Shake, or a guy in a bar drinking so you paid a nickel , and got to watch a movie like this. But it started to develop into a real art, and we started to get real writers, producers and experienced people to put this together. That is where the flying a arrived in 1910. This is when things were really getting good. We are currently at one of the remaining pieces of the studio in Santa Barbara, california. The building behind us is the green room. Here is what the actors would where the actors would come into change into their costumes, get their makeup on, and wait in the main room. They each had private rooms, and then they would wait in the green room, and wait to be called up to the studio to take their shots and do their things up there. As the owner found out, the walls were green when he started restoring this and cleaning it up. But this is actually the best of these little three building s that are left. The studio was started in chicago in 1910 and when it started, a kind it came off the ground perfectly, because Samuel Hutchinson the man who , put it together simply went to other Motion Picture studios in chicago and offer them more money. When they came to the american film company, he had a studio ready to go from start to finish. No training was needed. So they started making films. One of the things they specialized in was cowboy films. Unlike other studios filming in chicago or back east, they had a unit down in new mexico, and arizona. They said, we have real westerns made with real cowboys in the real west. That is what started to distinguish them from other studios. We are here at the Santa Barbara Historical Museum in downtown Santa Barbara. Im standing in front of one of the most interesting items in the museums extensive collections. This is a silent movie camera used in the flying a studio productions. It was owned by the cameraman and donated to the museum by his wife. This camera is interesting , this model camera was used for over 40 years, and it was really revolutionary for its time in the 1910s, because it could hold a 400 foot real of film which allowed for continuous filming for up to seven minutes, unheard of at that time. The flying a came to santa barbera, mainly because they had a unit working down out of San Diego County San Juan Capistrano , or bayside and the director said that he pretty much figured he had shot up the scenery and was looking for something different. So in 1912, they came up to Santa Barbara and their first studio was set up in an old, abandoned ostrich farm about two , blocks from where we are now. In 1913, they built the studio that we were currently sitting at. It was huge at that time. Eventually, it was an entire three quarters of the block that we have here, but they started off inserted small and started getting bigger and bigger. This was the largest film studio in the united states. The largest in the world. It depends on whose publicity agent you are talking to. Was it by size of the building or the volume of films they were turning out . What largest means, we dont know. But even back then the newspapers proudly reported that our new studio here in Santa Barbara is the largest. A number of successful hollywood figures got their start here at flying a. Probably the bestknown is director Victor Fleming who went on to direct gone with the wind and the wizard of oz. The biggest star was mary miles minter, who asserted a Mary Pickford type if she if you will. She played innocent young waifs who would be subjected to danger and temptation and at the end of the day, everything would turn out all right. She was a huge star in the teens for the flying a studio. Her career ended tragically. In 1922, she was implicated in the shooting death of William Desmond taylor, a hollywood director. That case was never solved and there were all sorts of rumors flying that mary miles was lover of taylor, even though she was 30 years younger than he was. There werewere rivals for taylors affection. One story has it that one of those rivals was mary miles mentors mother. One of the more controversial films they made was a movie called. Purity. They got americas top model, audrey munson, to oppose in this movie. It was about a young girl, and her boyfriend who is a poet and she wants to make money to publish her boyfriends book. She comes across an artist to sees her bathing naked in one of the pools, so he sees her and thinks that she is his ideal model. He convinces her to pose and do great artwork. Audrey munson was famous for her nudwe work as a model, and , a lot of the statuary featured audrey munson. She was a famous model. She came to the flying a and she posed nude during this film. When she was posing nude, she did not move some people thought it was art and that went on to do this. As the movie went on they would show famous works of art, showing other news, and they would say, it is even in the vatican, how could it be bad . But of course, it was highly controversial to have a nude woman on the screen. Somecities abandoned it, cities embrace it and said it is a great art piece. It is not the first time that a nude was done in a movie. It made big news for them and was a big hit. The flying a became came to an end because hollywood in the center of film making. At the time, there were a number of studios in different places. But as hollywood got more and more established, there is a camaraderie going on people are , meeting after hours talking about things they had done and how did they do it. Closeups, dolly shots. All these fancy things. Santa barbara is now getting isolated. It started costing more to get things to Santa Barbara. Everything can be bought in bulk in los angeles and taken to the studio. It had to be shipped by train or car up here. Also, getting more and more actors involved. More actors wanted to be in los angeles. You could do a shoot for one company in the morning and another in the afternoon. So to get actresses and actors to Santa Barbara, they would have to take the entire day to get up here, shoot for a day, and then they would take the entire day to get back to los angeles. A began to flying fade to black, and in they had 1921, filmed the last movie. Our city staff recently traveled to Santa Barbara, california to learn about its recent history. Rich history. You can learn more about Santa Barbara and other stops on our tour at cspan. Org citiestour. You e