William Washington Beaudine was born January 15, 1892, in New York City, an advantageous location for a tyro filmmaker at the turn of the last century, because the original "Hollywood" of America was located in nearby Ft. Lee, NJ (Thomas A. Edison, the inventor of the first motion picture production device and, more importantly, holder of several of its most important patents, was headquartered there. The patent monopoly he helped found did not want filmmakers operating too far away, as it wanted to oversee the industry to ensure it did not use pirated equipment that infringed its patents.
California arose as a major production center in the 'Teens because it was far away from the prying eyes of the Edison trust, which was not averse to hiring thugs to wreck the equipment and beat up the employees of companies that defied it). Beaudine started in the industry as a $10-per-week prop boy, factotum and extra in 1909 with American Mutoscope and the Biograph Co., where he first worked with D.W. Griffith, the father of the American film. He began appearing as an actor in Mack Sennett's Biograph films in 1912 and continued to work behind the camera while appearing in front of it in 44 films through 1915. From 1911 to 1914 he was an assistant director or second unit director on 55 movies. He wed Marguerite Fleischer in October 1914 (they remained married until his death in 1970), the same year he moved to California.
Although hired by the Kalem Co. as an actor, he got his first chance to direct while working on the studio's "Ham and Bud" comedy series in 1915. He directed at least five films in 1915, and served as an assistant to Griffith on the seminal masterpiece The Birth of a Nation (1915) and its follow-up, the aptly named Intolerance: Love's Struggle Throughout the Ages (1916). By 1916 Beaudine was making $100 per week as a director, and turned out as many as 150 short comedies before graduating to feature film assignments in 1922. He earned the nickname "One Shot" for his affinity for shooting scenes in one take, irregardless of whatever problems may have come up (actors flubbing lines, props not working, camera or special-effects malfunctions, etc. These were problems that could be taken care of in the editing room, which was much cheaper than doing costly retakes). Beaudine, like fellow director John Ford, was known for "editing in the camera", i.e., shooting only those scenes that are absolutely necessary, which saved time and raw stock.
He did not shoot full coverage of scenes, with master shots and alternate takes (his contemporary William A. Wellman, another master of editing in the camera, did Beaudine one better as "two-shot" - he would film two shots of a scene in case one was ruined in the developing lab), but no more than what he knew was necessary, and since he worked almost exclusively on low-budget "quickies" for the last 30 years of his career (he directed over half of the Bowery Boys films), producers valued him for his ability to make pictures quickly and economically, despite the gaffes (which likely would not be noticed by the audiences for these movies anyway).
His attitude towards most of the films he was shooting at the time can be summed up by an incident in the 1940s, when he was informed that an East Side Kids quickie he was making for Monogram was falling behind schedule. His reply was, "You mean someone out there is actually waiting to see this shit?".