Editing Tabu: A Story of the South Seas (section)

===Pre-production===
Murnau was coming off two troubled [[Fox Film|Fox Studios]] productions, ''[[Four Devils]]'' (1928) and ''[[City Girl (1930 film)|City Girl]]'' (1930), while Flaherty's Native American documentary ''Acoma the Sky City'' had been shut down. The two directors knew each other through Flaherty's brother David, and Murnau expressed a desire to make a film in [[Tahiti]] with Flaherty who had experience with the natives there.<ref name="crosbyinterview">Langer, Mark ''Flaherty's Period: The Crosby Version'' (Wide Angle 20, 1998)</ref> Murnau and Flaherty wrote a story called ''Turia'' and started their own production company, Flaherty-Murnau Productions. ''Turia'' was based on a legend Flaherty had heard while working on [[W. S. Van Dyke]]'s ''[[White Shadows in the South Seas]]'' (1928) and contained many elements which would later evolve into ''Tabu: A Story of the South Seas''.<ref name="scotteyman">Eyman, Scott ''Sunrise in Bora Bora'' (Film Comment, 1990)</ref>

Murnau visited Tahiti in May 1929 and was joined by Flaherty a month later to scout for locations on the nearby island of Bora Bora.<ref name="scotteyman" /> While scouting, they found their leading lady, Anne Chevalier, in a local cocktail bar.<ref name="scotteyman" />

The production was originally supposed to be financed by a small production company called Colorart. By September, however, Murnau had only received $5,000 of the due money. After a series of telegrams asking for the rest of the money, Murnau got fed up and decided to fund it himself.<ref name="scotteyman" /><ref name="davidflaherty">Flaherty, David ''A Few Reminiscences'' (Film Culture, 1959)</ref>

To cut costs, Murnau sent the Hollywood crew home and trained the natives to work as the crew. He also scrapped plans to shoot the film in colour and changed to black and white.<ref name="filmnotes">Heller, Amy and Doros, Dennis "Film Notes" (Milestone Film & Video, 1992)</ref> The film's script was rewritten and the title was changed to ''Tabu: A Story of the South Seas'' to avoid potential legal issues with Colorart.<ref name="scotteyman" /><ref name="filmnotes" /> This was the start of a poor working relationship between Flaherty and Murnau. Flaherty disliked the new script, feeling it was overly plotted and Westernized.<ref name="filmnotes" />