Author: Cal <[log in to unmask]> Date: 12/18/94 10:36 PM [Editor's note: This message was submitted to SCREEN-L by the "Author" noted above, and not by Jeremy Butler ([log in to unmask]).] When studios operated as movie factories -- an era that ended in the mid-'fifties -- they maintained research departments, along with all the other departments necessary to manufacture enough films to fill the programs of the theaters they owned. With the end of that era researchers went into independent business of doing research on contract. As I understand it, this is still the situation. There are substantial research services to answer the kinds of questions that might arise in the production of a film, e.g., what kinds of corsets were worn in 1885? ------------------------------------------------------------------- Cal Pryluck, Radio-Television-Film, Temple University, Philadelphia <[log in to unmask]> <[log in to unmask]>