When the movies were young (1925)

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On Location 89 smeary. When made up, out into the cold, crisp day. One of the men would have a camp-fire going where we'd huddle between scenes and keep limber enough to act. Then when ready for the scene Billy Bitzer would have to light the little lamp that he attached to the camera on cold days to warm the film so it wouldn't be streaked with "lightning." While that was going on we stood at attention, ready to do our bit when the film was. We weren't so keen on playing leads on such days as those, for when you are half frozen it isn't so easy to look as if you were calmly dying of joy, for which emotional state the script might be asking. What we liked best in the winter was to follow Mack Sennett in the chases which he always led, and which he made so much of, later, when he became the big man in Keystone films. The chase warmed us up, for Mack Sennett led us on some merry jaunts, over stone walls, down gulleys, a-top of fences — whatever looked good and hard to do. Somehow we found it difficult to be always working with the weather. Though we watched carefully it seemed there always were "summer" stories to be finished, almost up to snow time; and "winter" stories in the works when June roses were in bud. Pink swiss on a bleak November day 'neath the leafless maple didn't feel so good; nor did velvet and fur and heavy wool in the studio in humid August. But such were the things that happened. We accepted them with a good grace.