A scene from F.W. Murnau’s masterpiece Faust (1926), where the demon Mephisto takes Faust on a flying tour of the world.
To fake this in the 1920s, the crew built a hidden iron platform in the studio to hold the actors, using massive fans to blow their capes and billowing glass wool to create the surrounding clouds. They then used double exposure to layer the actors over a moving, miniature model city, making it look like they were actually soaring over the mountains and rooftops.
No one informed me that the coolest looking movie ever made is a dramatization of a 1,000 year old epic poem from Kyrgyzstan.
The Universe of Manas (1995), Melis Ubekyev
Original production sketches by French illusionist & filmmaker Georges Méliès for his landmark 1902 silent film, A TRIP TO THE MOON (Le Voyage dans la Lune).