Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

The Inside A Handy Guide Here is a unique article. For the first time in history the reader is taken into the studios to witness the actual making of a motion picture. Read it carefully. It is Hollytvood. — Editor's Note. WE, you and I, are standing on a high hill above Hollywood. Beneath us lie the busy studios. How would you like to descend and see, with your very own eyes, how a motion picture is made? You wouldn't? Very well. We'll start right away. We are going to begin at the beginning and go from department to department. We will spend just enough time m each department to see and hear what the men are doing, to discover how they go about their work. First of all, we must visit the story department, for without the story, no movie could be made. We enter a low building and see many young men seated before typewriters. These are writers — high-salaried artists, who work unceasingly at turning out brilliant word pictures. You will find no harder workers under the studio roof than these fellows. Two of them are talking over a story now. Let's listen: " — yeah, just come as you are. Elsie and Mack are bringing the gin an I just had the valves ground, so we oughta make the border by midnight easy, an we can watch the races an start back Sunday night an' — " Making Talkie A FTER the story is written, it is adapted for film purJ~\_ poses. No one is exactly sure what takes place during an adaptation, but every studio has adapters who are busy eight hours a day at adapting, so it is worth our time, surely, to find out. The work is said to be the most exacting and specialized of any in the film industry. All of those men in the left corner of the room are adapters. Let's surprise them at work and hear how it's done: " — me, I'm gain' to Tia Juana an play the ponies. Why don't you and Lil try to make it? I figured we could stay in San Diego tomorrow night an' go over when the patrol opens at nine — " After the adaptation, the story is made into a scenario by scenario writers. These are hard-working, happy people who often slave at their jobs until they actually drop. The way in which they labor should be an inspiration to every rnan, woman, and child in the country. Suppose we just tiptoe up behind a couple of them and see how they do what they do, and what they are being paid fifteen hun BY ROBERT dred smackers a week for doing. Listen closely: " — you're darned right I'm gonna wear a hat. Last time I was in Tia. fuana I didn't have no hat and they said I was stewed at the border an' made me walk a line and I thought the gang — i^^— — would die laffin'. Now get this straight — /'// come by for you at ten an' then we can pick up the bims an go straight through — " The Right Direction WHEN completed, the scenario goes to the director and his staff for study before the picture is begun. This, of course, is where the real brain work comes in. Naturally then, only those with the greatest amount of gray matter and powers of concentration are entrusted with the job. That director over there, for instance (the one to whom we're going to listen), is the greatest mental giant in Hollywood. What he says counts. Let's hear what he says: " — not for me, boy. I'll take no auto down there in all that traffic with every jay cop laying for me, when I can get on the Tia fuana Special and play rummy all the way down. Last time I took the car I got bumped by eighteen drunk drivers and I told Gertrude then — " After the finished scenario is whipped into workable shape by the director and shooting schedule established, the players are given their parts to learn. Such drudgery! Memorizing lines is a Herculean task, requiring the utmost At top, an exterior view of the busy studio, where the busy workers earn their chili con came; above, interior view of the busy studio, revealing the busy workers 68