The film industry (1921)

FILMS AND FILM MAKING 57 including the motor transport services, gas-engines, oil-engines, and fire appliances, to attend to. The dark- rooms, developing, drying, printing, and tinting rooms, all have their own staff of chemists and expert photo- graphers. The cutting-rooms, .the film editor and his cutters (about which more anon). The publicity department is responsible for the " booming " of the stars and the systematic advertising of the films produced. Accountants carry on the financial side of these immense organizations, and the administrative work is done by the secretariat. Attached to such gigantic studios as those forming that great film-producing centre, " Universal City," there are houses for members of the stock companies and studio officials, garages for the cars, water and electricity supplies, schools and playgrounds, guest-houses, and, in fact, all the conveniences of a modern town. In this respect they can be likened to other industrial garden cities, such as " Kennilworth," which is the diamond suburb of Kimberley, founded by Cecil J. Rhodes ; " Port Sunlight," Cheshire, of soap fame ; and " Bourneville," the cocoa town. Over a large section of these cinema cities—which at present exist only in the United States—the studio managers exercise the same control as the works managers of other industrial concerns. Their duties include the maintenance of order and cleanliness, the superintendence of the erection of scenic-streets, houses, palaces, gardens, fires, and other requirements of the director and his staff, as well as the care and disposition of the stage effects. Many studio managers say that theirs is a " dog's life," but very few retire early or die young, notwithstanding the high rates of remuneration paid to all engaged in film-production. Little can be said here regarding the salaries and wages