Chapter I: Foreword

Motion pictures are still changing so much, in their development from year to year, that any survey of this vast, chaotic new industry is in danger of being out-of-date long before its time. With this in mind, I have attempted to stress those phases of movie-making, and of the story-telling that underlies each photoplay, that do not change. A generation hence, the fundamental problems confronting the makers—how to show real people, doing interesting things in interesting places—will be the same.

Grateful acknowledgment is due Walter P. McGuire, of “The American Boy,” where much of the material embodied in this book first appeared in article form, for his assistance in planning the original articles, as well as in editorial supervision of the work as it progressed. If there is good entertainment, as well as instructive value, in these pages, and interest for old minds as well as young ones, much of the credit is due to him.

JOHN AMID.
_August 23rd, 1923._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
HOW DO YOU WATCH MOVIES? 13

CHAPTER II
TRICK STUFF 23

CHAPTER III
THE WORLD THROUGH A CAMERA 41

CHAPTER IV
INSIDE THE STUDIOS 65

CHAPTER V
MAKING A MOTION PICTURE 87

CHAPTER VI
PIONEER DAYS OF THE MOVIES 105

CHAPTER VII
WHAT MAKES GOOD PICTURES GOOD 121

CHAPTER VIII
HOW GOOD CAN A PICTURE BE? 136

CHAPTER IX
AMERICAN MOVIES ABROAD 156