deepened a divide between amateurs and Hollywood professionals; as a result, a growing number of amateurs began lampooning Hollywood. The film is about an extra who starts his Hollywood career with hopes and dreams but finds himself used and discarded by the industry, his artistic ambitions destroyed. When it begins, the protagonist has a name (Mr. Jones) and a letter of recommendation outlining his talents; they are ignored and he is reduced to a number, symbolizing his dehumanization. The movie star inspires hero worship in American culture, and the painted masks he dons represent his performances. Actors and audience are depicted as unintelligent automatons, their mouths yapping senselessly as they respond to Hollywood films or hand signals from film directors. One scene loops a shot of a man climbing a staircase toward the word "Success", representing an actor's vain attempt to achieve fulfillment and advancement in his career. Film historians William Moritz and David E. James have compared this to a similar scene with a washerwoman in the Dadaist, post-Cubist film Ballet Mécanique (1924). Other scenes in A Hollywood Extra are frequently repeated, such as views of the city lights and shots of "Hollywood" and "No Casting" signs, which exemplify the protagonist's constant struggle to succeed in Hollywood. The film's abrupt cuts, artificial scenery, extreme closeups, and twisted angles metaphorically amplify its somber narrative. Film producers and critics in A Hollywood Extra are shot from low angles with dark backdrops, giving the characters a powerful, foreboding appearance. Gregg Toland later used similar camera techniques in Citizen Kane. Closeups of the actors' faces are often shadowed, partially shrouding their features and depriving the characters of wholeness. The all-black backdrops in the closeups remove a real-world presence from the film. When the protagonist is waiting for phone calls with casting decisions, a telephone is superimposed on the actor's forehead to symbolize his growing desperation. His failure follows him to the grave (where the words "No Casting Today" appear next to his tombstone), and his death is symbolized by a pair of scissors cutting a strip of film. Although the film depicts the protagonist's experience expressionistically, the glamour of Hollywood is portrayed more objectively. According to Taves, by reversing conventional expectations it invites the audience to interpret this version of Hollywood as "the material of dreams" and "an unreal paradise of cruelty and failure". Hollywood street scenes were filmed with a wildly-moving camera