Talking pictures : how they are made and how to appreciate them (1937)

Talking Pictures make bars for a Peruvian jail, wrought iron doors for the palace of a king, or, with more modern ornamentation, contribute to the growth of wrought iron usage in home decoration. Every studio has its "horse wrangler." Usually he is not at the studio, but on a ranch where he trains horses for special stunts in a picture, and to which he brings horses from other sources when there is to be a scene requiring mounted men. Thousands upon thousands of pounds of plaster are used each year in the "plaster" or "staff" shop. Moldings are made for every kind of architecture. Coats of arms are reproduced. Any competent plaster shop foreman will keep in readiness for a sudden call the plaster coats of arms of the Hohenzollerns of Germany, the late Romanoffs of Russia, the Windsors of England, and the Hapsburgs of Austria. Reproductions of famed statues are made as they are needed. One brightly lighted building is used by men whose tools are capable of cutting a human hair in thirty parts. This would be one ten thousandth of an inch, the precision required for the repair of cameras and sound recording machines. These men, too, are among the many individuals in a studio whose work goes entirely unsung, although decidedly honored within the family. There are no machines used in any form of manufacture which are more delicate than cameras or sound recorders. Often long and costly delays are obviated by the ability of these high-grade mechanics to diagnose a delicate maladjustment and repair it. [ 120]