300 is not your ordinary historical epic. To simulate the art of Frank Miller's graphic novel, director Zack Snyder shot the film Sin City style, on a blue screen stage. When he composited the final shots, the battlefields look golden.
Interview: Zack Snyder on the Look of 300
"Absolutely the book was where we started," said Snyder. "We're doing a making of book that has basically pretty much storyboard to final frame, Frank's art, everything. The cool thing about that I think is that it does show you how at every turn, we always had the book. One of the big things I said on set was, we'd be talking about what to do and they 'd say, 'Well, what should we do with this rock? Or what should we do with this guy?' And I would just say, because Frank had the same problems when he drew the book as we had when we shot it, 'You still have to tell the story. You still have to know who's who. You still have to understand in a picture what's happening.' That was a big help to the making of the movie."
The battle scenes are also stylized with slow motion kill shots, which would not have been indicated in a comic book panel. "As far as the slo-mo and all that stuff goes, I like violence so I'm sorry. I can't help it. It's a disease more than anything."
300
To achieve the unique look, Snyder enlisted his cinematographer buddy Larry Fong. "What we basically did is we had a huge top [on the stage], because it ultimately takes place outside, I mean 90% of it. Then Larry had devised this method of back lighting because everyone's kind of brimmed or edged with an edge light. And what we did was if we were doing a close-up like this way, and the backlight was over there, then when we go to do the reverse, instead of physically putting the camera over there, we would just switch the edge to that side and keep facing the same way. So we were able to motor but it was kind of hard for the actors. They didn't know where they were half the time. I'd have to really go like, 'Okay, Xerxes is over there.'"
The actors caught on fairly quickly though. "Because it was so physical, they were able to stay in it. When a guy's running at you trying to kill you, you kind of forget you're on blue screen. I think. That's my feeling anyway. The more violence or the more confronted they were, the more into it they seemed to get. They were able to stay in it."
300 opens to theatres on March 9th, 2007.
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