FOREST FIRES A LA HOLLYWOOD.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 89, 16 April 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

FOREST FIRES A LA HOLLYWOOD.

SCENES BEHIND THE CAMERA

LIFE OF MOTION PICTURE ARTISTS

(By WALLACE HUTCHINSON.)

"This picture was Tiorn,' you might say, sevarai months ago. down in the studio at Hollywood. After the director had worked the original scenario over carefully, he and I came up to this country and spent two weeks scouting out locations. Then we returned to the studio, gathered together a company, and moved up bag and baggage. This manuscript, covering over 250 pages, is the finished scenario, and every evening the director and I go through the script and pick out the scenes to be taken the next day. These I enter for him in brief memorandum form on a tablet. Then Frank and I get together and figure out the materials, cameras, and actors, other than the 'stars,' that we shall need, and make all arrangements for getting the stuff and the people on location at a given hour. We're up at six every morning and in the field by nine, and every one works until the picture light fails in the late afternoon. We have a company of fifty people, not counting the 'extras' we hire locally, and it's costing us several thousands of dollars a day. Frank attends to all money matters, transportation, and the handling of equipment—anything, you might say, from chartering a Pullman to hiring an old horse. We're given a fixed amount of money for making this picture, and there's an efficiency expert down at the studio who checks every item of expense, too. "My job is a bit different from Frank's. I'm a kind of supervisor-on-the-ground for the company. If anything goes | wrong, I have to see that it's made right. But it's in connection with the actual shooting of the scenes that most of my work comes in. You'll notice in the scenario that only one side of the sheets are typed, that the blank pages are full of pencil notations. °-..trary to general belief, the scenes of a motion pictrr »r a rarely taken in sequence. In this story, mixed in with the outdoor fire scenes, are interiors and close-ups that will be shot down on the 'setf at Hollywood; or some of the scenes we take up here may not come out just right and may have to be shot all over again. It is my business to see that we don't get mixed up in the actors, the clothing they wear, and the setting of the scenes. For instance, in that fight this morning, Mac, the 'star,' had on a checkered mackinaw, a brown felt hat with the crown pushed up, a striped necktie, and grey socks showing an inch above his boots. Also* his left cuff was unbuttoned and his sleeve flapping. In the scene immediately following this fight, which is a studio interior, he must be dressed just as he was this morning, or some keen-eyed movie 'fan' will notice it That all sounds simple enough, but when you have a dozen or more different actors in a picture and several hundred scenes, it isn't so easy." "How about the 'doubles' you use in this picture game— do you watch out for them, too?" "I'll say I do! That's one of the hardest parts of my job. You saw Mac's double. Good, wasn't he? You can't tell them apart thirty feet away; but it took me all yesterday, chasing around these country stores, to find a pair of corduroy trousers that would photograph the same colour as those the star wore. Then I had to worry over a dress for the leading lady's double, so that one of the boys could take her place in a rough fire scene. We made him up m a silk dress, same as the one Mary wears, with a blonde wig, high-heel shoes, and everything, and he didn't iooK nad—at a distance. A double's life, though, isn't a bed of roses, but they come in handy at times." anxtm? H 11 ? GVery ODe was n P bri & ht «"* «& rl y> Et f 1 ■*■* 7/ k ™ the big forest-fire scene. It was Sfe i^° Utd0 ° rß ' ,*** Jack Froßt had laid « heavy ? Uey and As we were Bert? * Btartled cry of " Fire! Fire! " ar ° B *- rushed grabbed a fire extinguisher and SnsTsmle d °v the whole c ™d following. A SS 2£: T ' hUndred shot the entire eottfamW S ****** m nothing, flat, and building. Bui STSS £SV2W ,to r r the burnin * not until a loud "Ha! Trf?» me rrily smoking, and it was he realised that some «»« w ?, frantic efforts tbat liquid smoke/ ° e had P ulled a Joke on him with of 7 r ° de out to <*• Bcen e action. iae dlrector lost no time in going into S^J^X 6 f °V W trees * J -> «* tunber. Spread it &'Eff*/Jf"** ** Hold Bl x men ready with gunnv-sadf. f & little treesthrow on the fire when .u^art^ 0 * 1 "" 1 fa kerosene ** with the shovels scattered th™t S * Have those extra men fire-line to watch Sri?^ 0 the ' sl «hing' outside the "I J* head — a »an, long -shof of the fire Ch£i„ mt 8 ° *"** he can wt a to the south end of the log road Y O J * e ° d * n °ther camera hillside near the fire for torn* „i« d better «>t up on the down here in front wSh me'' ** *4 Walt (To be continued n«t Saturday),