The Photo-Play Journal (Jul 1919-Feb 1921)

July, 1919 PHOTO-PLAY JOURNAL 19 (O lif WJ) 5e!il° r o§sess< « % ERNEST A. DENCH "You have written up our players, our directors and our business executives," pointed out George Julian Houtain, President of Gray Seal Productions, to the writer, who was shy his regular weekly story, "so it's up to you to dope out something new." "I'll invent a story that will be a corker," the writer suggested enthusiastically. "That method may do for some companies, but not Gray Seal," the Big Boss said disapprovingly. "There is plenty of honest-togoodness material right in our own studio without having to manufacture it. There is the poor camera-man, for instance. You never give O. George Brautigan as much as a line. Just because the camera-man is in the background is no reason for keeping him there." The writer saw the wisdom of the Big Boss's words and subwayed it to the Estee Studio, which the Gray Seal is using, on West 125th Street, New York City. It was near the end of a trying day for Camera-man Brautigan, and the writer found him sitting on a chair by his camera waiting for a set to be finished. He was a confiding mood and ready to tell his troubles, the poor abused fellow. He lit up a pipe — preparatory to speaking — but then remembered the "No Smoking" sign and pocketed the pipe. "The camera-man is the under-dog sure enough," he opened. "He may be compared to the chalk line in a tug of war game. But why crush him under the Cooper Hewitts? He is human like the rest of us — perhaps somewhat sensitive — but then artistically inclined folks are temperamental anyway. In the papers it is always the star's feelings, or the director's little whims, yet the operator has his feelings, too. "The director may lose his temper and the star may almost ball up a scene, but if the camera-man's nerves fall to pieces at the critical moment, the blessed whole outfit is canned for the rest of the day. It means concentration, more concentration — and then some more, on the work in hand. I am all in when the scene has been taken and then tell the director and the players exactly what I think of them. 'That's the stuff, George,' they say, for they are inclined to take my explosive remarks in a bantering manner. But I don't care so long as it relieves my feelings without laying up the whole darned company. "Those players who have to be humored with music in scenes get my goat. They insist they cannot play emotional stuff without an orchestra. They don't consider the distressing effect it has on the crank turner. He has to turn the crank at an even speed and this art — for art it is — is acquired only by long experience. But that experience isn't worth a darn cent when a dreamy waltz begins to play. I feel like turning the crank at a snail's pace— and then the result is like a hurricane trick comedy — unless I pinch myself to keep my mind off the music. As for jazz music — oh, boy, I am tempted to manipulate the crank faster than any subway ticket chopper and you can imagine what a calling-down I would get if every actor in the scene went through his actions like a funeral service!" Mr. Brautigan knows of what he is speaking. He has filmed many of the famous players that have passed through the old Edison Studio, and he was the cinematographer selected to accompany the Mary Fuller Company to England in 1912, and is now "shooting" Wheeler Dryden, Gray Seal Comedy Star, more popularly known as the "Joy After Gloom." And It's the Art Such as the Above That He Gives Us Mrs. Sydney Drew Collects Hatpins for Soldiers Convalescent soldiers in the U. S. Army base hospital, at Camp Dix, New Jersey, have a real champion in Mrs. Sidney Drew, who is collecting hatpins for them. Yes, hatpins — those dangerous long ones that women discarded some time ago rather than risk piercing a neighbor's eyes. Buddies whose fingers need limbering, have found a new use and a good one for "woman's weapon." Heroes with cramped or partially paralyzed fingers, or only part of their fingers, spend hours making beads out of wallpaper and gay colored magazine covers. They wind the paper on the pins; then roll it into beads, which they dip into shellac or varnish for glossing. Necklaces of these beads sell for good money, which the soldiers welcome while waiting for pay day. Mrs. Drew just dotes on big hats, wonderful creations, and of course she has some long hatpins. Well, just as soon as Mrs. Drew read an item headed "Wounded Want Hatpins," ever ready to -assist the boys, she immediately located her hat boxes. She found a number of pins which she sent to Camp Dix, together with a letter saying that she would collect and send them many more of the needed pins. To secure a large number of pins for the boys, Mrs. Drew asks all women readers to hunt up their old hatpins, or buy some. Packages of hatpins will be forwarded, if readers will send them to Mrs. Sidney Drew, 220 West 42nd Street, New York City. Many husbands will no doubt encourage their wives to send their hatpins to Mrs. Drew, which co-operation will greatly aid the soldiers' efforts to earn "pin money." LOVE OF LAUGHTER Amuse the world if you zvould win its praises, Make it laugh; It wearies of too much of moral preaching, Longs for chaff. Something light as foam, and fine and fairy, As the spray Of lovely little flowers that awaken With the May. Who can blame the world for love of laughter f As May-dews That wash the roses, it refreshes, as enchantment, And renews. Amuse the world, and ivin its hearty plaudits, Help it play; Give it humor, wit and unstinted laughter, It will pay! —Stella V. Keller man.