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There’s an old saying back home; ‘Were you born in a barn?’ It generally relates to bad manners, and you’d usually hear it if someone didn’t close a door behind them. In this town, however, the phrase takes on an entirely different meaning.

In our first few weeks here in Los Angeles, Columbia arranged for us to partake in a historical walking tour of Hollywood, taking in all the old sites and chronicling the origins and glory days of the film industry. One of our many stops was at the corner of Selma and Vine, now a heavy construction zone, but back in the day it was home to a farmer’s barn that would play a major role in transforming Hollywood from a rural outpost of Los Angeles into the hub of the entertainment industry. The barn had humble beginnings. It was built in late 1895 on what was then a citrus ranch, and was used primarily as a horse barn in this tiny little farm town of Hollywood, California. For almost twenty years it housed animals, carriages, hay, and various other farm supplies. But in 1913, three New Yorkers fled west, and changed the fate of not just the barn, but the town too.

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Director Cecil B. DeMille and producers Jesse Lasky and Sam Goldwyn came west to make movies, and originally intended setting up shop in Flagstaff, Arizona, but didn’t like what lay before them when they got off the train. They immediately re-boarded and continued further west, sending a telegram back to New York on arrival: ‘Flagstaff no good for our purpose. Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent barn in place called Hollywood for $75 a month. Regards to Sam. -Cecil”. The once humble farmer’s barn became the first Hollywood studio, and production soon began on ‘The Squaw Man’ (1914), the first feature film to be produced in Hollywood. Later, the barn would become Paramount Pictures.

I’m no stranger to barns, I grew up in rural Ireland surrounded by farms, and both my grandparents had farms so I’m practically a farmer. But this barn proved more so an inspiring story about humble beginnings and endless possibilities, and proved a timely reminder for us fourteen relative newcomers.

DeMille, Lasky and Goldwyn found themselves in a different Hollywood. The landscape is vastly different now, in every sense of the word. But that creative energy still permeates the city, and hope and aspirations still brim in everyone trying to find their place in this town. In these last few weeks, many of us have landed our first internship. The rest are still working on it. But if this lowly barn ultimately became one of the most powerful studios in the game, then surely there’s hope for us, right? Bad manners aside, if the film industry was born in a barn, I’d be happy to follow suit. And at least if it doesn’t work out I can fall back on the farming path.

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