I am already going to see it again at the I-MAX, it was that great.
I did want to share a couple of my favorite shots from the film:
Zack Snyder previously directed the remake of George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead. The guy comes from a visual background, he studied painitng in school, and it shows in his shots. He also operates his own camera, which is totally a bad-ass move on his part. This guy lives by the rule of thirds.
This dynamic shot of ships sinking in a storm was so quick but effective. I like the positioning of the diamond of guys on the bottom left and the lightning striking on the top right. Extremely balanced.
These Persians riding into Sparta, extreme frame left, with the city rolling into view off in the distance to the right was crazy. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how they did this one. I'm guessing, real riders, and the ground was added in post, and the riders were moved accordingly. Background (of the enitre film of course) put in during post.
This Asymetrical shot is well done. The lighting from behind was gorgeous, it was a tracking back shot, this being the view at it's widest point. It went by so fast, but this held a sense of discovery for me in the theatre, as I realized that the tree I had saw in the preview, wasn't just ANY tree. Take a closer look, it's made from PEOPLE!
Very similar in composition to the one above, asymetrical, row of "immortal"s on the lower third line, I especially like the position of Xerxes on top, where he could have easily fallen into a symetrical pose, but he is off kinter a bit, which makes me look beyond the bad guys directly to him.
I'm so glad this photo (not pulled from the preview) was online. This was my absolute favorite, single shot. The composition here is beautiful, the lower third line of foreground wheat, Leonides and family extreme frame left, man and wife seperated with the line of that third cutting right down their middle. The golden wheat in the center, capped by a dark sky, top third of the image, balancing well against the darkened bottom. The receding line of Spartan soldiers, and the glowing rays of the sun on the upper right. This frame becomes just picture perfect with a few more seconds passing, letting the Spartans seperate even more from the characters in the foreground.
I would LOVE to discuss what about the actual style of filmmaking I really enjoyed the most here, but you should just go and see it for yourself. I don't want to spoil it for you.
2 comments:
I was waiting for your review and will now go and see it, maybe with your mother it she wants to go, or with out her if not. I met a guy in Westbrook whose name is Tac(Canadian I think)and is doing a documentary in Europe on how they see the United States on our war in Iraq and then comes back and interviews people here to get their reaction on what was said in Europe. He was telling me that he had about $60,000 invested in editing and other equipment. Real nice guy and when I told him about you and gave him a brief description of your career so far he seemed impressed and advised to just keep puting yourself and your work out there.
When you get a chance stop thru Forbidden Planet and peep the graphic novel. Zack did an incredible job of transcribing the graphic novel to film using the same angles that Miller did in his drawings.
I wish Zack Snyder had been the dude to bring the Frank Miller Daredevil story to the big screen because Miller used a similar visual prose in that story as well.
Good shit all around
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