Omaha daily bee., 1909-03-21

machine is stopped once more while an
actor smaller than the first, but made up
with a curious continuance to look as -
his body ended at his shoulders is substl-
tuted for the dummy. Then the machine
starts and the headiess man pleads for
his head and the girl replaces It on his
shoulders.
Again the machine stops while the orig
inal actor gets back Into the scene. Then
the machine gets busy again and the pair
walk away hand in hand. When the pic
ture is exhibited all these sections are
run off as a whole, and there you are.
%
Then there's the picture about the man
who has his leg cut off by an automobile
and still sitting in the road seizes his am
putated leg and waves 1t in the air angrily
after the disappearing automobile. The
manufacture of this film is accomplished
in this manner.
The camera Is taken out 10 some quiet
country road. A normal man made up rs a
beggar sits by the roadside and goes TO
sleep. Along comes an automobile. Just as
It is about to hit him the camera is stopped,
also the automobile. Then is substituted
for the normal man a dummy made up ex-
actly like him.
Then the camera starts again and the
automobile runs over the dummy. The
camera Is stopped and a real cripple who
has actually lost his leg takes the dummy's
place having the dummy's leg in his
hands. The camera is started again and
the cripple waves the dummy's leg after
the disappearing automobile. Put these
different sections together and there you
have the amusing picture on the screen.
%
One of the biggest Of the moving picture
companies is a foreign organization. It's
headquarters 10 in Paris, but It has agen-
cies in nearly every civilized quarter of
the globe, and in Paris it maintains a
staff Of something like fifty actors who's
sole duty consists in posing and performing
for the Gamer for moving pictures which
are ultimately reproduced on theater
screens. This one company is said to do
something like 100000 OF bushes an
nually.
The moving picture companies that are
American In origin and ownership are
legion. One Of them which Is In the fore
front when II comes to combining the NOV
ing picture will the monograph has a six
story building over in Eleventh avenue
which is devoted entirely TO It's uses. Here
the moving picture is made from its first
to It's last stage and combine with singing
and speaking, until 1t is near a real show
+ as an imitation can ever hope to be.
The taking of records for speaking and
singing is easy. The monologues and songs
of we'll recognized vaudeville performers
are perhaps the simplest part of the whole
business, These acts come to the moving
picture people already we'll put together
and needing only to be pruned and con
densed for the purposes of the screen
But the thousand and one subjects, the
multifarious stories that are told on the
screens and never are heard Of anywhere
else are manufactured especially for the
motion picture people.
For this purpose a regular staff OF EN-
ployes is maintained. There are, for ex
ample, several men who do nothing bu
conooct humorous ideas which lend them
selves to expression in the form of panto
mime. These men are, in fact, the play
wrights of the moving picture.