The cost--that is the first question the amateur asks, and, naturally, the one that must be settled before any organization will embark on such a venture as the staging of a motion picture. We have told you in a preceding chapter that the film-producing companies calculate the cost of the average picture at one dollar per foot. With the amateur organization conditions are of course different, and this estimate furnishes no basis of comparison. In enumerating the items of expense to the amateur we must first consider the cost of film stock. This is about three and three-quarters cents per foot; positive film is a trifle higher than negative, but this figure may be taken as an average. It must be understood that there is always more film stock used than the length of the finished production would indicate. We will say that you intend to produce a three-reel picture, running approximately three thousand feet and providing three-quarters of an hour of entertainment. About four thousand feet of film would be used--a moderate estimate--allowing one thousand feet for film spoiled or omitted from the picture in the final assembling to improve the continuity and clarity of the story. The raw stock for the negative and positive prints would therefore cost three hundred dollars. Then there would be the expense of developing the negative and printing the positive, which, including the printed inserts, would be about six cents per foot. The cost of our three-reel film, with one thousand feet allowed for waste, would now be two hundred and forty dollars, plus the cost of the raw stock, or five hundred and forty dollars. These calculations are based on the average market prices, though slight variations must of course be expected. With the matter of film and printing settled, we take up expenses that cannot be so definitely decided. Under ordinary conditions the staging of a three-reel picture by amateurs should require about four weeks, somewhat longer than the professional would take, but not as long as the amateurs will require, unless the members are determined to work hard and use every available moment of sunshine until the picture is completed. Our estimate of four weeks is based on the understanding that the amateurs will be ready to start work at nine o’clock in the morning and, with the exception of a little over an hour for lunch, work until five o’clock. The salary of a photographer, supplying his own camera, would be between one hundred and one hundred and fifty dollars per week. The cost of our production now jumps from five hundred and forty dollars to ten hundred and forty dollars, figuring the camera-man’s salary at one hundred and twenty-five dollars per week. If it should be decided to engage a director the organization will be able to find capable men at salaries starting at the two-hundred-dollar level.