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Animated Pictures 343 facilities, which yielded 25,000 feet of drama, comedy, farce, and tragedy per week. The cost of production was rising rapidly, and in order to concentrate the interests the foundation of this community was taken in hand. Nearly 1,000 acres of land were acquired in the San Fernando Valley, and here have been built large laboratories for the technical staff, enormous workshops for tailors, carpenters, and the makers of other necessary pro- perties, huge stages, miles of dressing rooms—in fact, every requirement for the production of pictures. Boulevards and streets have been laid out to form settings, while among the attributes may be men- tioned a complete ranch, an Indian community where the Red Men may be seen pursuing their daily voca- tions, orchards, farmyards, a lake for water scenes on which a Mississippi steamboat plies, a complete railway two miles in length, complete with rolling stock, a large private zoo, and so on. If sea settings are required, motor-cars carry the actors and operators as well as directors to the adjacent shores of the Pacific. If a desert setting is in demand it is only a few miles distant in another direction, while the primeval forest is within easy reach to the north. Every conceivable natural environment is thus avail- able, so that there is no waste of time in passing from point to point, while, the whole of the necessary com- pany being to hand, no confusion or delay occurs. The flanking mountains and their woods form ex- cellent battlegrounds, while the dank undergrowth fringing the river offers every requirement for jungle and lagoon scenes. Within the city itself the streets are flanked by