The Moving Picture Girls at Sea | Page 4

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 same machine which takes the pictures does not show them on the screen.
But enough of this detail.
"Was the rarebit good?" asked Alice, smiling up into her father's face, as the supper progressed.
"You may give me some more, which is the best answer in the world, my dear," he replied, smiling.
"Be careful!" Ruth warned him. "You may have dreams, Daddy!"
A shadow seemed to pass over the face of the old actor. He had been jokingly gay during the meal, but now there seemed to be a sense of depression.
"Might as well tell us, and have it over with," suggested Ruth. "We don't believe in dreams, anyhow. Do we Alice?"
"Not a bit, and I've named the corners of my bed ever so many times," and she laughed at that old sweethearts' superstition.
"Well, my dream was very vivid," Mr. DeVere said.