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

Talking Pictures The location director keeps his five thousand cards very carefully cross-indexed. Attached to each card are pictures giving several views of the location. A survey of the cards used at the various studios reveals the following information required for the adequate handling of a location department: The owner's name; the amount of the rental; the distance from main highways, from piped water systems, and from electric lighting or power lines ; the condition of roads leading to the location; its proximity to good hotels; the potentialities of the terrain for the establishing of a camp; the number and location of telephones, or distance from the nearest telephone line ; the distance from the nearest grocery store, drugstore, doctor, and hospital; the time the sun rises and sets and in what direction it passes overhead in relation to the possible location of a contemplated setting ; the time of high and low tides (if a seashore location) ; the location and number of sanitary conveniences. These cards are altered regularly to fit changing conditions. Once a very lovely rocky beach seventy miles from the studios was popular for attractive sea scenes. There bold pirates landed with their loot. There, with the spray of rock-churned waves as a background, leading men made photographed love to hundreds of screen beauties. Since talkies were invented this beach has been abandoned, for, while its beauty is untouched, a broad motor highway, recently completed, parallels the ocean within one block. Noise from passing automobiles makes its use as a setting virtually impossible. Perhaps the most frequently used single place in the [ 186]