Film Fun (Jan - Dec 1916)

\ Fancier in Pels 1" I T T L E Jane Lee, the clever child actress with the Fox Corporation, has considerable artistic temperament. You can see that the corners of her mouth are turned down in her picture and that she is delivering an ultimatum with arms akimbo. And she means what she says, too. Jane is a fancier of pets. When she went to Jamaica to help make the big $1,000,000 Annette Kellerm a n n picture, Jane was interested in dolls; but as soon as she saw the flora and fauna of that semi-tropical island, she neglected her dolls for other pets. Miss Kellermann took pity on little Jane when her mother had indignantly repudiated a baby elephant, a St. Bernard dog and a pet alligator, and presented her with a small baby swan, with an elongated, curving neck that would go twice around Jane's small waist and then have room to spare. The world looked bright Jto small Jane once more, until she discovered that her mother had most peculiar grown-up ideas on the subject of baby swans sleeping in downy white beds with little girls. Hence the stamp and the determined expression to the mouth in the picture. ~m © The Gnome Village The Fox director who directed the child cast for the Keller mann production has a few gray hairs that were not there when he began. There were one thousand children in some of the scenes, and the job of managing this bunch of frisky youngsters kept several of the company awake nights, wondering how to keep them all busy and out of mischief. They were all Jamaican children, ranging from one to nine years old, and they were a part of the famous gnome village, a cleverly unique fantasy. The kiddies are all dressed in little brown coats and wear long white beards, after the most approved gnome fashion. The task of making them up for the rehearsals drove several to the point of nervous distraction, until they counted heads and gave ten children to each dresser for making up. In groups of ten, they managed them wisely. EOX FiLM "I won't smile!" snapped little Jane Lee, child actress with the William Fox Company. "They won't let my baby swan sit at the table with me." The children who took part in the scene were drilled faithfully. They were first instructed in the mysteries of gnomehood, and then divided into groups, with a supervisor for each group. Some were assigned to be fishermen, millers, boatmen or shepherds. The Jamaica mothers at first were a bit chary about consenting to the use of their children; but after a few days they became interested, and the paths to the studio were beaten flat with the padding of barefooted children coming to get a job as gnomes. The kiddies themselves are having the time of their lives, getting good pay for the most gorgeous spell of genuine play they ever hope to have. The Kellermann picture will be completed along about next April, although they have been working on it since August. Making It Realistic It was in Florida, where some of the film companies operate all winter, and in the cheap restaurant a fellow was telling another how some folks just stumble into good luck. "You see," he went on, "there's my friend Sam Smithers, for example. With the town full of floaters and fellows glad to get anything to do, he is constantly hitting a day's work where another chap can't catch on at all. The other night he got two dollars for subbing for a night watchman at a garage, and when he went to breakfast, in the morning paper he saw an advertisement of men and women wanted to make up a church scene for a film company. So Sam hikes for a car and gets there early and picks up a date. But he had been up all night and was sleepy, and during [the movie sermon he went to sleep and snored comfortably till it was all over. When the director gave him his two dollars, he said, " 'Young man, that was a brilliant idea of yours to make believe go to sleep in church. Makes it realistic. Come around to-morrow, and I will give you steady work.' " The Real Thing in Crowds There is no more natural picture crowd than the real crowd itself. But the difficulty was to take them. Once the camera was set up and the picture begun, the crowd would gather about, the small boys dart in and out and spoil foot after foot of good film, and perfectly good directorial tempers were irretrievably lost. Added to that, the street crowd, under the impression that a motion picture company has money to burn, demanded a pretty good fee, just for being a crowd. M. E. Hoffman has solved the problem. It's so simple that it is a wonder no one thought of it before. Mr. Hoffman bought a big moving van and a team of ordinary horses, accustomed to pulling a load without a murmur. The camera man was installed inside the van, and portholes made in the canvas sides of the van, through which a good picture could be taken without letting the crowd in on the joke. Then the van was pulled up beside the curbstone, and street scenes filmed without the knowledge of anyone on the outside. It was a great idea and so good that Mr. Hoffman could not bear to keep it all to himself. So if you are thinking of staging a motion picture, all you have to do to make a start is to purchase a moving van and a pair of steeds.