Motography (Jan-Jun 1918)

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April 20, 1918. MOTOGRAPHY 761 New Paralta Studios Near Completion Cover Ten Acres of the Eighty-Acre Tract Recently Purchased by Company in Los Angeles WORK on the new Paralta studios in Los Angeles is rapidly nearing completion. When finished the studios will be not only of the largest, but finest in existence. They are located on the north side of Melrose avenue just beyond Van Ness street. The buildings cover ten acres of the eighty acre tract which was purchased by the company a few months ago. Several of the buildings are already completed and work is being rushed to finish the rest, including the administration building, cafe and dressing-room buildings, five glass-enclosed stages, property buildings, warehouses, carpenter shops, electrical shops, garages and other structures, each designed with every modern appliance known in the making of pictures. The buildings are just across the street from the old studios. Centered as they arc in a compactly planned group, the buildings will serve as the hub of studio grounds to be utilized for the construction of large settings of buildings, street scenes and replicas of entire towns, if necessary. The expansion of properties has been made necessary by the enlarged scope of production undertaken by the Paralta organization, which is now producing not only Paralta plays featuring Paralta stars, but also work for other film companies, which though separate in organi zation, entered with Paralta into the plan for centralized co-operative producing activities. Immediately facing Melrose avenue will be the central administration building flanked on either side by the buildings of the scenario department and the cafe. Behind these structures is a mammoth brick property building separated by a central archway leading back to the five steel and glass-enclosed stages, each of which measures sixty by one-hundred and fifty feet and which has ample space to accommodate six to eight settings. These stages are to be higher than any glass stages now in use, this being done to arrange for better manipulation of the light-diffusing system and to make possible the suspension of certain scenic effects from the supporting girders in the top of the structures. A novel feature of the dressing-room buildings which will take up almost the entire eastern side of the stages, is a luxuriously furnished green room which will offer an ideal meeting place and club room for the personnel of the organization and professional forces. The dressing rooms range in size and equipment according to the use they arc to be put to, the dressing rooms of the stars being suites composed of a reception room, dressing room, wardrobe room and bath. The small portions of the grounds not occupied by buildings arc being laid out in formal gardens of the French and Italian type. The studios will also include a laboratory building, a building for the wardrobe department, one for draperies, one for plaster and wood-working, a stock room,' a planing mill, scene painting clocks, etc. The Paralta stars include Bessie Barriscale, Louise Glaum, Rhea Mitchell, Henry B. Walthall and J. Warren Kerrigan, who are now appearing before the cameras in the new studios. Beside the Paralta company, Selexart, Pathe and Mastercraft are also enjoying the exceptional opportunities which this completely equipped producing center affords. Miss Barriscale Completes Play Bessie Barriscale has completed her Paralta Play, "Blindfolded," under the direction of Raymond B. West and will start immediately on her next production, "Patriotism," which has been written especially for her by two of the staff writers, R. B. Kidd and Jane Holly; "Blindfolded," which is from the pen of E. Richard Schayer, is considered by Miss Barriscale as one of the most complex roles she has ever enacted. Miss Barriscale is seen in the role of a young girl who is educated by a crook, a sort of Fagan, who teaches her all the science of yeggdom instead of her A. B. C.'s. She learns to open safes by touch and her sense of hearing and the numbers of the combinations constitute her arithmetic. Surrounded by these environments, she will still be seen as the natural, lovable little person who will win the hearts of the audience, the kind of a girl that Miss Barriscale can portray so well. New Paralta Studios, Los Angeles, i. scenario department; 2, administration building; 3, cafe; 4, property department ; 5, wardrobe and draperies; 6, dressing room; 7, green room; 8, plaster workers; 0, cabinet workers; 10, garage; 11, carpenter shops; 12, open spaces for exterior settings; 13, laboratory ; 14, power plant; 15, electrical shop ; 16, 17, 18, scene docks and store house; 19, floral gardens; 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, glass-enclosed stages. Alice Joyce to New Orleans Having completed work on "Strength of the Weak," a forthcoming Vitagfaph Blue Ribbon Feature, Alice Joyce, under the direction of Tom Torriss has begun the production of "Find the Woman," adapted from "Cherches la Femme," one of O. Henry's best known stories. Preparations are under way for Miss Joyce and her company to go to NewOrleans, the locale that forms the background of the story, and it is expected that the company will leave within the next few days. ' Numerous historic landmarks of the old Croole City will be incorporated in the picture, including the picturesque old French market, the St. Louis Cathedral, the old French Absinthe House and many other historically famous show places.