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54 PRACTICABILITY These may be rented from the theati-ical costumer or made by the studio department, but in either case an expense is incurred for which there must be an adequate return. From another angle it might be remarked that not many costume plays are in demand because the general preference favors plays of here and today. Cos- tume plays are shown and now and then they are demanded, but it is so seldom possible to tell just what this demand will be that it does not pay the free lance to gamble his time writing them. 11. In the same way the story that requires elaborate properties will stand small chance if the properties must be made. These will be made if the story is liked, but it is more usual to w^rite stories around existing odd properties than to make the properties for the play. 12. Cast is an important item on the bill of costs. It is as easy to w^rite of a thousand persons as of one, but on the screen you must pay these persons from one to five dollars a day, and if the scenes in which a mob is tised are numerous or far removed from each other, then they must be employed two or more days. All race track crowds, theatre audiences and similar gatherings are '"mobs" to the director, no matter how correct their deportment. It might be possible to make pictures of a regular theatre audience instead of hiring a special audience, but the regular audience would not do as the director told them but would insist upon looking at the camera and spoiling the picture. It is easier and safer to hire an audience than to use a free one. 13. Cast offers another angle of practicability. Stories that call for very stout persons or very thin ones may be acceptable to a few studios but unavailable to most. It does not pay to write to suit a unique personality unless you have an order and know precisely what to write. It is said that during the lifetime of the late John Bunny the Vita graph was in constant receipt of stories all along the same lines and generally entitled "John Bunny Reduces." Very few of these were purchased and some of the comedian's greatest hits were stories not specially written for him but suitable for a man of any size. One, for instance, was written to be used by a comedian about five feet tall and rather slender. He did not get a chance to use it and so it was sold to the Vitagraph and played by Mr. Bunny. The most practical story is one so written that no par- ticular physical tjpe is required. Better still, it should not require that it be made in any particular locality, but be as suitable for New York as Los Angeles or Jacksonville. 14. Much can be done by the practiced writer to suggest a lavish outlay with a small expense bill. There are many little tricks of saving time and salaries that will suggest themselves to the man who knows the studio, but the free lance writer cannot make a study of these. On the other hand there are some points that he can and should take notice of. If mob scenes are written to show the exterior of a handsome country house and also the interior, it is probable that one day the mob will be taken to the country and another day