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The Film Surgeon
which they should proceed, and the surgeon gets to work. The first thing he wants to know is the length of the film; but instead of spinning it out on a measuring wheel, he places it, intact, on a set of finely balanced scales, which give the exact length of the film in ounces. One ounce is equal to twelve and a half feet. It often happens that a one-reel film of one thousand feet comes into the trimming room almost
clip and assemble the scenes in the order in which they shall appear, eliminating the retakes, imperfect prints, pieces of bad acting, and everything else that tends to destroy the value of the film as it will appear when finished. During the process of cutting, the film surgeon must eradicate the blunders of bad actors, quicken the scene by removing superfluous action, ''match up" the funny falls and impossible-looking
U. S. Andrews (wearing hat), chief of the cutting department for Thomas H. Ince, and his assistants.
two thousand feet in length. Great latitude is allowed the directors of many concerns in this matter, and they can use as much film as they please, so long as they get a good picture. Stories go the rounds of directors who have been so prodigal in this respect that they have put their companies into bankruptcy. Special five-reel pictures are often sent in with as much as nine thousand feet of film. This means that lit is up to the "trimmer" to take oft "four thousand feet wherever he can. The first task of the "cut"' man is to
jumps and other trick-photographic bits in slapstick comedy. He is the one who puts in many of the "flash-backs" — long scenes which are broken up into several shorter scenes for sake of contrast or other effect.
One of the big companies produced a picture in which was a scene of a young woman leaping from a rapidly moving hand car to the cabin of an engine. Of course, the picture had to be taken while the engine and the hand car were moving rather slowly ; and when the film was turned into the trimming