Laura Lee Hope

“ Back and forth surged the fight, sometimes Paul's men giving way, and again driving the Confederates back from the crest of the hill. Small detachments here and there fired volleys of blank cartridges from their rifles, but there was not as much of this for the close-up pictures as there had been for the larger battle scenes. For while smoke blowing over a big field on which hundreds of men and horses are massed makes a picture effective, if seen at too close range it hides the details of the fighting. ”

“ The absolute truth is told every time.
Of course, there are trick films, but even then the camera tells the truth fearlessly. It is only the on-lookers' eyes that are deceived. The camera can not be fooled. And though a man may be seen to be shaking hands with himself or cutting off his own head, it is done by double exposure, and could not be accomplished were it not for the fact that the camera and the film are so fearlessly honest and truth-telling.
"What's the matter, Estelle?" asked Alice of the rider that afternoon, when they were in Ruth's room resting after the work of the day. ”

“ All I knew was that I was there on board the ship."
"And did you change your stateroom?" asked Ruth.
"Yes; the purser gave me another one. And then I sat down and tried to puzzle it out. Why was I going to Cleveland? I knew no one there, and yet I had bought a ticket to that port—or some one had bought it for me."
"Did that occur to you?" asked Alice. "That some one might have had an object in getting you out of the way."
"Well, if they had, they took a very public and expensive method of doing it," Estelle said. "I was on one of the best boats on Lake Erie, and I had plenty of money." ”

“ You Unionists are beaten. Retreat!" called the director, and Lieutenant Varley's men rode off, leaving him and some others injured on the field of the conflict.
It was here that Alice and Ruth took an active part again. Ruth rushed up to the fallen lieutenant and felt his pulse. No sooner had she done so than the director cried:
"Stop the camera! That won't do, Miss DeVere!"
"Why not?" she asked.
"Because you felt his pulse with your thumb. No nurse would do that. The pulse in the thumb itself is too strong to allow any one to feel the pulse in another's wrist. ”

“ The former vaudeville actresses, with Ruth, Alice, and some of the others, were resting on the farmhouse porch.
Miss Dixon smelled the salts and declared she felt much better.
"There's to be a dance in the village to-night," Paul remarked at the supper table.
"Let's go!" proposed Alice. "Will you take me, Paul?"
"Of course I will."
"May I have the pleasure?" asked Russ, of Ruth.
"Why, yes, if the rest go."
"We'll all go!" chimed in Miss Dixon. "Some of the extra men are good dancers. They proved it in the ballroom scene the other day. We can get a man, Pearl." ”

“ Fortunately, not much of the film had been reeled off, and the scene was one that could easily be made over. Estelle's leap was not spoiled, nor was the blowing up of the bridge.
"Huh! I didn't think anything about there not being autos in those days," said Maurice, when he had been brought back and mounted on a horse.
"That's just it," commented Mr. Pertell. "You've got to think in these days of moving pictures. The audiences are more critical than you would suppose. Even the children now laugh at fake scenes and incongruities. ”

“ The firing of the shot, the realization that it was a mistake, Paul's flash of the oncoming projectile, his command to his men and the vision had by the girls. All in an instant, for a shot from a big gun does not leave much margin of time between starting and arriving even when fired with only a small charge of powder for moving picture purposes.
And, so quickly had it happened that Russ had not stopped turning the crank of his camera, nor had an assistant on the hillside, where he had been stationed to film Paul and his soldiers. ”

“ It would make a dandy scene."
"An airship!" cried Russ. "Say! remember that these scenes are supposed to have taken place in 1863. The only airships then were those the inventors were dreaming about or making in their laboratories. No airships in Civil War plays! I guess not! Balloons, maybe, but no airships."
"More fighting! Camera!" called Mr. Pertell, and again the spirited action was under way. Cannon boomed; rifles spat fire and smoke; men [84] fought hand to hand, often rolling over dead; riderless horses dashed here and there. Now and then a man would narrowly escape being run down. ”

“ Why, I've got a good well over there," and he pointed to a real one, under an apple tree.
"That's in the shade—couldn't get any pictures there," explained Russ. "The well has to be out in the open."
"But what about water?" asked Sandy. "Hang me if I ever heard of a well without water!"
"We'll run a hose up to this one," explained Pop Snooks. "A man will lie down behind the well-curb, where he won't show in the camera. As fast as Ruth lowers her bucket into the well the man'll fill the pail with water for the soldiers to drink. ”

“ My money was running low, and I had not a friend to whom to turn. I happened to go in to see some moving pictures, and the idea came to me that perhaps I could act. I had rather a good face, so some one had hinted."
"You do photograph beautifully," said Alice.
"That's what one of the managers in Boston told me when I applied to him," said Estelle. "He gave me a small part, and then I learned that New York was really the place to go to get in the movies, so I came on, with a letter to a manager from the Boston firm. ”

“ The pictures taken are very small, and are greatly magnified on the screen.
So much for the mechanical end of the business. It may interest some to learn that the photo-play, as seen in the theatre, is not taken all at once, nor in the order in which the scenes are seen as they are reeled off.
When a play is decided on, the director or one of his helpers goes over the manuscript and picks out all the scenes that take place in one location. It may be in a parlor, in a hut, on the side of a mountain, in a lonely wilderness, on a battlefield, on a bridge—anywhere, in fact. ”

“ Several of the scenes in the principal drama had been made, but most of the largest ones, those of the battles, of Alice's spy work, and of Ruth's nursing, were yet to come.
The making of a big moving picture is the work not of days, but of weeks, and often of [65] months. If every scene took place in a studio, where artificial lights could be used, the filming could go on every day the actors were on hand, or whenever the director felt like working them and the camera men. ”

“ Mr. Switzer was to be the soldier, and would plunge through the barn window head first. He was called on to rehearse the scenes a few days after the semblance of a barn had been put in position and the hay laid out to make his landing safe.
"Are you ready?" asked Mr. Pertell, who was directing the scene. "All ready, there, Switzer?"
"Sure, as ready as I ever shall be."
"All right, then. Now, you understand, you come running out of those bushes over there, and when you get out you stop for a minute and register caution. Look on all sides of you. Then you see the barn and the open window. ”

“ This time all went well. Alice drove her "flivver" at Mr. Bunn, who was properly knocked down and looked after by Ruth. No small boys, with an exaggerated sense of humor, got in the way, and the girls were shortly back in their apartment. They had moved to a more pretentious home since their success in moving pictures, and the Dalwoods had taken an apartment in the same building.
"And now to get on with my packing!" sighed Alice. "All I am sure of is that I have my 'brogans' in."
"I'll help you," offered Ruth. ”

“ Pertell had hitherto used.
"I'll be able to throw on the screen a real battle scene," he said.
"The only trouble," declared Pop Snooks, "is that their uniforms aren't like those of the days of sixty-three." Pop was a stickler for dramatic correctness.
"It won't matter," said Mr. Pertell. "The views of the battle will be distant ones, and no one will be able to see the kind of uniforms the men wear. Those who are close to the camera will wear the proper Civil War uniforms we have on hand. ”

“ The sun will be in just the right position for making the film. It's in a thicket you know, and the light isn't any too good. That's the scene you girls are in," he went on.
"Speed along," urged Paul. "I've got to get into my uniform and make up a bit."
There is very little "make up" done for moving pictures taken in the open, and not as much done for studio work as there is on the regular stage. The camera is sharper than any eye, and make-up shows very plainly on the screen. Of course, eyes are often darkened and lips rouged a bit to make them appear to better advantage. ”

“ What is it that interests you?"
"This, about a missing girl. Why, look here, Ruth, there's a reward of ten thousand dollars offered for news of her! Why, I don't remember seeing this before. Look, it's quite startling. A San Francisco girl—Mildred Passamore—mysteriously disappears while on a train bound for Seattle—can't find any trace of her—parents distracted—they've got detectives on the trail—going to flood the country with photographs of her—all sorts of things feared—but think of it!—ten thousand dollars reward!" ”

“ And as for using a dummy in danger scenes, it's getting harder and harder every day to get by with it. You stick to horses or to Shank's mules, young man, when it comes to transportation in this war film. No autos where they are going to show in the film."
That was only one of the many details the [145] director and his assistants had to look after. If eternal vigilance is the price of liberty, it is much more so the price of good films. The camera sees everything in a pitiless light. It exaggerates faults and it refuses to shut its eye to anything at which it is pointed. ”

“ So he made Alice go over the scene again, and Ruth also, until he was satisfied.
"Now, when the time comes, you'll know how to do it," he said. "Don't be satisfied with anything but the best you can do, even if it is only a moving picture show. I am convinced, more and more, that the silent drama is going to take a larger place than ever before the public."
It was on one afternoon following a rather hard day's work before the cameras, that Ruth and Alice, with Miss Pennington and Miss Dixon, sat on the porch of the farmhouse, waiting for the supper bell. ”

“ There were more men than women among the extra people, though a number of women and girls were needed in the "town" scenes.
Most of the men were former members of the militia, cowboys and adventurers, all of whom were used to hard, rough riding. This was necessary, for when battle scenes are shown there must be some "killed," and when a man has a horse shot from under him, or is shot himself, riding at full speed, even though the cartridges are blank, the action calls for a heavy fall, sudden and abrupt, to make it look real. ”

“ Then those of the players who had been looking on and wondering at Mr. Switzer's cries could hurry to his rescue.
For it is a crime out of the ordinary in the annals of moving pictures for any one not in the scene to get within range of the camera when an [31] act is being filmed. It means not only the spoiling of the reel, perhaps, but a retaking of that particular action. When Russ ceased to grind at the camera crank, however, it was the same as when the shutter of an ordinary camera is closed. No more views can be taken. It was safe for others to cross the field of vision. ”

“ They can take "outdoor stuff" almost any time after the sun is up.
But at Oak Farm there were times when everything would be in readiness for a big scene, the camera men waiting, the players ready to dash into their parts, and then clouds would form, or it would rain, and there would be a postponement. But it was part of the game, and as the salaries of the players went on whether they worked or not, they did not complain. [66]
One morning Alice, on going into Estelle's room, found her busy "padding" herself before she put on her outer garments.
"What in the world are you doing?" Alice asked. ”

“ Alice said.
"No; we did that to have less surface of our bodies on the ground so the vibration would be less. If one could leap up off the earth at the exact moment a shot was fired it would be much better, but it is hard to jump at the right instant, and standing on one's toes is nearly as good. Then you present only a comparatively small point which the vibrations of the earth, caused by the explosion of the gun, can act upon."
"That's a good thing to remember," Estelle said. "Are they going to fire again?"
"It looks so," observed Russ. ”

“ Fortunately, one of Russ' helpers was free a moment later, and he went for the extra roll of film, while the dead man enjoyed his part to his satisfaction.
"Well, he did just right," said Mr. Pertell, when told of the incident afterward. "I wish more performers would do exactly as they are told. Of course, I don't mean to say a player must slavishly do just as I tell him. But in some [138] cases a dead man's coming to life might spoil a big scene."
Matters were now in readiness for the preliminary hospital scene. ”

“ The spy has to carry a revolver."
"I'm going to be the spy!" cried Alice, impetuously. "I know how to shoot a gun."
"I'd rather be the nurse," murmured Ruth, and truly she was better fitted for that part.
"'A Girl in Blue and A Girl in Gray' is to be the title of the war play—or at least one of them," went on Russ. "There will be some lively scenes, and I'll be on the jump most of the time."
"Are you going to film them all?" asked Paul. [19]
"Oh, no. I'm to have several assistants, but I'll be in general charge of the camera squad. So, girls, look your prettiest." ”