Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation.
Engine Trouble on a Dakota Prairie.
To get the scenes shown in this story of a transcontinental tour the motion-picture company travelled almost across the continent.
Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation.
When the Hero is the Captain of a Steam Shovel.
Note how the reflectors, seen at the bottom of the picture, are tilted down to throw the light up into the face of the engineer, while the camera is raised to the right place on a platform.
Thin bluish smoke, like vapor, curls outward and upward from most of the white carbon lights. They give off a good deal of heat. A couple of spot-lights like those used in theaters are situated on scaffolding higher than a man’s head, behind the cameras to left and to right, with an attendant in charge of each.
In the bright glare the faces of all who are not “made up” with grease paint and powder look greenish yellow. All color values are distorted. Tan-colored shoes look green.
A scene has just been taken. The assistant director turns to an electrician. “Kill ’em!” he says. The electrician goes to the different lights, pulling switches to “cut ’em off.” In a moment only one of the bluish-green “double banks” is left to serve as a working light. This is to save electricity, of which the array of lights takes an enormous amount.