As filming for Production #281 continued through the fall of 1940, Gregg Toland showed he was as adept as Ferguson at economizing— and identifying cost- cutting methods that complemented the filmmaking. In fact, some of the most effective scenes in Citizen Kane demonstrate bud get savings as well as memorable cinematography.

The shrewd use of extras and sly camera placement implied a cast of thousands but actually included only a handful of actors in the most elaborate shots. Scenes that seem to feature hundreds or thousands of people were accomplished by using swirls of movement by the extras, carefully chosen camera angles, special effects, or combinations of all three.

Look carefully at the shots of Kane’s campaign speech and the aftermath—Kane on the podium, the massive crowd at Madison Square Garden, wildly applauding spectators, Kane’s wife and son in the audience, the flurry of action outside the auditorium—and what seems like masses of spectators in a whirlwind of action is really only three to thirty players in any individual scene. The huge “audience” at the rally is actually a painting, pricked with holes so light would shine through and create the illusion of motion in the “crowd.”

During Susan Alexander’s operatic debut as described by Leland, the screen seems filled with mobs of frenzied people from the opera production. The effect is achieved with the intricate choreography of actors rushing across the stage at different speeds in five different distances from the camera, some of whom were only a few feet from the lens and blacked out the shot as they moved.

What appears to be hundreds of people filling the frame is actually about twenty; the resulting visual impact of small groups of actors produces a stylized look to the scene that is at least as effective as the more traditional teeming mobs.

The most important result of using deep focus, extended sets, and deliberate staging was the freedom they provided to Welles and Toland to photograph actors from angles, distances, and positions much different from those used for most Hollywood motion pictures. With these tools, they created breakthroughs in the creative boundaries of filmmaking.

Toland’s photographic techniques allowed the camera to record objects at a range of a few inches or more than 100 feet in a single shot with equal sharpness, and Welles capitalized on Toland’s methods by placing his performers not according to standard Hollywood practices, but wherever the action should take them.

Toland’s plan produced scenes that were not merely inventive for innovation’s sake, but powerful demonstrations of how imaginative staging could enhance the action and advance the story. The on-screen movement, combined with extremely long takes, created interesting visual options and also greatly enhanced the realism.

As shot by Toland, characters move naturally, and the camera follows; viewers become intimate witnesses—not distant spectators—to all of the action in a scene. In Citizen Kane, Toland showed that the camera was an aid, and not a hindrance, to expression on film…