Movie Makers (Jan-Dec 1936)

Filming Maryland's story 248 PAUL BRAUN Frame enlargements from "A Story of Early Maryland" IN i934, the Free State of Maryland reached its three hundredth birthday. Elaborate celebrations were in preparation by the state and other patriotic organizations. The usual things — pageants and parades — were planned. However, these various celebrations were to take place in such historical spots as to make the attendance of the general public extremely difficult, and consequently few youngsters would be able to see them. Entertaining children has been my interest for the past six years, and I have traveled with my marionettes from New Jersey to the great Smoky Mountains of Tennessee, playing in all sorts of places, from modern theatres to log houses equipped with oil lamps for illumination. The problem of how to enable the youngsters to enjoy the celebration bothered me until suddenly a light broke through the gray mist — the way to do the stunt in an up to date fashion was to make a movie, a sound movie which would present the actual founding of the State of Maryland. My mental picture of the possibilities developed fast; we would begin the story in England and would wind it up in actual historical spots in Maryland ; we would present the story from the point of view of the youngsters; it would run for the average class room period, or about thirty five minutes. As I thought of the possibilities, I planned to steal a lesson from the theatrical field. We would make it an adventure story — fill it up with Indians, have raids, burn down cabins and yet stick close enough to historical facts to meet the needs of school teachers, which, in case you don't know, is a tough job. We would make the picture on 16mm. film so that it could be shown in any class room, regardless of size. With all this in mind, I rushed back to Baltimore to find a sponsor. How a movie did its part in three hundredth honors After all, a picture like the one that I wanted to make would cost money. I tried a local newspaper, but the manager said that it couldn't be done. We couldn't get the organization together in time. The schools wouldn't cooperate and, finally, it would cost too much. Then I took the idea to a young advertising man who was connected with a local department store. He thought that the idea was good and he thought that the store would increase its prestige if it sponsored the film. Then, after discussing the plan thoroughly, the officers of the store agreed to back us! This was splendid progress, but we had our orders; we were to go easy and were to make the picture on a shoe string, if possible. At this point, Howard Goodman entered the field, bringing with him a lot of experience as an amateur movie maker. Together, we interviewed the state commission, the school board and eminent state historians. From these gentlemen, we got advice and information and also orders to the effect that they would accept nothing but the best from us and that, if we wanted to see the picture accepted by the state, we must make it historically exact. All these interviews were helped a great deal by continual smiles from these gentlemen, if you know what I mean. Then, we added another man to our group — Brent Gunts. Later, he organized our cast of four hundred actors, coaxed them into remaining happy while they ran through briars and over stones, almost nude as were our brand of Maryland Indians some 300 years ago. We had a lot of minor casualties but no law suits, so you can gauge his ability by this. We tried to use the material supplied by the historians but we found that, although they knew all about names, dates, places and how to word lengthy phrases for the actors to speak (which would have turned our picture from a "thriller" into a comedy, as far as the kids were concerned), they could not give us pictorial details. We wanted to know what the settlers looked like and exactly how the Indians dressed. Did the colonists bring plows on the boats? Did they have means of keeping clean and spotless, or were our forefathers a little down at the heels when they landed? How did the Indians live? How did they make their homes? Did the settlers teach the Indians to plant, or vice versa? All these queries were answered only by — ourselves. We searched the museums, libraries and other musty places for old prints, engravings, broken and rusted guns, old letters and documents. Reproductions of famous paintings of very important characters were consulted for makeup and costume. We actually used some of the old swords and Indian stone implements that were traced to the period of our story. Our first scenes purported to be shot in England. We borrowed a local church for the interior. All furnishings and properties were XVII Century reproductions. We made the scenes at night and used flood bulbs in homemade reflectors. Some of these were made of large pieces of wall board painted with aluminum and equipped with sockets to hold the bulbs. We had other sheets of wall board which were just reflectors for use outdoors. For special lighting, we used baby spotlights loaded with flood bulbs. All the shots were made with an exposure meter. I feel that, by using a meter, we saved a couple of thousand feet of film. Our outdoor shots were made on the locations of the actual historical events that were to be [Continued on page 258]