300

 

From the acclaimed graphic novel artist Frank Miller, came the story of a heroic Spartan King who led his soldiers into an epic battle against the Persians. A few years later, this graphic novel has been made into a successful film filled with action-packed scenes benefited by the art department of both the 3D and visual effects. But in order to obtain the style of Miller’s graphic novel style, director Zack Snyder and his team of art directors had to figure out the best possible way to project the style and essence that Frank Miller has created. The film as a whole has been built with computer-based effects like visual effects and 3D, but also used actual props to make this film more believable to the audiences.

 Because the movie was based on a story of an ancient Greek legend, this was the best opportunity for the story to seem more realistic through a motion picture, and visually impacted with the technology of the film art department. But in order to keep Frank Miller’s version in his story “300” in how he portrayed the story though his style, Director Zack Snyder had the ability to see what Miller’s work was and in putting it on film. Although this movie has been shot with live actors, everything was shot in blue screen - therefore every piece of the movie had to be manufactured and re-visualized. So in order to keep the style of graphic novel, it was up to the visual effects department to create all the backgrounds from scratch using images in the style of the comic book. So the art department had to pre-design everything along with conceptual drawings of environments to the sculptural abstract terrains where the actions would take place. Throughout some parts of the film, the environment shots are mainly an actual miniature sculpture that has been shot from a primary angle in a blue screen, and then later adding in the background along with the characters in the scene to make it look like an actual setting. From everything to all the battle scenes to a normal setting scene, the actors were shot in a blue-screen room along with props and limited built-environments on the set.

 Another way the production crew tried to make this movie resemble Miller’s novel was through the strong lights and high contrasts effects added to this film. The goals for the lighting were to simulate the look of the comic book and to a give nice even base of lighting, also known as “crushing”. Crushing is a device they used to create the high contrast look, and to take all the digital information at the low end (the blacks), and digital information from the high end (whites) and compress them together. With this effect, there is a lot less information of the details in the scene with the heavy black and white portions of the image. This effect takes the colors from the midrange and makes them blossom to get the painterly effect, in order to make it look a lot like Miller’s drawings. Another way they tried to mimic Miller’s work, was when they blew out a highlight in the sky, which were used many times throughout the film. Because adding a strong highlight in a real photograph in a sky would be white, the art department added detail to the sky by using the textures coffee stain skies and watercolor on paper, scanning the textures in, and mixing it into a photographic sky.

  

The characters portrayed in this film were the most important and the main focus of not only the film but also the original graphic novel itself. Because the story was taking place back in ancient Greek times when war and battle were most prominent, that was what the characters would be based upon when it comes to their pride and loyalty. The soldiers of the Spartans envisioned by Frank Miller were very dynamic through the strength of their bodies, weapons and armory (cape). So in order to make the film look more real, other than excessive CGI effects of the film, actors who played the Spartan soldiers had to use their physicality in order to make this story seem more real, through excessive training in workouts and sword fights for the battle scenes. Other characters that had creature-like features like the Giant, the Hunchback, and Ephors were mainly actors dressed in make-up and costumes, with very little computer effects added to them. Filming live actors as creatures for movies are more favored than a full-animated character because of the realistic and emotional essence that only live actors could execute. Although the majority of the film has been enhanced through visual effects, the film has also used an excessive amount of actual props and costumes, including set designs. Although very little visual effects have been added to the characters of the 300 Spartans, a certain effect has been used in order to portray the fearless and ‘legit’ warriors the Spartans were, with the help of the cameras that capture these scenes in a particular and effective way. For many of the battles scenes, three cameras were placed close together to capture different zooming shots (wide, medium and tight shots) between the three cameras all in one take, to make each battle scenes both epic and realistic.

 

Because the very goal of this film was to tell the story of the legendary Spartan soldiers and in mimicking Frank Miller’s style, many different computer effects as well as actual props have been used to make this fictional story so realistic. This film and its style in resembling a comic book became a huge hit on how movies can have a different ways in new visually presenting a story through the changes in lighting and high contrasts in a film. Director Zack Snyder and his visual production team has successfully created a film that was both pleasing as an action-packed blockbuster and a graphic novel film that Frank Miller has created decades before. Although every piece of the move has been manufactured and visualized from scratch with CGI and visual effects, the film still managed to create a whole new different world, making the story seem so believable through the amazing effects of the environment and characters.  Which is why its seems as if Director Zack Snyder wanted the eye of audiences not be able to tell the difference between what was real and what was virtual.