300

Original Title	300
Director	Zack Snyder
Genre	Historical
Country of origin	USA
Language spoken	English
Year of production	2006
Production	Warner Bros. Pictures, Hollywood Gang Productions, Atmosphere Entertainment MM, Legendary Pictures, Virtual Studios
International sales agent	Warner Bros
Domestic release	23 March 2007 (USA)
Official website	www.300themovie.warnerbros.com

 

SYNOPSIS

In 480 BC an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian army in the mountain pass of Thermopylae. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the enemy in one of the most famous last stands of history. Persian King Xerxes led an army of well over 100,000 men to Greece and was confronted by 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and other slave soldiers. Xerxes waited for 10 days for King Leonidas to surrender or withdraw. Left with no options, he moved. The battle lasted for about 3 days: all 300 Spartans were killed.

Più che un documento storico, il film si presenta come una fedele trasposizione delle storie a fumetti pubblicate sul tema nel 1998 da Frank Miller, vero punto di riferimento nel campo delle illustrazioni e delle sceneggiature.

Rather than a historical document, the film comes over as a faithful transposition of the cartoon-strip story published on this topic in 1998 by Frank Miller, a landmark in the field of illustrations and screenplay.

The story of 300 is certainly significant as it refers back to one of the most important period films made outside the classical stylistic canons of Hollywood.

No mass scenes with hundreds of walk-ons, no striking natural environment, no faithful reconstruction of war machines:  in the film everything (the plain of Sparta, the monuments, the temples and above all the pass of Thermopylae, fruit of Frank Miller’s imagination) has been left up to the skill of the special-effects men. The latter are responsible for the entire, original, digital creation of the surroundings and panoramas of the time:  the screenplay, originating from Miller’s pen, was then transposed into digitally created backgrounds and integrated with the movements of the actors.

The film was shot in 60 days, whilst post-production work lasted over a year.

The filmmakers used bluescreen 90% of the time, and greenscreen for 10%. They chose blue because it better matched the lighting paradigm (green would have been too bright) and because red garments (à la spartan capes) look better when shot over blue.

There are 1,500 cuts in the film, and about 1,300 involve some sort of visual effect.

The film was edited on an Avid, with an HD cut also maintained in Final Cut Pro. The 3D was made using Maya, XSI and Lightwave. The 2D composites were made with Shake, Inferno, Fusion and Combustion.

The film was scanned on a northlight scanner and was recorded on the arrilaser. Most of the film was shot at high speed, between 50 and 150fps. Normal film is at 24fps.