The art of sound pictures (1930)

46 THE ART OF SOUND PICTURES will appear to have been made, in its entire sequence, on the magnificent private estate or in the busy department store. As a matter of fact, of course, long shots may have been taken several weeks or months before the pictures taken on the studio lots. Production companies customarily carry what are called “stock shots” of parades, festivals, beach carnivals, fires, and any other pictures which may promise to be of use in later picture dramas. These stock shots are filed away in the film libraries of the various companies. The negatives may be taken out, and prints made as needed for any future picture production where the events originally photographed might fit in and add production value to pictures. The stage must pass, except as a rehearsal spot for companies preparing sound pictures. This sounds much more dolorous than it is. Indeed, we may witness a curious back-handed elevation of the stage as a result of our subordinating it to the new art. It will be economics, and not the ideals of high-brow reformers, that will bring that to pass. Here is the situation in a nutshell. Under the old conditions of the theater, it was unsafe to hazard much more than $10,000 or $15,000 on an ordinary play; and, so far as the demands of the theatergoers went, some such sum could generally be counted on to produce satisfactory results. Contrast to this the enterprise of producing an ordinary motion picture. Here the cost rarely falls below $50,000, while many large companies flatter themselves if they can keep the average expense down to $125,000. “Super” pictures cost from one to three