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The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays: The Sham Battles at Oak Farm, a novel by Laura Lee Hope |
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Chapter 4. A Rehearsal |
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_ CHAPTER IV. A REHEARSAL Mingled in German and English came the shouts of dismay from Herr Switzer inside the dummy shed, through the window of which he had leaped on to the hay. "Oh, what is it?" cried Ruth, clasping her hands and registering "dismay" unconsciously. "He must have fallen and hurt himself," ejaculated Alice. "Do, Paul, go and see what it is." "Stop the camera!" yelled Mr. Pertell through his megaphone. "Don't spoil the film, Russ. You got a good scene there. He went through the window all right, and his yells won't register. Stop the camera!" "Stopped she is," reported Russ. Then those of the players who had been looking on and wondering at Mr. Switzer's cries could hurry to his rescue. For it is a crime out of the ordinary in the annals of moving pictures for any one not in the scene to get within range of the camera when an act is being filmed. It means not only the spoiling of the reel, perhaps, but a retaking of that particular action. When Russ ceased to grind at the camera crank, however, it was the same as when the shutter of an ordinary camera is closed. No more views can be taken. It was safe for others to cross the field of vision. "What's the matter?" cried Paul, who, with Ruth and Alice and some of the others trailing after him, was hurrying toward the false front of boards that represented a shed. "Did a cow critter or a sheep step on you?" Russ questioned. "Ach! My face! My clothes! Ruined!" came in accents of deep disgust from the actor. "Never again will I leap through a window without knowing into what I am going to land. Ach!" "What happened?" asked Paul, trying to keep from laughing, for the player's voice was so funnily tragic. "What happened? Come and see!" cried Mr. Switzer. "I have into a chicken's home invaded myself already!" "Invaded himself into a chicken's home!" exclaimed Mr. Pertell. "What in the world does he mean?" "I guess he means he sat down in a hen's nest!" chuckled Paul, and this proved to be the case. Going around to the other side of the erected boards, the players and others saw a curious sight. Seated on the hay, his face, his hair, his hands, and his clothing a mass of the whites and yellows of eggs, was Carl Switzer. He held up his fingers, dripping with the ingredients of half a dozen omelets. "The chicken's home was right here, in the hay--where I jumped. I landed right in among the eggs--head first. Get me some water--quick!" implored the player. "Didn't you see the eggs before you jumped among 'em?" asked Mr. Pertell. "See them? I should say not! Think you I would have precipitated myself into their midst had I done so?" indignantly demanded Mr. Switzer, relapsing into his formally-learned English. "I have no desire to be a part of a scrambled egg," he went on. "Some water--quick!" While one of the extra players was bringing the water, Sandy Apgar strolled past. He was told what had happened. "Plumped himself down in a hen's nest, did he?" exclaimed the young proprietor of Oak Farm. "Wa'al, now, if you folks go to upsettin' the domestic arrangements of my fowls that way I'll have t' be charging you higher prices," and he laughed good-naturedly. "Ach! Dat is better," said Mr. Switzer, when he had cleansed himself. "How came it, do you think, Mr. Apgar, that the hen laid her eggs right where I was to make my landing when escaping from the Confederates?" "Huh! More than one hen laid her eggs there, I reckon," the farmer said. "There must have been half a dozen of 'em who had rooms in that apartment. You see, it's this way. Hens love to steal away and lay their eggs in secret places. After you folks built this make-believe shed and put the hay in, I s'pose some of my hens seen it and thought it would be a good place. So they made a nest there, and they've been layin' in it for the last few days." "More as a week, I should say!" declared Mr. Switzer in his best German comedian manner. "There were many eggs!" "Yes, you did bust quite a few!" said Sandy, critically looking at the disrupted nest. "But it can't be helped." "Well, the film wasn't spoiled, anyhow," observed Mr. Pertell. To him that was all that counted. "You got him all right as he went through the window, didn't you, Russ?" "Oh, yes. It wasn't until he was inside, down behind the boards and out of sight, that the eggs happened." "No more eggs for me!" declared the comedian. "I shall never look a chicken in the face again." "Go on with the scene," ordered the director. "You are supposed to steal out to the barn to give the hidden soldier food," he said to Ruth. "You come out from the house, and are astonished to see a man's head sticking out of the shed window. You register surprise, and start to run back to the house, but the soldier implores you to stay, and you reluctantly listen to him. Then he begs for food----" "But don't bring me a hard-boiled egg, whatever you do!" called Mr. Switzer. "No funny business now," warned the director, with a laugh. "Go on now, and we'll see how you do it." After one or two trials Mr. Pertell announced himself as satisfied and the filming of that part of the war drama went on. So many details in regard to the taking of moving pictures have been given in the previous books of this series that they need not be repeated here. Suffice it to say that the pictures of the players in motion are taken on a long celluloid strip of film, just as one picture is taken on a square of celluloid in a snap-shot camera. This long reel of film, when developed, is a "negative." From it a "positive" strip of film is made, and this is the one that is run through the projection machine throwing the pictures on the white screen in the darkened theatre. The pictures taken are very small, and are greatly magnified on the screen. So much for the mechanical end of the business. It may interest some to learn that the photo-play, as seen in the theatre, is not taken all at once, nor in the order in which the scenes are seen as they are reeled off. When a play is decided on, the director or one of his helpers goes over the manuscript and picks out all the scenes that take place in one location. It may be in a parlor, in a hut, on the side of a mountain, in a lonely wilderness, on a battlefield, on a bridge--anywhere, in fact. And several scenes, involving several different persons, may take place at any one of these places. It can be understood that it would involve a great deal of work to follow the logical sequence of the scenes. That is to say, if the first scene was in an office showing a girl taking dictation from her employer, and the next showed the same girl and her employer on a ferryboat, and the third scene went back to the office, where some papers were being examined, it would mean a loss of time to photograph, or film, the first office scene, then take every one involved in the act to the ferryboat, and then back to the office again. Instead, the two office scenes, and possibly more, are taken at one time, on the same film, one after the other, without regard to whether they follow logically or not. Afterward the film is cut apart, and the scenes fitted in where they belong. So, too, all the scenes pertaining to a hut in the wilderness, on a bridge, in the woods, in a parlor--it makes no difference where--are taken at the same time. In this way much labor and expense are saved. But it makes a queer sort of story to an uninitiated person looking on; and sometimes the players themselves do not know what it is all about. So Mr. Pertell wanted to get all the scenes centering around the shed at the same time, though they were not in sequence. And Ruth and Mr. Switzer and the others in the east went through their parts with the shed as a background. In one scene Ruth had to discover the hidden soldier. Then she had to steal out to him with food. Later, at night, she was to help him to escape. Then, a week later, she was to go out to the same shed and discover a letter he had hidden in the hay. That ended the scenes at the shed, and it could be taken away to make room for something else. "Oh, Ruth, you did that splendidly!" exclaimed Alice, as her sister finished her work and went up on the shady porch to rest. "Did you like it? I'm glad." "Like it? It was great! Where you discovered that letter in the hay, your face showed such natural surprise." "I'm glad it didn't register merriment." "Why?" "Because, as I picked up the letter, I found a big blot of the yellow from the hens' eggs on it. I hope it doesn't show in the picture. I had all I could do to keep from laughing when I thought of Mr. Switzer in the omelet scene." "Oh, well, you know they want all white stuff yellow when they make pictures." "In the studio, but not outdoors." This is a fact. As the scenes in the studio are taken in the glare of a special kind of electric light, all white objects, even the collars and cuffs of the men, are yellow in tone, though in the picture they show perfectly white. This is due to the chemical rays of the lights used. Out of doors, under sunlight, colors are seen in their own hues. "You did very well in that funny little scene with Paul," said Ruth to her sister. "You mean in the swing under the apple tree?" "Yes." "I was so afraid he would swing me too high," Alice went on. "He was cutting up so. I told him to stop, but he wouldn't." "It was very natural. I think it will show well. Hark! what's that?" cried Ruth, leaping to her feet. "Thunder," suggested Alice, as a distant, rumbling noise came to their ears. "Sounds more like big guns." "Oh, that's what it is!" agreed Alice. "They are going to rehearse one of the battle scenes this afternoon, I heard Mr. Pertell say. The soldiers must have come, and they're practising over in the glen. Come on over and watch. We're in on the scenes later, but we can watch now." "All right," agreed Ruth. "Wait until I get my broad-brimmed hat, the sun is hot up here." Presently the two sisters, with Paul Ardite and some other members of the company, were strolling over the fields toward the scene of the distant firing. As they came in sight of several hundred men and horses, they saw the smoke of cannon and heard the shouting of the director and his assistants who were using big megaphones. It was the rehearsal of one of the many battle scenes that were to take place about Oak Farm. "Oh, look at that girl ride!" suddenly exclaimed Alice, pointing to a young woman who dashed past on a spirited horse. "Isn't she a wonder?" "She is indeed," agreed Ruth. "I wonder who she is?" "One of the extras," said Paul. "A number of them have just arrived. We'll begin active work soon, and film some big scenes with you girls in them." Alice gazed across the fields toward the figure of the girl on horseback. There was something spirited in her riding, and, though she had never seen her before, Alice felt strangely drawn toward the new player. _ |
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