An experimental film released during 1927 that had a big impact in the avant-garde community was Robert Florey's 15-minute film, "The Love of Zero." The short was one of Florey's earliest films. The French-born journalist journeyed to Hollywood as a film reporter with Cinemagazine in 1921 and soon was brought on by Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford as their foreign publicity director. Hired as an assistant director for MGM in the mid-1920s, Flory hit his stride in the 1930s and 1940s as one of Hollywood's more prolific directors with over 50 films,. His specialty was mostly low-budget movies for Paramount and Warner Brothers.
Florey set aside a miniscule $200 to produce "The Love of Zero," which depicted a love affair between a trombone player, Zero, and woman of wealth, Beatrix. Noted set designer William Cameron Menzies built the spartan stage for his colleague.
In the short film, Zero, a member of the high arts with his lofty ladder, realizes he's lost the love-of-his-life companion, the royal Beatrix, when she is called back to her palace. The sadness of Zero is shown by images of nightmarish ghouls superimposed in front of him. The musicians feels his music, his life, and his love all add up to the sum of nothing.
To show the emotional complexity of the trombone player, Florey set his camera angles everywhere except straight. Every distortion in the book is seen to symbolize the distraught inner turmoil of the two lovers. The artsy community loved Florey's short. Unfortunately, such pictorial innovation isn't seen in the director's feature films. The film studios' supervision restricted him in his inability to create highly imaginative sequences, an unfortunate development as Hollywood became more conservative in displaying its films visual scenes, unlike in its silent movies.