An Enormous Undertaking

Going from Lang’s vision to the actual production of the film required innovative techniques in visual effects- as well as a lot of money. The film was budgeted for 1.1 million marks, but ended up costing at least six million marks.The film broke all previous records for money spent, and very nearly bankrupted UFA in the process. The film’s cast of nearly 25,000 extras, as a result, were paid very little for their work- all in a time when many people in Germany could not even afford to eat. Filming began May 22nd, 1925, and continued until the end of October in 1926, consisting of 310 shooting days and 60 nights and took place in UFA studios, although some shots were done in massive sets in warehouses- and even one scene was shot inside of a zeppelin hull near Berlin.