300

300! This must be one of the best action films I have ever seen. This movie is based on a comic book which was based off of a real battle in history. That makes is so the movie doesn’t really need to be completely historically accurate because the comic already retold the story. Frank Miller, the writer of the comic for which the comic is based from is a great writer who brings together history and a comic book violence to create great stories that have amazing detail.

Zack Snyder, director (and screenplay writer) of 300, isn’t very experienced as a director with only one other feature film under his belt, but after watching 300, and his other film Dawn of The Dead (2004 remake) it is obvious that he will become a great director. A good director can take their own vision of a film and make it, but a great director must be able to make anyone vision of a film come alive on the big screen.

The lighting used in 300, showed more on black and white then color. The filters on most shots in the film give the shots a dark sephia almost black and white look. The main color that pops to the audience is the crimson red that the Spartans wear in battle to represent that they are willing to bleed to protect their home. Zack Snyder created a technique he nicknamed “the crush” which was used to “crush the black content of the image and enhance the color saturation to change the contrast ratio of the film.” This brings me to my next point, which is the drastic contrast in the film. The blacks in the film are so dark that the viewer can sort of drift off into them. The main reason all color in 300 is because of the use of a blue screen for most of the backgrounds. A blue screen used in movies works the same way as a green screen (as in covering it with C.G.I. in post-production) expect that on a blue screen colors become deeper, and darker. This is why all of the sets in 300 were C.G.I., because with the deeper tones of the blue screen the sets could have a more realistic look.

Sound in 300, really brought the movie to life. With the sounds of the battle scenes drawing the audience in and sudden breaks of silence the sound was just as if the audience was in the battle, seeing the horrors of the Battle of Thermopylae first hand. With the sounds of swords, shields, and spears clashing with each other the sounds battle just make everything more realistic. Along with the battle sounds, the music in the film also made the atmosphere of the film all the better. It brought a strong heart pounding beat to the film which was just what it needed to fill a missing void.

300 had very little as far as costumes. If you take the time to read the comic book you would see that Frank Miller drew all of the 300 Spartans naked expect for their capes, helmets, and weapons. The American public would never approve of a film that included 300 nude men in the cast so the movie had to include simple clothing that would still allow the same type of fighting seen in the comic. So the costume designer Michael Wilkinson looked for capes with a strong texture that could also be made into clothing for the actors. The fabric was also chosen for its worn look which was “a metaphor for the life starting to bleed out of the characters.” The Spartans and Persians have a huge difference in the main colors used in their costuming to represent the differences in the two cultures. The Spartans have warm earth tones, while the Persians wear greens, blues, silvers, and golds.

Another critical part of the film was the bodies of the 300 Spartans. History shows these men as the best warriors mankind has ever known so all the actor who were in the film had to be a good representation of this. The extreme training regiment used by the actors in 300 put there bodies to the limit to get the perfect physique that only a true Spartan would have. Some of the actors have described the training for 300 as close to torture, but they all eventually appreciated the results of the training.

The special effects used in this film took up most of the time that the film was in production. The actors were done in just 60 days of active production while all the other time the film was pre and post production. Stand out special effects in the film include the character of Ephialtes (the deformed Spartan solider), the Persian “Uber-Immortal”, and the scene when the arrows block out the sun. The characters were first created in clay molds then they were made live size to fit over the actors who played the parts in the film. Without special molds the character of Ephialtes wouldn’t have been able to be portrayed the way he was. The arrows blocking out the sun scene was very good because when the line “Our arrows will block out the sun!” is said the audience would never think they would see it actually happen on screen.

300 is a film that true fans of comic books would truly enjoy because many shots from the film are exact replicas of frames from the Frank Miller comic “300.” These were dubbed “Frank Frames” by director Zack Snyder because when you bring the book up to the screen many shots are exact frames from the book. This makes the movies even better for true fans of the comic.

The way the different elements of this film come together all create a great film that was judged way too harshly by film critics that just don’t understand great comic book based films. If 300 was a movie before being a comic I think most critics would have been a little less harsh of it and gave it better reviews then it has received.