Comments by "Seven Proxies" (@sevenproxies4255) on "THE KING - Historically Accurate? BRUTALLY Honest Trailer Review" video.

You can actually give plastic a chrome treatment (or maybe it's silver nitrate sometimes). If I were to make cheap plastic armour for the extras in the wide shot, I'd try and get in touch with a company that can chrome up the plastic armour. That way it will be nearly as reflective as a mirror. Then I'd weather the chromed surfaces with paint to dull the reflectiveness just a little. That way you'd still get a pretty good illusion of polished steel armour without having to spend the money for real armour.
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@13thcentury : No, they really don't. Outfitting hundreds to thousands of people in proper steel armour will blow through the budget in no time. Arnoursmithing isn't exactly a quick affair, but labourious and time consuming which ramps up the price significantly. Armour also needs to be custom tailored for the wearer, which further adds to the price. Armoursmiths are not exactly common around the world either since it's not a mainstream industry, so due to the rarity of their skills, the price hikes even further. If you compared that to simply vaccuforming sheets of plastic into pieces or armour, where the material is dirt cheap and no special skills are required to accomplish it, movie producers will opt for this option any day of the week rather than trying to outfit every single extra (many if which might only appear in shots that are less than a second long) with real steel armour.
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