"It must be frightfully embarrassing at times...."
"Ah, they don't mind! I had one little feller working for me, playing leads in two-reel comedies, his director was his first wife's second husband, and the little lady played opposite him was his second wife once removed. They got along fine s'long's they was on the lot, but outside the studio they wouldn't speak, only bark when they passed."
"But you haven't told me what Mr. Jacques has been doing...."
"Oh, him—! I got a wire from him just now, says he's going to have to keep the Summerlad outfit up in that logging camp maybe another couple weeks. Joe could of shot all the scenes he had to shoot up there in a week if he'd of went at it the right way; so I give him two weeks, and now he wants four. And I don't dare give him the razz for fear he'll make it six weeks or quit."
"But if you aren't satisfied, surely you can find another director."
"Sure I can. And the first thing he'll do is run all the rushes in the projection-room and tell me they're rotten and got to be retook the way he sees it. And then he'll rewrite the continuity and, just to show me what a low piker Jacques was, he'll stick in a lot of new stuff that'll cost maybe another hundred thousand dollars."
"I don't understand," Lucinda objected. "Why should Mr. Jacques deliberately waste time on a production?"
"He's getting his two thousand a week, ain't he? And if he makes this picture cost less than the last one Summerlad done, how's he going to keep his tail up with the other dogs, next time the hooch hounds meets down to Santa Monica? Not only that, if he should ever get a rep for making pictures quick and cheap, the only jobs he'll be offered will mean honest-to-God work."
"But, Mr. Zinn: if that's the usual director's attitude toward his job, I should think you would do as we're doing with Mr. Nolan, pay each a fixed sum for every production he makes."
Zinn drew down the corners of his mouth in sour pity for Lucinda's innocence. "Twenty-five thousand a picture's what Nolan's going to drag down, ain't it? When a director gets that class, he's doing you a favour to make pictures for you, to start off with; and then he spreads himself to spend more coin more ways than any other director ever thought of, just to show you he's the big-money boy. A director don't think big means anything without a dollar-mark parked in front of it; and the producer's the poor sap that puts up the dollar-mark every time. They's only one way a producer can beat a director, the way it is today, and that's quit the fillum business cold."