The filming of Sunrise was a mammoth undertaking. William Fox, who had so proudly introduced Murnau to everyone in Hollywood as his newest addition to the studio, gave him free rein to produce exactly the picture he wanted. Murnau was instructed to draw upon his creativity and produce a masterpiece. The director took the responsibility seriously and, as Janet Gaynor later recalled, took great care to express to his actors exactly what their goals were before shooting the first frame: "I'll never forget that first day when he called the three principals together - George O'Brien, Margaret Livingston, and me - and outlined to us his plan for the picture... He said that Sunrise was to be a study of the melody of life and that the melody was to be expressed by emotion. He wanted to take all the emotions - the loves, the hates, and the hungers, and even the little whimsical tendernesses - and blend them all together into one big rhythm."

For Gaynor's character, in particular, the actress recalled that Murnau told her, "I was to be the spiritual type, but not coldly spiritual. I was to be the kind of woman who is every man's dream of a good wife."

For the shooting of the film, sets had to be constructed from scratch. At Lake Arrowhead, in California, the rural village was built with gables so sharp and rising so high, they evoked a touch of the expressionism of early German silent cinema. To get the couple from the country to the city, trolley car track was laid down and a trolley car (one built to operate more like a car since there was no actual electrical trolley system on the set) brought in. It provides one of the film's most startling moments when the wife is running from the lake, terrified of her husband who has just tried to kill her, and in the middle of this idyllic environment, a modern day conveyance emerges from nature. It is this modern device that will serve to transition the story from the simple rural environment to the complex city, a city fully constructed for Sunrise.

Much of the city was constructed using false perspective. The film's cinematographer, Charles Rosher, explained that the floors "sloped slightly upwards as they receded" and that the light bulbs hanging from the ceiling were "bigger in the foreground than in the background. We even had dwarfs, men and women, on the terrace." Everything was done to make the city appear overwhelming including, of course, Murnau's use of dizzying optical overlays.

Every detail had to be perfect, so when the rain machines turned on early as the storm hits the city, and the set flooded before the dust could be seen kicking up, Murnau had everyone go home for three days until the set dried and they could shoot the dust kicking up first. It cost a fortune, but it was done Murnau's way and it worked.

The Fox producers, who were signing the checks for the Sunrise shoot, were none too happy that such money was being spent on sets and models that were being used for very short scenes, many of which didn't even contain the stars. A beautiful transition from the vamp looking at real estate ads back to the city by way of a swirling shield cuts to an entrance hallway that used real perspective as the camera moves down the long hall until it opens up to an elephant giving rides underneath carousels and roller coasters (the roller coaster was, however, a model using perspective tricks). The shot is short and cost a fortune but remains one of the most stunning shots in the whole film.

by Greg Ferrara