Many considerations will be weighed by the director in making up his mind as to the order in which he will take his scenes. The weather, of course, is an important factor in coming to a decision as to whether he will first take his “interiors,” that is, scenes taken in the studio, or the “exteriors,” the action photographed outdoors. Usually the more simple scenes will be taken first, and the elaborate and costly ones last, this to forestall prohibitive expense should minor changes be made in the story while the picture is being produced. Such changes are not infrequent, for a director will often see ways to strengthen his story while the players are enacting it before his eyes. We are ready to start to work. It is nine A.M., or perhaps even earlier, for the picture producer does not care to lose any more of the precious daylight than he has to. This is one of the biggest surprises of screen work to the player from the stage. He is accustomed to matinée performances at two in the afternoon, twice a week, but as a usual thing his work is from eight to eleven in the evening. His life is run after the sun has set. Then he enters the picture field and finds it an “early to bed and early to rise” game. Healthful days in the open of green fields and country roads replace the stuffy stage, and even the studio is freedom when compared with the theater. It is the zest and regularity of picture life; yes, even the necessity of awakening early in the morning, that causes so many players from the stage to take it up permanently. There is the real home life of the ordinary professional man, instead of the weary traveling and “one-night stands,” and there is employment fifty-two weeks in the year in place of the short season and long lay-off of the theater. [Illustration: (_Keystone_) THE DIRECTOR--HIS CAMERA AND CAMERA-MAN] The sun is shining clearly and the director plans a long day of work in the open. Besides, the studio stages are all in use by directors who have put in their requisitions far in advance. The camera-man and his apparatus, players, and director jump into autos and speed to the first “location.” With his assistant the director has mapped the locations and the order of photographing the scenes there as already explained. His first location is a suburban home, one that may be labeled in his catalogue as “home of a fairly wealthy family.” A caretaker is in charge and the director knows--from experience--that a few cigars, or, if the house is especially necessary, a greenback, will enable him to use it for picture-taking purposes. We will say that the scenes are to show a thief entering the house and later leaving it with his booty. In the story this is probably to happen at night, but tinting the film blue will later attend to that.