Charlie Chaplin take in "The Kid". For "The Immigrant", a 20 minute-short, Chaplin shot 40,000 feet of film – enough for a feature-length. Describing his working method as "sheer perseverance to the point of madness", Chaplin would be completely consumed by the production of a picture. Robinson writes that even in Chaplin's later years, his work continued "to take precedence over everything and everyone else." The combination of story improvisation and relentless perfectionism – which resulted in days of effort and thousands of feet of film being wasted, all at enormous expense – often proved taxing for Chaplin who, in frustration, would
Chicago film industry the California location, because of the steady climate and mountainous landscape. Essanay Studios in Chicago was the capital of Chicago film in the first decades of the 1900s. Charlie Chaplin started his career in 1915 at Essanay Studios. He was hired in 1915 and paid $1,250.00 per week. Chaplin improvised the scripts that were given to him by adding slapstick humor. Ben Turpin, fellow actor for Essanay, and Chaplin worked together on slapstick projects. Turpin was cross-eyed which made him a natural sidekick to the antics of Chaplin. Chaplin's only full feature production at Essanay was called "His New Job".