German expressionism

During the recovery of World War 1, the German film industry was booming. However because of the harsh economic effects of the War, filmakers found it difficult to challenge the extravagant feautures coming from Hollywood. The German filmakers then developed their own style, known as German expressionism.

As photography was now around and popular as the most accurate display on real life, the public were no longer interested in realism paintings, this opened the door for expressionism. Expressionism, represents an approach to art that demonstrates a distorted reality, as well as a depiction of the artist's emotions and feelings. German expressionism invloves using sharply exaggerated shadows and silhouettes, high-contrast lighting, a technique known as chiaroscuro, disorientingly skewed set design and off-kilter camera angles, to create a mood and an effective atmosphere.It is used in many medias, including drama, architecture, music, painting, print-making, sculpture and of course film. German expressionism was hugely influencial to film noir.

Examples of early films that use German expressionism are The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari, Nosferatu and Phantom. Alfred Hitchcock's career was well influenced by German expressionism. The shower scene in the film Pyscho, with the blurred image seen through the shower curtain is reminiscent of Nosferatu shown through his shadow, created an effective atmosphere. Adaptations of the style are seen in Tim Burton's Batman Begins, 1992. The angular building designs and severe-looking city squares creates the feeling of loom and menace evident in Lang's Metropolis.

These pictures illustrate our grave yard we created in a German expressionist style. We tried to use sharp and unusual edges on the grave stones and trees to convey a German expressionist style. We used different colours of lighting including red, green and a light blue to form different shadows and lighting contrasts. We also used long exposure with our camera to produce several special effects and different contrasts with the lighting to create a mysterious and dramatic atmosphere in our graveyard.