With the movie makersStearns, Myron M. (Myron Morris)
General
With the movie makers
Stearns, Myron M. (Myron Morris)
Motion pictures -- Juvenile literature
At one side is the office of the “casting director,” who passes on the
various “types,” hires the “extras,” and decides whether or not this
or that actor or actress is a real “trouper” who can fill the bill.
Into this office the army of “extra people” who make a precarious
living picking up a day’s work here and there around the studios as
“atmosphere” gradually find their way; here the innumerable applicants
for screen honors come to be looked over, and given a try, or turned
away with a shake of the head, and perhaps a single comment such
as “eyes won’t photograph well—too blue”; here the many experienced
actors, temporarily out of work, come to be greeted by: “Hello, Harry!
You’re just the bird I wanted to see! Got a great little part for you
in an English story; older brother—sort of half-heavy”; or: “Sorry,
Mame—not a thing to-day. Try us next week. We’ll probably begin casting
for ‘Wheels of Fate’ about Friday.”
[Illustration: _Courtesy Goldwyn Pictures Corporation._
APPLYING THE MYSTERIES OF “MAKE-UP.”
A veteran actor building a beard, bit by bit, with a surgeon’s
artery-holding apparatus, an orange-stick, spirit gum, wool-carder,
and a fine comb.]
[Illustration: _Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation._
A TYPICAL MOVIE “INTERIOR.”
Notice the carbon arc lights at sides of the picture, used to
illumine the set. The glaring oblong faces of the lights can be
noticed in the center lights on the right. From the glare of these
lights actors often get an intensely painful affliction called
“klieg-eyes.”]
[Illustration: _Courtesy Universal Pictures Corporation._
STAGING A MOVIE PRIZE-FIGHT.
Notice how each actor in the foreground has to play his part, no
matter how unimportant. To make the scene realistic, each “extra”
must appear as interested as any spectator at a real prize-fight.]
But let us pass on beyond the outer offices, and see where the girl
with the collie went.
Through a hallway we come suddenly into a vast, dark, cavernous
interior, high and wide and shadowy. From somewhere off at our left
comes a sound of hammering, where a new “set” is being erected. Off at
the right is more hammering and pounding with the squeaking of nails
being drawn as another set, in which the “shooting” has been finished,
is being “struck,” or taken down. From a far corner of the great cavern
there is a radiance of bluish-green light, where one of the companies
is “working.”
Curiously enough, this huge dark place is called the “light” stage. It
gets its name from the fact that scenes can be photographed on it only
with artificial light.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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