The Kansas City sun. (Kansas City, Mo.) 1908-1924, 1916-03-11

administration buildings, a cafe with a capacity
of serving one thousand people an hour; barber,
manicuring. hair dressing and photography
shops; the laboratories, where all film is de-
veloped and a positive print made; a wardrobe
department. where clothing for an army can be
had at a minutes notice, no matter what nation
the army is to represent. Here, too, will be found
the dressing rooms of the five hundred players,
the carpenter shop, scene painting studios and
five mammoth stages with a floor space equiva-
lent to four acres. All buildings are CT concrete
and steel. Beyond the foothills are other stages
and the ZOO, which contains approximately two
hundred wild animals trained to work in pictures.
Across the road from this is an honest-to-good-
ness midwest horse and cattle corral and bunk
houses for the cowboys. The big grounds are
dotted at all times with settings built for this or
that production. On one side will be seen a coal
mine, while a few feet away is a reproduction
from photographs of a street scene in Cairo,
Egypt, or the Bowery of New York-possibly a
typical Scotch scene, or the native huts of At
rican savages. One of these sets, fifty to five
hundred feet long is frequently erected at a cost
of several thousand dollars and tori down after
the making of from one to three hundred feet OF
film that will require one TO five minutes to show
at the theater. 1t is very seldom that the same
setting is used in more than one production.
The worlds greatest privately owned collection
of wild animals is said to BE that at the zoo OF
the Selig company, located near a public park
on historic Mission road, leading into Los Ange-
les from the famous san GABRIEL missions.
This big show place, built at an expense OF
more than two hundred thousand dollars, con-
tains thirty-eight~ acres-thirty OF which are taken
up in animal houses and pens and beautiful lawns
and groves. In all there are seven hundred
or more specimens, including fifty lions, a herd
of elephants, droves of ostrichs, scores of mon
keys, and many rare animals, together with birds
and reptiles from every part of the world. All
are maintained for exclusive use in motion pic
lures, and that they may have homelike settings
to work" in, duplicates of their native haunts
have been built On the grounds, each one strong
ly inclosed to prevent escape, injuries or fatali-
ties to employees. Within the Seig zoo were
made all scenes for the fifteen episodes OF the
first serial motion picture, THE Adventures of
Kathlyn," which had an East India locale, to-
gether with scores of other great ANNA pictures.
Here also was built and filmed the Alaskan viii
lage for The Spoilers adapted from the story
by Rex Beach, one of the two most profitable
pictures made.
More than a quarter of a million dollars is
being spent in the building of a mammoth studio
at Culver City, a suburb of Los Angeles, by the
New York Motion Picture corporation. Since
1910 this company has leased a tract of ground
consisting of is, 900 acres thirty miles southwest
of Los Angeles where cattle raising has been
conducted in connection with the making of mo-
ton pictures. The reason for leasing this great
tract was that the company originally intended
making only western dramas. Later Other kinds
of stories were filmed, and recently the producing
manager or director, Thomas H. Ince. became one