not appear when the film is developed.  To avoid this, the V-shaped lines shown on the scene-plot are actually marked on the floor, in some studios.  A piece of strong cord, or sometimes wire, is stretched tightly from B to C and thence to D.  Within this V-shaped space the complete set must be made, and within these limits the entire scene is played.  In the case of a set requiring more than the ordinary amount of depth, a larger stage is obtained by setting the back part of the scene (or set), as shown by the dotted line E, and laying down a special pair of V lines to cross the permanent ones on the studio floor.  When the camera is placed at the apex of this larger V, the picture is, naturally, made many feet deeper, with a corresponding width of background as the lines diverge.

2.  Number of Stages Used

As a rule, there are at least four of these V-shaped stages side by side on the floor of the studio in any of the big producing plants.  Thus four entirely different sets may adjoin each other; and, as was pointed out in a previous chapter, a director may finish Scene 8 in Set I and move directly to Set II, where the scene “done” may be 9, or any later scene, depending very often upon whether the players will have to make a change of costume or make-up.  A careful director will always try to avoid waits by having his scenes set up in the order that will allow him to proceed with as few delays as possible.

In some studios, the fact that walls and ceiling are of glass permits the taking of most scenes, on a bright day, without the aid of artificial light.  In the majority of studios, however, all scenes taken indoors are produced with the aid of artificial light, daylight being excluded.  Natural lighting, in indoor studios, has been found to be rather unsatisfactory; artificial lighting, with constant experimentation in an effort to produce better “effects,” is what is most used today.

3.  Stage Lighting

The Cooper-Hewitt system of interior lighting is probably the most used in the various Eastern and West-coast studios.  Everyone—­at any rate, everyone living in the city—­is familiar with the peculiar lights used in many photographers’ studios.  These Cooper-Hewitt lights seem to be merely large glass tubes that shed a ghastly blue-green tinge over everything, and under which photographers may take pictures regardless of exterior light-conditions.  In addition to the Cooper-Hewitt lights, in a studio equipped with that system, there are, of course, various other kinds of special lights used in obtaining certain unusual effects.

In other studios, a brilliant white light is used, rows of overhead lights being supplemented by tiers, or “banks,” of side-lights, so that there is no shadow on any part of the set unless it is the specific purpose of the director to have a shadow in a certain place.