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DEAD
GERMAN SOLDIERS. THEY WERE NEVER ALIVE, BEING
MERELY DUMMIES
sible for a mere spectator to understand the progress of the battle, or to learn which side is the victorious army and which is the vanquished. It is easy to see, however, that the pictures, when shown, will be very effective, and that it must be exceedingly easy to convince an audience that they are "the real thing.' '
"When any particular action is to be taken, as, for example, the storming of a fort, the director and the camera man first visit the ground which is to be the scene of the assault and select the spot on which the camera is to stand. The action is then mapped out with a view to having all the exciting events occur at just the proper distance from the operator and at just the right angle. It is no easy matter for a director to carry so much detail in his head, or to bear in mind that one body of men must run in a particular direction at a certain moment, yet these directors often go out on the battlefield without any script or notes in their hands and direct the action all day without once forgetting any essential detail.
Such care is taken with every detail that in the instance of the "German village' ' there were even vines growing upon the lattice above the benches which stood before the door of the inn, and a stone well with a
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long pole for lifting the bucket added a realistic touch to the cottage at the end of the street. The taking of the village and the subsequent looting of it was enacted with a great deal of vim and enthusiasm, the whole performance concluding with an explosion which blew part of the roof from one of the houses and set it on fire. It took them more than an hour to extinguish the flames.
The series of pictures in which the sack of the village figured were completed in about two weeks of steady work, with the camera going from early morning until dusk, yet when the finished film is shown, the whole performance will not occupy more than half or three-quarters of an hour. The cost of taking this picture exceeded two thousand dollars. The big cost is in the soldiers employed in it and the consequent expense in costumes and ammunition.
Some of these war dramas are already being shown, but many more will be announced within the next few weeks, and they will continue to be made so long as the good weather lasts. "When winter weather comes on and all pictures must be taken indoors, there will be a lull in all such "European wars" as that which was "fought" near the quiet little New Jersey suburb of Grantwood.