MANUFACTURING A "MOVIE."

Taranaki Daily News, 3 December 1919, Page 10

MANUFACTURING A "MOVIE."

LIFE WITH THE FILMS. Thousands of people throng our picture theatres. Many go to be enthralled, some to be interested, some to criticise, and some to pass away an idle hour. Of all these admirers, how many know how and where the picture which is flickering across the screen was made, and the expense and effort which went to the making? One of the few New Zealanders who nave entered the picture world, and made a fine success therein, is Mr. Winter Hall, formerly of Christchuich, and now of Los Angeles, California. Writing to a friend in Auckland, lie gives some account of how the film, which- we see in our darkened picture palaces, is manufactured out in the open sunlight amid the mountain tops. He relates that during the month in which he wrote he had left with a picture company for C'alistoga, a small inland town about seventy miles from San Francisco. The town is situated in a lovely valley, surrounded by mountains, and the spot where the film was to be played was fifteen miles from the township. The company reached it every day by motor tar. The road up the mountain commanded the most glorious view of valleys and hills, and the spot fixed upon as the scene of the play was right in the heart of the bush by the side of a mountain and stream. The landscape reminded the New Zealander of many spots where happy picnics had taken place in the bush of his homeland in pre-historic days, It was situated 3500 ft above sea level, and the air wa3 glorious. The writer says that if his New Zealand friends had seen the company at work they would have imagined that the moving picture actor's life was ideal. The hotel people put up charming lunches, and the players boiled the billy and made tea and eollee. During working hours, while the film was running off, they had very fine music provided by two men which the company took with them; one played the 'cello, and the other played a small portable organ. The company usually left the hotel at 8 o'clock and returned about six in the evening. Many of the mornings were very foggy when the company left the hotel, but the ear always got above the fog and ran into clear sunshine at 2000 feet, and Mr. Hall relates that the view looking down on the clouds beneath was sublime. It was like a white billowy sea with islands and promontories all through it. The tops of some of the hills stood up just like islands. The writer mentions that there are several geysers close to the hotel in Calissoga, and these played with fine regularity. The geysers are in a way artificial, for sixinch pipes were driven down until they tapped the boiling water anywhere from two to throe hundred feet below. The water is full of the usual minerals, and is efficacious for rheumatism and other ail- ' ments. The hotel has also a fine swimming pool supplied with water from th, springs. ■ The actors while at work in the ranges often meet very interesting i and amusing characters on thc-ir excursions into the Sierras, men who go back in character to the golden, the "roaring days" of the Pacific Coast. One of these acted as charioteer to Mr. Winter Hall upon his excursion. He was a man nam- ' ed Spiers, a Iventuckian, who landed in i Calistoga 40 years ago with 20 cents in his pocket. To-day he is wealthy, and has made all his money by driving stage coaches. For the last four years lie has driven motor stages over the mountains to different towns. On the first Saturday night after the arrival of the film company this man took Mr. Hall and a friend for a drive up the stage coach road to a toll house at the back of Mt. St. Helena. The road was full of turns and twists, and he drove the motor as he had been accustomed to drive the sixhorse stage in the roaring days of the ♦'orty-niners. He went roaring up the mountain side, and when he ran into a • fog he never slackened his speed, saying he could feel the road even if blindfold" ed; but the players in the car did not feel so certain, and after all a motor capsize in a fog was of little use to a film company. When he reached a particu- . larly difficult turn he turned round and shouted to his uncomfortable passengers that he had been stuck up at that spot by bandits on seven different occasions. As these things, which sound so stagy and unreal to us in New Zealand, still happen pretty frequently in America the news . did not have the calming effect on the 1 actors' nerves that, was expected. To • reach the scene of the film the company i motoied irom Hollywood to Calistoga ; and back, going up by the coast route and back by tne inland route; it took r two days each way. The journey is described as most beautiful, as the road wound through the hills and skirted the sea shore in places. Mr. ITall refer;; to the wonderful wild flowers of California, which were in bloom, and says many of 3 the hillsides and valleys were just smothered with blue and yellow, carpeted with wild flowers. The trip took them through the Santa Clara valley about two hours' run from San Francisco. This . valley is world famous for its fruits, and the film company was motored for miles and miles along a perfect road between i orchards of peach and plum trees in full I bloom. Although in this instance the I journey was very enjoyable, the work I before the pictuje camera was reported | to be hard and strenuous, and the audif ence who sit in the darkened theatre in INew Zealand little know the labor and expense involved as they watch their countrymen pass across the flicker film with all the movements and actions'of life.