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Round the Studios 389
stars are held in Holh-wood ; Miss Swanson's table at the " Inn " was screened off from the rest of the room by a gauze screen spangled with silver stars.
Elstree
British International Pictures, Ltd., Boreham Wood, Elstree.
ENGLAND has no film centre comparable to Hollywood. Film studios have sprung up round London in more haphazard and scattered fashion, from Beaconsfield in the north-west to Islington in the slums. Yet film production in this country is associated in the minds of many people, with Elstree, Herts.
There have been many studios at Elstree. Films were made there, in rough and ready fashion, years ago. From the railway station itself one studio can be seen — that of Audible Filmcraft. It has not, however, been the scene of feature production. Farther along the road stands the Blattner studio, and almost opposite British & Dominions' Imperial studios, which are described on page 390. But towering over all these and actually the largest studio in England, is British International Pictures' 40-acre expanse of buildings and exterior " lots."
The studio in its present form dates from a reconstruction scheme of 1928, when B.I. P. took over the existing buildings and gradually brought the place up to its present standard. There are 9 full-sized production stages, contained in 3 huge blocks. Two of these stages, in a corrugated iron building, represent the original " silent " studio ; the rest are all modern additions, spacious, lofty, and provided with the most up-to-date methods of sound-proofing and ventilation.
Three of the sound stages are provided with deep watertight tanks, sunk beneath the floor, which can be used for bathing pool scenes, underwater photography, and so on. A typical example of the use of these tanks was the " flooded submarine " sequence in Men Like These.
It is possible to have 9 films in simultaneous production at the B.I. P. studios. The record to date, however, is 7 pictures, which all occupied floors at the same time in the summer of 1931.
Near the three main studio buildings there is a long, low block which contains the cutting-rooms, laboratories, garage, and studio cafe, which is one of the best patronized of all British studio restaurants, for it provides meals for many visitors from the Imperial studios, " just over the fence " from B.I.P.
Naturally enough, the various technical departments of so large a studio are correspondingly extensive. The make-up department, for instance, thinks in pounds of grease-paint, crates of powder, and gallons of liquid colour. A crowd of 150 women recently used 12 pints of wet-white in one day at B.I.P. On another occasion 300 " natives " were made up, and 14 large pails full of wet-black were used in one week ; that same production called into use more than 100 yards of false hair, which was applied with a gallon of spirit gum.
The carpenters' and plasterers' shops are also on an enormous scale. There are 150 craftsmen employed in them, and they use 50,000 feet of wooden battens a year, as well as 10,000 feet of boarding and something like half a ton of nails a week.