American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922 - 18

THE

AMERICAN

CINEMATOGRAPHER

Look Hooz Here
Mr. A. Story Writer Has Parked His Flivver
at the Studio Door
FOOTSORE
and weary, worn and haggard, looking a
bit frazzled out and perhaps needing a hot dog sandwich to cheer up the inner man, but withal very determined and full of faith the writer of original stories for
the screen has parked the old flivver at the studio door
and is warming his stiffened fingers at the old hearthstone.

Yes, Mr. A. Story Writer has came and he is going
to stay a long, long time. Maybe he won't never go away
no more and if he does stay with us we are going to see
a crop of better pictures in this country.
"I'm glad to see Mr. A. Story Writer in our midst,"
said a producer the other day. "For years he has trailed
along, abused, neglected, and many times 'short changed,'
as they say in the vernacular, but he stuck and persisted
and here he is.
"The day of the cheap story has passed. No longer
does the director sketch a story on his cuff or the scenario
editor dope out a story over night. Never again. The
producer now gives the story his first and best thought
and production must wait on that.
"I know a wonderful picture that was built around
a story that sold for $300, but it will never happen
again unless some author doesn't know his own wares.
Nowadays $5000.00 is only a fair price for a story that
will make a box office production, and, we hear of other
stories that cost fortunes.
"This is all well enough so long as producers do not
lose their heads and bid for stories as they used to do
for stars. If a story costs more than its economic value
to a picture it vitiates the production and failure is the
result.
"The story is the foundation of the picture and should
be paid for according to its true value, just as the star,
the material and other elements should be. Overloading
any place will hurt.
"I'm happy to see the author ·have his day, but the
rule of reason should apply to the price of a story as
well as to the price of beef."

Visual Education

Indianapolis

"VISUAL education is now an accomplished fact in
Indianapolis where it has been placed in twenty-six
of the seventy-six schools." So stated Miss Julia C.
Landers, supervisor of Visual Education of Indianapolis,
recently.
"We have seven portable projectors," she continued,
"one for each school in the district. We hope eventually
to have one for each school. But our greatest problem
now is good films adapted for class room use."
Miss Landers has approved the following series for
use in the Indianapolis schools during the remainder of
the school year of 1921-22:
For the science classes-The Parks Popular Science

January 15, 1922

Series of twenty-nine reels, twelve now completed, was
selected. These films show the evolution of the solar
system, the planets in motion, cause of the day and
night, the changes in season and what is gravity.
For the geography and history classes-A series of
Burton Holmes travel studies of South America and the
countries of Europe was selected together with the Peters
Text films in World Geography, Commercial Geography,
Physical Geography and American History.
The films
selected show not only the principal towns and cities and
rivers, but the people, their manners and customs and
the industries of the different countries.
For the biology class-The Sanborn Zoology series
showing wild life studies in North America and Africa
and the Levey Biology series showing minute animal
forms under the microscope, the circulation of the blood,
and wild flowers were chosen.
For the Nature classes-A series of bird pictures
produced by the Swedish biograph company was selected, together with a reel of Bees, one on Reindeers and
one on young domestic animals. These will also be used
in the primary grades together with the mother goose
cartoons produced by the Levey Studios.
'

Accomplishment of impossible camera
positions
Is a simple matter
with a
THALHAMMER
MODEL A TRIPOD
K. W. Thalhamrner,
550 South Figueroa
Street-Maln
Los Angeles
-

1574

All But Three Locations in California
BEFORE filming "The Truant Husband" all that part
of California south of San Francisco, and known to
motion picture people as Camerafornia, was platted
into locations by the Rockett Film Corporation and the
plat shows in excess of eleven thousand locations of all
classes-city,
country, mountain, marine, hill, valley,
island, river, forest, big timber, snow, cape, rancho, railroad, volcano, small town, harbor, Chinese, Japanese,
jungle, desert, oil, mining, canyon, cave, waterfall,
Indian, big business, aviation, shipping, slums, cloud,
sunset, sunrise, etc., ad Iih., ad infinitum, are taken into
account. Yes, sir, there are sunset, sunrise, moonlight
and cloud locations, New England, Old South, Kentucky
blue grass, Illinois prairie, Ozark mountain, Mississippi
River, Russian steppes, London fog, Nile sand-dunes,
East Indian jungle, -Holland canals, South Sea Islands,
and every other imaginable location on earth, save three
alone. Guess what they are before you read the next
paragraph.
Nix, you're all wrong. They are the New York city
sky line; icebergs; and a castle by the sea.
A good story is told in connection with the cataloguing and mapping of locations. A location scout was
sent to New York to secure hunting lodge locations in
the Adirondacks. After two weeks he wired the studio:
"No good Adirondack locations here. Try near Los
Angeles."

American Cinematographer - January 15, 1922

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