First, learn the names of the stars and producers of real ability, who have been in charge of their own pictures so long that we know we can expect pretty good pictures from them. They’re not so many altogether; Douglas Fairbanks, D. W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Bill Hart, Charles Ray, Charlie Chaplin, Maurice Tourneur, Harold Lloyd, Marshall Neilan. Whenever you go to a picture made by any one of those people, you know just about what to expect. Of its kind (and you can pick the kind you like) any of these will give about the best there is. Second, learn to look for praise or criticism of new pictures that are exceptionally good, and whenever you find an unusually strong reason in favor of a picture that seems to be of the kind you like, put it on your list as one you will see. Don’t go to pictures you know nothing about, made by people you know nothing about. The chances are at least five to one that they will not be worth watching. [Illustration: _Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation._ GOOD TRAINING IN CHEERFULNESS. Movie actors have to learn how to be good sports under any and all circumstances. They have to be able to grin when told to do so, whether they like what they are doing or not.] [Illustration: _Courtesy W. W. Hodkinson Corporation._ TWO CAMERAS AGAINST ONE PIG. Animals are nearly always interesting on the screen. They make excellent “actors” because they can never be anything but absolutely natural. This is one reason why dogs and babies nearly always “screen” well.] Third, learn to note the name of the director (or in some cases the star or author or producer) responsible for the picture. Look for the name again. For instance, among the directors who have become prominent in the last year or so is John Robertson. Go to one of his pictures some time, and see how it proves in all three ways—real people, doing interesting, convincing and worth-while things, in a place that is shown truthfully. CHAPTER VIII HOW GOOD CAN A PICTURE BE? So far we have been concerned mostly with the production of motion pictures—how they are made, and where they are made, and who makes them, and how they happen to be made the way they are. But that is only one part of the business. There are two other parts of the motion picture industry, just as big, and just as important, as production. One of them is selling or renting the films to the theater-owners who project them on the screens of their movie-palaces the world over. This is known as the _distributing_ end of the business. There are great nation-wide organizations, sometimes embracing a number of associated producing companies, that are formed for the purpose of carrying it on. Each of the dozen or so of these organizations that together dominate the distributing market spends twenty thousand dollars or so a week in overhead expenses alone; some of them more than double that.