The director wanted a metal aeroplane with a propeller that would whirl in the wind for the radiator cap of the hero’s automobile. Before the property man found one he had to put two cities with a combined population of nearly half a million on their respective ears, and we nearly all of us had to turn in and help him do it. But in the end we got the little aeroplane, and the director was happy. It is interesting work, this “shooting” picture out on “location.” There were nearly twenty of us in the party—owners, cameramen, writers, and assistants, besides the actors. Only the actors taking the principal parts were along with us, on account of the expense. For “bits” or “extras”—characters that appeared only once or twice for a moment or so in the finished picture—we relied on finding people in the cities and towns we visited, ready and able to take the parts. Indeed, it would surprise you—or maybe it wouldn’t—to know how far the lure of picture-making has spread. Set up a camera almost anywhere in the country, and interested spectators will come out of the air from nowhere at all, as mosquitoes seem to come to a fisherman. And for the parts in your picture, if you want them, you can have almost any one, from the leader of the sewing circle to the village derelict. More work for the property man! Mostly, the boys that you find do the best work of all. A youngster of six or eight, if he once gets the spirit of the thing, falls into a part wonderfully, and acts as naturally as a pup in a barnyard. We would start out in the morning from the front of the hotel where we happened to be staying. Spectators, few or many, always gathered in a fringe as soon as they saw the cameras being carried out to the machines. There were two machines that we needed to use in the picture—both roadsters. Then there was a big “work car,” some old seven-passenger, to take the camera men and actors and as much of the duffle as could be crowded in. There was always a tremendous amount of stuff to be lugged—cameras, and film-boxes, and big mirrors and reflectors to use in getting additional light, and so on. If we were to take any “inside shots” as well, there was also a truck to take along a load of lights—big metal standards with intricate carbon lights and their reflectors above—with transformers and yards and yards of cable to connect them up with, and mechanics and electricians to do the work. Or perhaps a generator on a truck—a big 150-horse-power motor and electric generator to provide a current that could be taken anywhere the truck could go. Almost always there was a delay about the start; sometimes one thing, sometimes another. A reflector broken and not yet returned repaired—a property gravestone to be taken along, and late—the everlasting cat gone from its basket. Sometimes five minutes, sometimes fifteen; once in a while a whole beautiful morning lost, representing, say, a loss, or additional expense to the picture, of possibly hundreds of dollars.