The scene that continues to fascinate audiences the most to this day, however, is that of the transformation of Maria’s likeness onto the robot’s in Rotwang’s lab, and it has become the one of the most imitated scenes in cinema. It was achieved through a combination of all three major techniques, but particularly that of multiple exposures. The same piece of negative was exposed up to thirty times for every single component of the shot. First, there was the shot of Brigette Helms in the robot costume on the pedestal. The figure was then replaced by a black silhouette. Around this figure, two circular neon lights in tubes made from sandwich paper were repeatedly moved up and down by a type of elevator. This was filmed through a glass plate which was smeared with a thin layer of grease. Finally, the electrical discharges were filmed without this glass plate.
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Photo evidence and crew accounts indicate the rings were photographed in a special rig elsewhere in the studio. A small black wooden silhouette of the robot and chair were mounted in front of a white screen. A print of the robot scene wss projected on to the screen to provide the guide for aligning the silhouette and the camera to the shot. Camera and silhouette were then locked down to prevent movement. Three sizes of glass ring (neon) were constructed, and each was attached to the bottom of a matching black cylinder, allowing the ring to be rotated during photography. The rings were wrapped with wax paper to provide texture and hide the ends. The cylinder was suspended on a vertical track with incremental counters permitting precise movement on a frame by frame basis (similar to an animation stand). Exposed undeveloped negative of the robot on the set was loaded into the camera. In complete darkness the ring was moved and photographed on a frame by frame basis. A glass plate smeared with grease placed in front of the camera was used to create a diffusion effect on some passes. The negative was rewound a precise number of frames to repeat the pass for each size of ring. Shifting the start point for the next series of rings allowed multiple sets of rings to be built up as an in-camera superimposed effect.Note that this process had to be repeated for three differently composed shots of the robot. Phew!
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