Use of Scale to Reveal Character Relationships
Of scale's many uses in film, perhaps the most insightful is to demonstrate to the viewer relationships between onscreen characters. This creative use reveals something new to the viewer, information that the filmmakers feel cannot be adequately explained without manipulating scale in this way.
The usual use of this technique is to take two onscreen characters that are approximately the same size and portray them so that onscreen, one appears larger than the other. This skewing of size gives the larger character power and authority over the smaller character. The most famous use of this is in a scene from Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, in which Kane, after having lost the race for governor, argues with his friend Jed, while the sizes of the two characters fight to obtain the larger size, and with it, superiority in their argument.
Welles uses scale in this sequence beyond its aesthetic effects. He uses it as a commentary on the characters, combining it with the dialogue as a guide to the viewer as to which character is holding the power in their relationship at any given time during the sequence. At the start of the sequence 
Kane 1, Kane appears to the viewer as much bigger then Jed. Later in the sequence 
Kane 2, Kane shrinks as Jed grows, accompanied by Jed's verbal assault on Kane. In the next shot 
Kane 3, Kane, unable to stand up to the words he knows are true, retreats to the part of the screen where he will again appear larger and more powerful than Jed, perhaps showing the viewer that he feels he has lost control and must make a desperate attempt at salvaging any control he may have over the situation by regaining a position of power. The sequence culminates with the point at which two men are equal sizes 
Kane 4, perhaps implying that the two are equals after all. Kane as a character is oblivious to viewers and cameras, but Welles as an actor and a director is well aware of what he is doing and the effects it will have on the viewer and the film.
Another creative use of scale to show clear conflict between in characters is in Stanley Kubrick's 
2001: A Space Odyssey. Kubrick, in this scene, gives the audience a picture of one man, hopelessly overwhelmed by a far more powerful enemy. HAL, the computer system, dwarfs the man, who is clearly up against a superior foe. He has little power against the seemingly unending maze of circuitry that is HAL.
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Kane 1, Kane appears to the viewer as much bigger then Jed. Later in the sequence 
Kane 2, Kane shrinks as Jed grows, accompanied by Jed's verbal assault on Kane. In the next shot 
Kane 3, Kane, unable to stand up to the words he knows are true, retreats to the part of the screen where he will again appear larger and more powerful than Jed, perhaps showing the viewer that he feels he has lost control and must make a desperate attempt at salvaging any control he may have over the situation by regaining a position of power. The sequence culminates with the point at which two men are equal sizes 
Kane 4, perhaps implying that the two are equals after all. Kane as a character is oblivious to viewers and cameras, but Welles as an actor and a director is well aware of what he is doing and the effects it will have on the viewer and the film.
2001: A Space Odyssey