In 1934, Warner Bros. technical director Louis Geib conjured a cold and wet blizzard on a sunny back lot in Burbank. His invention—the first known snowmaking machine—consisted of three rotating blades that shaved ice from a 400-pound block and a high-powered fan that blew the resulting particles into the air. A low-tech precursor to the water-crystallizing snow guns that is used each winter at about 90 percent of the country's ski resorts, Geib's machine was ideal for close-ups and, as the movie's child actors learned, snowballs, though they disappeared quickly under the hot Hollywood lights. Geib's innovation was also a hit off-screen, as the burgeoning ski industry—which sometimes trucked in snow for big events—began experimenting with the same technology. In the winter of 1934, the Toronto Ski Club re-purposed an ice planer from a local skating rink when Mother Nature did not provide cover for a scheduled competition.