As Bulmore walked down the street there was no swinging cane to mark the gaiety of his mood. He felt bruised and disappointed. The affair had turned out so differently from expectations.
Sefton Bulmore, in fact, was suffering, as so many others have suffered, from doing a good turn without positively labelling it as a good turn beforehand.
“I would have liked him to have been pleased,” he murmured. “But he’ll earn the money, and that’s what matters.”
The open doors of the Lion lured him to enter. In the saloon he met an acquaintance, and touched him for ten bob and a cigar.
* * * * *
There are peculiar qualities required in film-acting to obtain good results. Being denied speech as a means of expression, you are forced to seek other alternatives. Facial expression and gesture will not suffice. There remains but one solution—you must think right. Do this, or, in other words, let your thoughts be in accord with the scene you are required to play, and you will find automatically all the emotions will have portrayed themselves. Also you must have a good nerve, for to many the rotation of the operator’s hand and the precise tick-tick-tick of the camera produce an even more disconcerting effect than does a first-night audience.
If you are fearless, clear-brained and receptive, put on your best bib and tucker, and sally forth to Wardour Street, the G.H.Q. of Filmland, for there a fortune is awaiting you.
To a certain extent Eliphalet Cardomay thought right, and his actions were always graceful; but he could not conquer embarrassment of the camera. His performance was marred by nervousness, and nervousness shows with alarming fidelity on the screen. From this cause many promising scenes had to be re-taken again and again, and the producer, an American who savoured of pistols and the Wild West, danced in indignation.
“I ask you, Mr. Cardomay,” he implored, “not to look at the camera as if it were loaded. We’re trying to get stuff into the machine, and not out of it. Now, once again, please. Ready, Cable? Go, then!”
The operator would start to turn, Eliphalet to enter, and the producer to talk, all at the same time.