Cool information about the movie 300 (and linux)

[Deinumite]

Post production took almost a year. 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 filmmakers prefer Macintosh, but large portions of the movie were made under Linux. Asset management was handled by custom software written in the Panorama development environment, made by Provue. Color management was handled by Truelight software. 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. The film was transferred to HD SR tape and quicktime, and HD quicktimes were the basis for the HD preview cuts. The working resolution for the film was 2K, at a working aspect ratio of 2.11 and a projected aspect ratio of 2.35.


or if you dont want to read the block of text

The filmmakers prefer Macintosh, but large portions of the movie were made under Linux.

I just saw that on the site because i was reading up about the movie and thought that was pretty cool :o

[SishGupta]

I saw 300 on Monday in Toronto. The visual effects are amazing.

In my wired there is a spread on 300 and it said that for the snow scenes they rendered the snow and then they went through and individually for each snow flake adjusted falling speed and rotation to make sure that it was exactly how they wanted it.

There is a scene with an oracle girl. The girl was shot underwater with high speed to get the fluidic effect. Also... Nippleshot. One of many in the movie.

Anyway 300 was a very fun movie to watch and I'd reccomend anyone go see it when it is released world wide tomorrow (Friday).

[prizrak]

Watching it in IMAX next week (so I don't have to be in a superhuge crowd) :)

[Yossarian]

Watching it in IMAX tongiht.

Don't know anything about it, but some buddies think it looks good.

[Somenoob]

Saw the trailer a few days ago, it's coming here in theaters after 8 days. looks good.

[Sunflower1970]

Been looking forward to this movie for a while now. For one reason.

Gerard Butler in leather briefs...and not much else


:biggrin:

[IYY]

Linux is actually used very often in film production.

[~LoKe]

Going to see it in two hours!!

[NoTiG]

im jeaalous

[KaroSHiv0n]

it was frank miller, it was always gonna be great :)

[iMav]

I'm going to try and see it later today. (in of all places, a movie theater right here in Iraq!) :)

[RAV TUX]

This was probably the worst movie I have every seen, saw it last night with a group of friends, one friend wanted to see it. The rest of us didn't care one way or the other.

The transvestite Persian man-God was an interesting bad guy, but over all the movie disappointed on all counts.

poor character development, poor story line, horrible ending and the special effects were just so-so...

I would say don't waste your money on this movie....

I would not even call this a renter.

[Yossarian]

It was OK, nothing special.

I'm not sure why there was so much buzz about it, I guess it just goes to show that you can give a marketing firm lots of money and they will make people interested in your movie.

[SishGupta]

First, the movie is a VERY accurate adaptation of Frank Millers comic.
You can literally hold the comic book up to frames of the movie and you will see double.
If you liked the comic book, and many do, you will like the movie.

The book and movie were not about character development, which is obvious imho. They practically ignored the personal lives of people. The parts where they showed any character depth was more to illustrate the lives of the spartans (such as the king growing up) or the lives of people in war (such as the captains relationship and greif with his son)

If you think the plot sucked you must have failed middle school history, or perhaps ancient Greece was not part of the curriculum, or maybe it just doesn't interest you :) . The plot is an embellishment of a REAL battle, the Battle of Thermopylae. The embellishment part was great IMO because it was like the warriors were telling a story, glorifying it more then it would have been.

The ending was the beginning of the Battle of Plataea, another real battle.

Second, the special effects were great (imho). For the snow scenes, each snowflake was manually adjusted for speed and rotation. I am thinking, that if you didn't think the sfx were good or great it is because you didn't notice them, which was the point. SFX must have been like 90% of the visuals.

Finally, the transvestite comment is rather offensive and I would appreciate members not falsely using the term (which is where the offense is taken). The way the Persian king looked was (in my opinion, and i'm no historian) accurate for the time. Are you calling the Egyptian kings trannys? They looked and dressed very similar.

[Sunflower1970]

Saw this yesterday with my husband. We both enjoyed it quite a bit. Before this came out I had picked up the GN a few times at bookstores and thumbed through it. It did seem very close to the art in the GN, and I highly enjoyed that aspect, and I thought the story was fine. I wasn't expecting anything too deep, anyway, after seeing Sin City.

It did get me curious to know more about this battle though. Might have to read up on it, some day. There's also another movie based on this incident, that Miller was inspired by. The 300 Spartans made in 1962(I think)

[The Noble]

Beautifully animated, with great narration and fight scenes. It was packed even at midnight (as in, "a few tickets left" when we got there a few minutes before it started), so wait if you aren't too excited. There is no real "depth" behind the movie; its purpose was to follow the comic and be as kickass as possible. In both respects, it succeeded without any problems. It is what Troy was supposed to be.

If you don't know what the hell I am talking about, think of 300 like the Beryl of movies.

[BLTicklemonster]

Saw this yesterday with my husband. We both enjoyed it quite a bit. Before this came out I had picked up the GN a few times at bookstores and thumbed through it. It did seem very close to the art in the GN, and I highly enjoyed that aspect, and I thought the story was fine. I wasn't expecting anything too deep, anyway, after seeing Sin City.

It did get me curious to know more about this battle though. Might have to read up on it, some day. There's also another movie based on this incident, that Miller was inspired by. The 300 Spartans made in 1962(I think)

Great book: http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Fire-Novel-Battle-Thermopylae/dp/0553580531

[PartisanEntity]

Unfortunately a waste of money, effects-wise it was impressive but that is no longer an achievement in the 21st century.

I understand this is based on Miller's comic which in turn is based on historical events/myths.

My analysis:

I found the depiction of the Persians most offensive and the political undertone during the current Iran vs. USA era was most obvious and not possible to miss.

The Spartans represented Greece, Europe and modern day America, they were noble warriors, pure at heart, loved their families and loved their freedom (the word freedom was mentioned more then enough to drive the message home).

The Persians (representing Iran/Arabs/Islam/'the east' do doubt) and the rest of the world (all the slave nations fighting for Xerxes I) were barbaric, chauvinistic, blood-thirsty and just plain evil.

It was an extremely racist tale, similar to movies made in the 50's and 60's about native Africans, native Americans, Asians and Arabs where the 'white characters' are the nice, cute, noble, honest, educated people. The non-whites receive the flat charactered, dumb and backward people, often the villains. This movie played in the same vain.

I felt the film clearly depicted how the Bush administration sees itself and it's 'causes' or foreign policies.

Most disappointing. Throughout the movie I kept asking myself whether it would have ever made it to the screens had it depicted Jews or Blacks in this racist manner. The answer of course is no, it would have been shredded to hell and back.

I don't think I am analysing it too much, the arts rarely do not contain political messages or statements that aren't relevant during the era in which they are made and Hollywood has clearly shown its colours with movies about WWI, WWII, Vietnam, Communism etc..

Thumbs down from me.

[MedivhX]

Linux is actually used very often in film production.

That's right! Linux is always present in Hollywood server farms (I think that they use it for rendering)!

[RAV TUX]

the Movie sucked overall, except the Persian Transvestite man-God was cool...:popcorn:

unfortunately the Iranians were not amused, I read they are declaring Jihad against Hollywood, I read it in the Washington Post Express.

[PartisanEntity]

Some interesting reactions from the Berlinale and Greek critics:

Berlinale Update: 300 Screens To Chorus Of Boos In Berlin (http://2fwww.cinematical.com/2007/02/14/berlinale-update-300-screens-to-chorus-of-boos-in-berlin/)

Greek critics lash Hollywood's ancient epic '300' (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/03/08/arts/EU-A-E-MOV-Greece-300.php)