With the movie makers

by Myron M. Stearns

When the different “takes” are finally matched together in the finished picture these numbers will be cut off, but they are necessary to facilitate the work of identifying the hundreds or even thousands of different shots of which the final picture is composed.

Leaving the great dark “light stage” we pass on into the lot beyond. In front of us is another great stage, but this time open to the sky. Instead of artificial lights, there are great white cloth “reflectors,” to deflect the sunlight on to the scene and intensify the light where under the sun’s direct rays alone there would be shadows.

Sets, actors, camera men and action are all as they were on the other stage, except that instead of a profusion of sets we find here only one or two, as not nearly so many scenes are taken here as on the other stage.

Formerly nearly all scenes were taken in sunlight, and studios were built that had no provision for lighting except the sun. But while the film industry was still in its infancy the development of artificial lighting made possible results that could not be secured with sunlight alone, and since that time artificial lighting is used on most motion-picture scenes that represent “interiors.”

About us on the “lot” are other stages, covered with glass, that lets in the sunlight but keeps out the rain, so that work may go on uninterruptedly. On most of these a combination of natural and artificial light is used—electric lights as in the “light stage,” supplemented by daylight.

We pass on to the property houses—great buildings like warehouses ranged one behind the other. In one place we find a room where modeling is going on; skilled artists are making statues that will be used in a picture depicting the life of a sculptor. In another place special furniture is being made. One great warehouse-like building is devoted to “flats” and “drops,” of which the differing sets can in part, at least, be built. Then there are the costume rooms, and the “junk” rooms, with knick-knacks of all descriptions.

You’d be amazed to know how many properties are needed in the making of even the simplest motion pictures. Take, for instance, the set that we have already described—an old New England sitting-room. The furniture, the marble-topped table and the what-not with its marble shelves and the chairs and possibly a hair-cloth sofa, were of course obvious. The old prints and lithographs and even the sampler, hardly less so; but in addition to these, think of the ornaments that would have to appear on the what-not shelves and the kind of lamp that would be on the table and what books there would have to be in the bookcase. Without these details, the room would not look natural.

Take a look around the room where you are reading this page. Notice how many little things there are that you would never think of arranging, if you were to have carpenters and property men reconstruct it for you as a set for a picture. Newspapers—all the hundred and one little things, left here and there, that go to make a home what it is—even to the scratches on the walls, or the corner knocked off one arm of a chair.

Courtesy United Artists Corporation.