Special effects in Soviet cinema: the method of "combined perspective"

The Russian State Archive in Samara is a unique center for storing materials on the history of Russian science and technology and preserves many interesting documents from the All-Union Research Film and Photo Institute concerning the history of Soviet cinema. In world cinema, the 1920s and 1930s were a time of technical experiments and research, and «combined shooting» became one of the best ways to solve increasingly complex production problems. This article presents two archival documents that provide a detailed description of the practical application of one method of combined shooting - that of perspective alignment. The films «The Golden Key» (1938) and «Ruslan and Lyudmila» (1939) were made using this method, and they represent a milestone in the development of special effects in the history of world cinema.