production. 



Practically all of the "stars" of the legitimate 

 stage have now appeared in moving pictures. 

 Sarah Bernhardt was the first to do so. She 

 explained that she, for one, would not dream of 

 disregarding this means of immortalizing her 

 art. And, in addition to the stars of the legiti- 

 mate stage, there has been developed a school 

 of actors men and women trained in the tech- 

 nique of pantomimic acting, who are, perhaps, 

 even greater favorites with the public. 



The Development of Moving Picture Art 



What was the origin of this vast amusement 

 enterprise? It was nothing more nor less than 

 a child's toy, based on an optical illusion. 



When the eye sees a moving object, the image 

 of the object is retained for about one-sixteenth 

 of a second, even though the object itself may 



