Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 64, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1916 — WHERE THEY MAKE THE MOVIES [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WHERE THEY MAKE THE MOVIES

Sfi/fANY million dolf lars are invested ± 1 in motion picture studios in southern /California. Climate . and scenery there ideal for “producing” the filmed drama.

By J. C. LESSEN.

HE first motion picture maker went kjTTjl to Los An ß eres - Cal ” to Becur ® E?= scenic or travelogue subjects, havgAfl ■■ ing learned from railroad folders wi 11. J Of the - beautiful scenery there, yi Pg| That was not more than eight years h—lago. The scenic photographer secured the views desired and left, never once suspecting that the ■* greater part of the industry would later find California the best place to make pictures. About seven years ago another director discovered that government weather reports showed that fnfl three hundred days of each year the sun shone brightly, and this man, Frank Boggs, Induced his employers, the Selig company, with producing plant then located in Chicago, to send c company to Los Angeles to open a studio. All effects of the company were packed in a small trunk. The first studio opened by the organisation was on the roof of a downtown building. The first picture cost less than three hundred dollars and consisted of less than a thousand

feet. Since that day the greatest motion picture the world has ever seen, costing more than a quarter million, was made but • short distance from the location of the first studio —but that is getting ahead of my story. Cutting cost in prod notion was so pleasing to this one manufacturer that he could not keep the secret of his success. The word reached his competitor?, and they investigated statistics compiled by the government, and a few months later sent companies West.

“Go West,** became the slogan of makers of “canned amusement,” and one after another established plants in or near Los Angeles. Besides the advantageous climatic conditions there are other reasons for film producers going to California. Within_a radius of fifty miles of Los Angeles practically any kind of a scene desired may be "shot” It was not until during the last year or eighteen months that manufacturers came to realize fully that the producing end of the industry should be located in California, and now that some fully appreciate the economy of such a move they are building expensive permanent plants. \ Before decisions for this move were reached, however, every exctfse was offered for continuing in the East, and attempts made to prove the correctness of each one of them; for a ( big expense is added when the selling department of a concern is located in New York city, three 'thousand miles from the manufacturing plant New York city has always been, and, no doubt, ■will for years, remain, the theatrical center of this continents There it is that all big theatrical producing organizations have their headquarters, land as the motion picture has to a very great extent taken the place of legitimate stage drama, comedy and musical shows, and is conducted largely by former theatrical men, its headquarters should, the managers think, continue in this eastern metropolis. With the offices and selling force at one side iof the continent and the manufacturing at the. other additional expense is caused by the need 'of each keeping in touch with the other. Practically all of the communications go by wire, and the telegraphic expense of some companies exceeds a thousand dollars per month. In one or two instances wires across the continent are leased from the telegraph companies and operators maintained at the New York office and the 'Studio, in the same manner as newspapers lease wires for news received. —This has materially lessened the expense and.at the same time added speed and efficiency to the service of the companies. ’ As the manufacturers come to realize the eco■nomical need of continuing permanently the makjfng of motion pictures in California, they have igradually improved their properties there. The first Universal producing company arrived ’tn Los Angeles Thanksgiving, 1911, and the manager, director, scenario writer, scenic artist, property man, laboratory superintendent, and Actor Al. E. Christie, with his band of thirty, leased a barn. To save the cost of buying muslin to use as cloths, that there would be no shadows tn the pictures and all faces and images be plain, fie caused the stage—-which consisted of a mete flat platform—to be built in the north side of the Ibarn where the players could work all flay in the shade without the sun spoiling a single scene. From this very humble beginning has grown !the only municipality In the world devoted exclusively to the manufacture of motion pictures—- - TTnITPTHAI Citv. lour miles north of Lbs Angeles. This mammoth plant consists of almost four shundred acres, contains a river; talleys, hills and picturesque nooks suitable for filming scenes. •The grounds are divided into two sections, because of foot hills extending through the center, kwtgi flat valleys on either tide. In frontare the

administration buildings, a case with a capacity of serving one thousand people an hour; barber, manicuring, hair dressing and photography shops; the laboratories, where all film is developed and, a positive print made; a wardrobe department, where clothing for an army can be had at a minute’s notice, no matter what nation the army is to represent Here, too, will be found the dressing rooms of the five hundred players, the carpenter shop, scene painting studios and five mammoth stages with a floor space equivalent to four acres. All buildings are of concrete and steel. Beyond the foothills are other stages and the zoo, which contains approximately two hundred wild animals trained to work in pictures. Across the road from this is an honest-to-good-ness wild-west horse and cattle corral and bunkhouses for the cowboys. The big -grounds are dotted at ail times with settings built for this or that production. On one side will be seen a coal mine, while a few feet away is a reproduction from photographs of a street scene in Cairo, Egypt, or the Bowery of New York —possibly a typical Scotch scene, or the native huts of African savages. One of. these sets, fifty to five hundred feet long is frequently erected at a cost of several thousand dollars and torr down after the making of from one to three hundred feet of film that will require one to five minutes to show at the theater. It is very seldom that the same setting is used in more than one production. The world’s greatest privately owned collection of wild animals is said to be that at the zoo of the Selig company, located near a public park on historic Mission road, leading into Los Angeles from the famous San Gabriel missions. This big show place, built at an expense of more than two hundred thousand dollars, contains thirty-eight acres —thirty of which are taken up in animal houses and pens and beautiful lawns and groves. In air-there are seven hundred or more specimens, including fifty lions, a herd, of elephants, droves of oatrichs, scores of monkeys, and many rare animals, together with birds and reptiles from every part of the world. AH are maintained for exclusive use to motion pictures, and that they may have homelike settings to "work" in, duplicates of their native haunts have been built on the grounds, each one strongly Inclosed to prevent escape, injuries or fatalities to employees. Within the Selig zoo were made all scenes for the fifteen episodes of the first serial motion picture, "The Adventures of Kathlyn,” which had an East India locale, together with scores of other great animal pictures. Here also was built and filmed the Alaskan village for ’ The Spoilers,” adapted from the story by Rex Beach, one of the two most profitable pictures made. . More than a quarter of a million dollars is being spent In the building of a mammoth studio at Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, by the New York Motion Picture corporation. Since 1910 this company has leased a tract of ground consisting of 18,000 acres thirty miles southwest of Los Angeles where cattle raising has been conducted Inst connection with the making, of motion pictures. The reason for leasing this great tract was that the company originally intended making only western dramas. Later other kinds of stories were filmed, and recently the producing manager or director, Thomas H. Ince, became one

Street Scene of Naples, Italy, During the Middle Ages Reproduced.

of the three points of the Triangle Film corporation, which inaugurated In New York, Philadelphia and Chicago, motion picture theater programs, where two dollars was charged for the best seats. The new plant will consist of twenty or more concrete and steel fireproof buildings, including nine separate inclosed with ground glass stages—one for each producing organization. The players will have every comfort, Including Individual dressing rooms, with steam heat, electric fans, and hot and cold water, etc. Factories In connectioh with the plant will manufacture all sets, furniture and wardrobe needed. The ranch studio will be maintained, and there two blg ganlzatlons making western drama will be maintained. Every hamlet In the country has been invaded by Keystone comedies made in Los Angeles. Four years ago the nucleus of this company, consisting of Mack Sennett, Mabel Normand and Fred Mace, arrived there and rented a vacant lot. Now the Keystone studio occupies two city blocks, practically half of which space is covered with stages, where fun making reigns supreme. ’ Padded bricks, billies and trick props of every nature, from a toy warship to an aeroplane, are on hand at every turn, and here ard to be found the greatest collection of comedians the world has even known —Weber and Fields, Sam Bernard, Eddie Foy, Raymond Hitchcock, Roscoe .Arbuckle, Chester Conklin, Charlie Murray of Murray and Mack fame, and scores of others who have graced the comedy and vaudeville stage or the sawdust ring, as headliners. Fun making is here a serious proposition and the hundred odd players, writers and directors treat it as such — even the famous Keystone cops. The producing quarters of the maker of the most profitable motion picture ever filmed, “The Birth of a Nation,” adapted by David Mark Griffith from the book, “The Clansman,” consists of two city blocks at present—one taken up with executive office buildings, stages and dressing rooms, laboratories, and factories, and the other block retained as a site for settings. Mr. Griffith came to Los Angeles in January, 1914, -and leased a lot containing a bungalow. Back of this he built, a stage and began work. Additions to the producing staff were made so frequently that no time could be given for future planning. As the result scores of buildings were erected as needed for workshops, developing and printing, laboratories, dressing rooms, etc., so that the studio now has a hit-or-miss appearance, where about five hundred people are employed, fully two hundred being actors, actresses and writers. In February, 1914, a livery stable In Hollywood, which had later been used for a garage, was leased by two men well known tn the theatrical producing world, and they began making a motion picture along new lines. That their method was successful is proved by the fact that five times since they have found it necessary to teaw as ditionai grounds, and their plant now covers a block 350 by 700 feet, and the studio is crowded. The men were Jesse L. Lasky, previously a vaudeville .producer, and Cecil B. de MiHe, legitimate stage producer and playwright Their company became the Jesse L. Lasky Picture Play company, and they, during the last year. Introduced America's greatest opera star. Geraldine Farrar, on the motion picture screen. Miss Farrar worked at the studio twelve weeks in the making of three fivereel subjects at a salary of more than a dollar a minute. 7 In a brief manner the foregoing describes the producing plants of the largest makers of motion pictures. There are many other studios In Los , Angeles, - with from one to four companies working at each. It would be impossible to go from the center ot the business district to the cttr limits In any direction without coming upon gw* or more motion picture plants.

House of Representatives . Scene Reproduced.

Scotch Village Street Scene Reproduced.