TAKING PICTURES

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 64, 12 September 1912, Page 8

TAKING PICTURES

AN AMERICAN ENTERPRISE. ARRIVAL IN WELLINGTON. , So vast is the output of moving pictures in America — and yet it does not meet the demand — and 60 well exploited is even the material of the vast Continent, that enterprising firms of film manufacturers are looking further cfield. ( California and the Pacific Coaet have been added to the long series of scenes for the background ot the sensational draniagraph, and there ie nothing for it i to get something fresh but to eet j saii on the Parihc for the land of the sunny couth. That is what Mr. Gaston Meliee', moving picture manufacturer, i with headquarters in New York, has done. - For the past three years with his company he has been enacting thrilling stories for fho camera to record for the entertainment .of the multitudes who throng the picture theatres throughout America and tho rest of the world. In July he 6ailod with his company of seventeen and the necessary appurtenances of the picture recorders on a Pacific 5 voyage. The first port of call was Tahiti, and here the voyagers tarried awhile to take pictures amid the palms and forests of that tropical island. The fitory is enacted by the company, but the natives come in as supers to give j local colour. The scenarios aro written 1 by an expert journalist, Mr. Ed. Mitchell, who travels with the company, and composes appropriate stories and scenes for the occasion. From Tahiti the party has come by the Acrangi to New J 'Zealand, where further picture etories will be told for the benefit of the camera. It is understood that the chief scene of operations will be Ilotorua, where the Maoris will, no doubt, participate gladly in the drama to be unfolded among lakes and geysers. The pictures taken will be not only dramatic, but aleo educational, and there are two different pels of apparatus with the expedition. The films are developed in a portable darkroom, and forwarded to New York, where they will be printed and distributed. Ac possible items on local picture programmes they will be looked forward to with interest.