Motion Picture Classic (Jan-Dec 1916)

MOTION PICTURE just "appealed” silently, without knowing for what. We were also cautioned to keep three feet apart, for which I was very thankful because of my train, and the director’s assistant expressed the opinion that if we would do it right it would “look like a million people on the screen.” Well, we came over the knoll some hundred or more times, only to be sent back to come up again. It must have been in a fit of abstraction that I took my hair down to he like other girls in the same kind of costume. This mountain-pass is carpeted with rocks and stones of every conceivable size and shape, and deep, dusty sand. Every time we came over the knoll our trains and stumbling tomed Western glory, was adding to the discomfort of the hundreds who were trying to sit or stand in the little patches of shade while waiting for further orders. In the course of an hour or more I found myself near the camera. At least I was not obliged to come over the knoll again, and, with “both arms raised, backs of hands to camera, eyes appealing to Heaven,” I was ready for the shout: “Action!” I looked back, and there was a burly soldier on my train, both feet firmly planted. I shooed him off, and again took position a few steps ahead. A “dairymaid” in the rear saw the empty space made, so jumped in front of the soldier, and, looking back, I found train ! Get off my train ! Get off ! Get off my train!!!” Nearly always the appeal was answered; but, just when I was close to the camera, a little old man of about seventy years, who seemed to have been given all the leftovers in the costume-room, topped off with a silk hat — he didn’t know what he represented, and no one else could tell him — began to do the “Castlecanter” up my train. His ears could have been no more use to him than his eyes, for he refused to “get off” at my earnest appeal. Gradually I felt a tugging, then a ripping sound, and lo ! I stood before the camera in the green satin skirt minus the overdress of pompadour silk. Oh, woe is me! to have such a thing happen just when COWBOY “EXTRAS” ARE NOT HARD TO FIND IN THE WEST, WHERE THIS SCENE FROM BOSWORTH ’S “FATHERHOOD” (UNIVERSAL) WAS TAKEN feet raised a lovely cloud of dust, which we breathed and choked on. It settled on our hair, got in our eyes, and very soon the velvet robes of the Elizabethan court ladies were covered with dust. The make-up suffered sadly. But none were in so pitiable a condition as the monks, who had loose sandals, without stockings, on their feet, and the gravel and dirt was a constant worry to them. At last the rehearsal was pronounced good enough to start the “shooting.” After the first groups had passed out of the scene on either side of the camera, the “shooting” ceased until they could be sent down to the other end of the line to make it look more “like a million people.” Then a few more feet of film would be “shot.” Many times these little snatches were taken twice, which necessitated our returning to the starting-places and raising more dust. The sun, having come out in its accus her on my nice pompadour train. I asked her to kindly step off, at which she replied, with some heat, that I should carry my train on my arm. Well, hardly that, when both arms were aiding my eyes in an “appeal” for rain, or — something. As there was no train on her costume, I suppose she could not see the sense of having any in the scene at all. I reasoned that the director or costumer or designer wanted those trains on the gowns, and, having them there, wanted them used, and we would not have both arms raised if one were to be used in carrying our trains. I reminded the “dairymaid” of the order to keep three feet apart, and she grudgingly stepped off the train. Position again, and then the cry, “Action !” Once more we started toward the camera, and most of the time I was “appealing,” most earnestly, “to Heaven”: “You’re on my my ambition was about to be realized, for the pet vanity of every “extra” is to be seen, and I supposed I would be in the “cut-out.” The “shooting” ceased just at this moment, and avc were told Ave had done very well and. if we would be nice little “extras” and go down to where the buses were, Ave would be given lunch. Wonderful Avord — lunch ! There Avas no polite hanging back, or “ Y on first, my dear Gaston. ’ ’ That mob of hungry, tired and dirty humanity rushed, scrambled and collided with each other in their mad haste to get there first. However, even there the wonderful system was in e\ridence, and no lunch was given out to those who did not stand in line — women on one side and men on the other side of the wagon. A box-lunch Avas given to each person and a pint bottle of milk. That milk was like nectar of the gods to those parched and dusty throats, and a “Flemish peasant” ( Thirty-eight )