The Moving Picture Girls at Sea | Page 4

it at once. Wait,
Daddy dear!"
"All right, I will," he assented with a sigh. "Perhaps I may have a less
gloomy view of it after a cup of tea."
And while the little family party is gathered about the table, I shall take
just a moment to tell my new readers something about the previous
books of this series.
Ruth and Alice DeVere were moving picture girls, which you have
probably guessed already. That is, they were actresses for the silent
film dramas that make so much for enjoyment nowadays. Mr. DeVere
was also an actor in the same company. He had been a semi-tragedian
of the "old school," but his voice had failed, because of a throat ailment,
and he could no longer declaim his lines over the footlights. He was in
distress until it was suggested to him that he take up moving picture
work.
This suggestion came from young Russ Dalwood, who, with his
widowed mother and little brother, lived across the hall from the
DeVere family, in the Fenmore Apartment on one of the West Sixty
streets of New York. Russ had invented a new attachment for a moving
picture camera, and he himself was a camera operator of ability.

At first Mr. DeVere had refused to consider moving picture work, but
he finally consented, and even allowed his daughters to take their parts
in the silent drama. In the initial book of the series, "The Moving
Picture Girls," I related their first experiences.
All was not smooth sailing. Though Mr. Frank Pertell, manager of the
Comet Film Company, was a most agreeable man, the other members
of the theatrical company were like those of any other
organization--some were liked, and some were not. Among the former,
at least from the standpoint of Ruth and Alice, was Russ; Paul Ardite,
who played juvenile leads; Pop Snooks, the property man and one who
did all the odd tasks; and Carl Switzer, a round-faced German, who was
funny without knowing it.
But neither Ruth nor Alice cared much for Laura Dixon and Pearl
Pennington, two former vaudeville actresses who thought they were
conferring a favor on the cameras to pose for moving pictures. Mr.
Bunn, an actor of the kind styled "Hams", was in like case.
Mr. Bunn was always bemoaning the fact that he had left the
"legitimate" drama with a chance of playing "Hamlet", to take up
moving picture work. But he might have been glad--especially on
paydays--for he had made more out of camera work than he could have
done on the regular stage.
Pepper Sneed was never satisfied. He was of a gloomy nature, and
always looking for trouble. Sometimes he found it, and for a time he
was happy in saying "I told you so." But more often he proved a dismal
failure as a predicter of calamities.
This was the company, with others whom you will meet from time to
time, in whose fortunes Ruth and Alice DeVere had cast their lots.
After the girls' first introduction to the camera they went to Oak Farm
where a series of pictures were taken, and, incidentally, a mystery was
cleared up. Getting snowbound was another experience for our friends,
but they forgot the cruelties of Winter in the happy days under the
palms. And they had only recently come back from Rocky Ranch,

where a number of Western dramas had been filmed, when the little
scene of our opening chapter took place.
Those of you who have read the previous books of this series do not
need to be told much about moving pictures. And even those who
select this volume as their first venture in becoming acquainted with
our heroines must well know how the film pictures look from the front
of the screen.
To the uninitiated I might say that in making picture plays a company,
somewhat like a regular theatrical organization, is gotten together. The
play is decided upon, but instead of the acts taking place before an
audience they are enacted before a camera and a man who acts as
director, or manager.
Some of the action takes place out of doors, amid the surroundings of
nature, but most interior scenes are "filmed," or taken, in the studio,
under the brilliant glare of electric lights. The pictures are taken in
succession on a narrow strip of celluloid film, of the same nature as
those in any camera. The strips are of a standard length of one thousand
feet, though some plays may "split," and take only half a "reel" while
others will fill several.
When the film has been exposed, it is developed in a dark tank, and
from that one "master" film, any number of "positives" can be made for
use in the projecting machines. Doubtless you know that the