Page 128 - Expanded Photography

Expanded Photography Bob Cotton 128/146
Eugen Schufftan: Schufftan Process 1927. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sch%C3%BCfftan_process Schufftan was a talented cinematographer (he was DoP on Robert Rossen’s wonderfully existen- tialist The Hustler in 1961), but I’m including him here because of the special-effects process he invented in the early 1920s, and demonstrated so powerfully in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927). This was loosely derived from the Pepper’s Ghost effect, but Schufftan uses this process to put actors into a miniature model or set, and designed the shot to be an in-camera effect, thus avoiding ex- pensive full-size set building and expensive optical printing in post-production. His Schufftan Pro- cess was in use for several years before being gradually replaced by matte-shots, and (later) blue/ green-screen chromo-key matting. (‘In-camera’ effects meant that special effects, though needing lots of preparatory planning, could be much cheaper than expensive laboratory post-production).