It’s easy and pleasant to theorize; but unsupported theory has explosive properties when exposed to the air, so I propose to confine these remarks strictly to a basis of experience.
Remember, I am speaking of the ideal conditions; true, they are realizable—but they might cost a lot of money.
Still, as I can’t imagine myself becoming head of a production company that hadn’t a lot of money at its disposal, that’s quite legitimate.
Starting with the actual studio, I want plenty of space. There will be derisive grins here from readers who know my corpulence; but I want more space even than that demands.
I want space to build permanent sets—and I mean permanent. When I was working on my very first picture in Munich—The Pleasure Garden—there was an exterior set on the “lot,” representing an Algerian village, which had been standing in all weathers for five years and did not even require painting!
The initial outlay in a case like this is very large—but it’s amply justified by results, for such a set can be used over and over again.
Hollywood has proved the value of this beyond possibility of doubt; in fact, some of the streets in the studio administrative blocks have been built in various types of architecture to form a readymade background for almost any kind of street-scene.
In British studios it too often happens that immense labor and a great deal of money are expended on running up a quite convincing set made of plywood and scantling—which hardly even retains its conviction to the end of the picture, and would certainly be useless after another month’s exposure to wind and rain; but by this time it has had to be scrapped to make room for something else—and Heaven help the poor director who wants any “retakes”!
With the cycle system in vogue, a set (such as, for instance, the London square, built at Fox Hills for Cavalcade) is bound to “come in handy” again and can be let out to other companies; this has been done with semi-permanent street sets at Welwyn and Sound City.
Inside the studio, too, it pays handsomely to have elbow room.
When I was directing at the B.I.P. studios at Elstree, I had an elaborate staircase constructed with rooms opening off it; it seemed a big undertaking just for a few scenes in one film; but its cost was distributed over at least a half a dozen subsequent films in which it was used.
UFA built a whole city-center for The Last Laugh. The expense would have been justified for that fine film alone; but the set was used for years afterwards. Furthermore (an important point), the production value gained by a cheaper film made on such a set is tremendous.
How many times in a year do the last few shots on a large set have to be scurried through because the space is needed for another!
I’ve known a unit to work continuously from nine one morning till three the following morning for this very reason—and you can imagine the result on the screen.
So much for physical space. Now for mental elbow-room.
The director must have latitude. Here there are two distinct schools of thought. One (the American) says the director is there only to direct; in many cases he has no knowledge of story or script until he comes up to the floor for the first day’s shooting; everything is prepared for him by functionaries whose duty it is.
Consequently, though Hollywood films are slick, smart, efficient to the nth degree, to British audiences they are frequently lacking in what, for want of a better word, we call “soul.”
To mass-produced America, this mechanical system is probably most acceptable; in Britain we still adhere more to the product of individuality, in which one guiding mind is behind the whole production.
We make mistakes; but they are experimental mistakes, and justifiable so long as we learn from them.
So for my ideal production company I should seek out and secure the services of men who are capable of taking charge of a film from the first glimmering of an idea for the original story, to the final cutting.
They would cooperate with story-writers, scenarists, dialogists, cameramen, art directors, cutters; but theirs would be the decisive guiding hand throughout, and every inch of the way would be worked out in terms of cinema.
That is to say, the film would exist pictorially in the director’s mind from beginning to end.
Here I should find myself up against my greatest handicap, for, in my view, one of the chief disadvantages of British production is the scarcity of people with an instinct for films—who can, in fact, think pictorially.
Such instinct can hardly be taught, but it can be acquired by experience; and the problem would be to assemble the personnel most likely to acquire it.
These, and writers who know how to appeal to the popular taste, and as much polish and finesse as are consistent with clearness, are some of the outstanding needs which it would be my first care to supply.
As to stars, here is a vexed question, to which I have certainly not the space to do justice here; but I may say this: that if I were building stars I should adopt the American plan of flinging them on to the screen as often as possible—at first—so that their names would become familiar to the public; and then gradually I would withdraw them from the screen, so that the better known they were, the less they would be seen.
That is the way to make a Garbo.
When a producer is offering the public something which may be unwelcome or indigestible to it, stars are of the utmost value as camouflage—or, if you prefer it, as the jam round the pill; for the sake of the star, the public will accept the new lighting, or the new cutting, or the new use of sound, or whatever the producer is trying to get away with.
This film business is almost the only industry in which it is left to the retailer to gauge the public taste; that is to say, the exhibitor has the responsibility of finding out what the public require—which is obviously unfair as well as being slipshod and unmethodical.
Therefore, incorporated in my production-cum-distribution organization would be a corps of investigators who would discover and report on the trend and fluctuations of public taste and audience reaction in the key-centers of the country and of the world, to observe the comparative effectiveness of various kinds of publicity, and so on; and through these I would have my fingers on the public pulse, find out what was wanted, and make my plans accordingly.
These are just a few of the points that occur to me now at random. But if you care to ask me again, after I have been head of a production company for five years or so, I may be able to tell you quite a lot!
“If I Were Head of a Production Company” was originally published in Picturegoer, January 26, 1935, 15.