Motion Picture Classic (Jul-Dec 1930)

TOR Studio Life 'ENDER 1 concentration and nerve control. To ?t an idea of how hard it is, you really lould step over here where a troupe is fhearsing. But quietly — * — Listen, dearie, you cant tell me \ose tables aren't fixed! Pete lost a thou\nd berries in less than ten minutes last le at chemin de fer. But I got a system roulette. I'll show you if you'll lemme ive that script to write on — " Public Relations ITH the picture actually in production, it is necessary that the world should know about it in order lat the finished film does not play to empty houses. Such iterest is created by publicity men, demons for work, and ossessors of the soundest minds in the business. These re the ones who conduct a research of every phase of the Im and players in order that you may read interesting dbits about them in the newspapers. No one can get a osition as publicity man by shirking work; just as no pubcity man who shirks work can long hold his job. It's oric, work, work for these men. Here are some now. The ublicity chief is making an announcement. Listen: — an' we only need ten more signatures to get a private car n the Borderline Special. ./Anybody who's going to Caliente lis week-end and hasn't signed the list, I advise 'em to sign ight away so we can all be together an shoot a little poker on le way down — " Of course, every picture must have special "sets" con top, another view of the studio, and after you read the ttory you m\\\ know where all the buiy workers are; above, a bird's-eye view of a Hollywood ant hill structed. For instance, if it is a movie about Ireland, the scenes must all look Irish. That sounds simple enough, but in reality you will find the work of planning and building the sets to be most complicated. The men whose work it is have to be the best practical artists in the country. It is only after a long and expensive period of training that they are entrusted with the work. Serious fellows they are, who work away with a fine disregard of the time clock. We really should spend just a second listening in on them: " — it's all right to drink their beer down there, but take my advice an lay off a that Tia J nana Tequila. Boy, that stuff'U lay you out so quick that after two glasses of it you'll be askin what happened — " Money-Maker BUT probably the busiest of all men on a studio lot is the supervisor. And why not? For the supervisor is engaged for the single purpose of killing waste and doing away with idleness. He is the efficiency expert of the movies. If you are working in the studios, be awfully sure that you are working when he comes around, else your name will go down in his notebook and the following day you will get a little pink slip which begins, "We regret — . * Only men with a fine business sense and infinite capacity for work become supervisors. They must set an example, by the way in which they do their work, for the entire studio to follow. Watch that supervisor there — see how he's going from one man to another to stimulate interest in the work. Shall we hear how he does it.' " — any of you guys got e::tra cash you want to place on the ponies Saturday? I'm takin' a studio pool and puttin it all on Bromo Seltzer II at five to one. Now if you birds can't actually get to Tia Juana next Saturday, that don't mean you have to miss out on the races because I'm takin this dough down, see, and Bromo's a cinch to win an — " Sound Business Men MOST important of all to the film industry to-day are the sound experts. No haphazard profession this, and no haphazard men will you find in the work. The success or failure of the films you see every day depends upon these research engineers. The knowledge they bring to the industry is highly specialized and intricate. There is more of downT-ight hard work and less lost motion in their branch of the business than you will find, probably, in any other. How interesting it would be, then, to pause near one of {Continued on page joj) 69