Metropolis

Metropolis The technique combined miniature sets and live actors which allowed the miniature sets to be turned into full scale shots through the use of mirrors. Lang wanted to insert actors into the shots of the skyscrapers and other scenes so Schufftan had to develop a method that would allow him to do so. A plate of glass was placed in front of the camera lens, Schufftan then used the camera’s viewfinder to trace an outline of the area where they desired to place the actors. German Expressionism is often defined by a distinctive, heavily styled, artificial aesthetic result in surrealist, subjective imagery that convey characteristic themes such as confusion and madness. Metropolis was shot on an entirely constructed set, specifically designed with abstract and disproportionate dimensions. This allowed Lang to manipulate a highly subjective and psychological space altogether resulting in a nightmarish vision of distortion and chaos.
Lang claims that he was ‘looking at Germany in the future’ when he made the film. The futuristic aspect of the film suggests there may have been a sense of conflict in relation to the state of contemporary Germany, and where the nation was heading on its road to modernization. The futuristic city held similarities to the vast physical dimensions of rapidly expanding cities further west, such as New York and Chicago. Techniques such as outlining transferred onto a mirror whereby everything outside the outline was scratched out, leaving the transparent glass; this would then correspond to where the live action footage would be composed. The mirror would then be placed in the same position as the original plate of glass. The reflective section would block out parts of the miniature set behind it and would also reflect the acting from behind the camera. The actors were then situated several meters away from the mirror so when they were reflected they would appear at the right size. This enabled many of the shots in Metropolis to