300

My favorite movie these days.

-The film was shot in 60 days.

-The film was shot on blue and green screen in Montreal.

-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.

-There are 1500 cuts in the film, and about 1300 involve some sort of visual effect.

-The work was photographed completely in Montreal, with the exception of two days of insert shooting in Los Angeles.

-Ten visual effects vendors contributed to the film, spread over three continents.

-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 (a la spartan capes) look better when shot over blue.

-There was one day of location shooting, which was for the horses that were shot for the 'approaching Sparta' scene.

-The script demanded that most of the male cast spend the majority of their screen time bare-chested, as per Frank Miller's original graphic novel. Therefore, in order to adequately present themselves as the most well-trained and marshalled fighting force of the time, the entire principal cast underwent a rigorous and varied training regime for 6 weeks prior to shooting.

-According to an interview with IGN.com, Director Zack Snyder says that fighting styles and formations (particularly the Spartan's phalanx) were purposefully changed - making them historically inaccurate - so they'd "look cool" and work better for movie purposes.

-The movie never claims to be historically correct. It is based almost entirely on Frank Miller's 1998 comic book mini-series. Changes from history were made by Miller and Snyder so as to appeal to a wider audience and create a more exciting and visually stunning action movie, rather than a typical historical epic.

-Frank Miller was inspired by the original Battle of Thermopylae after viewing the 1962 film The 300 Spartans (1962) as a child. His perception of the 'hero' concept changed greatly after seeing the Spartans make their sacrifice.

-Footage from the film was shown at Comic-Con in July, 2006. Stunned by the clip, comic fans requested to view it three times.

-The makers showed a 90-second test of the movie to Alan Horn and Jeff Robinov, the executives from Warner Brothers, who then greenlit the project.

-The song that can be heard in the various trailers is Nine Inch Nails' "Just like you imagined" from their 1999 double album "The Fragile" (Halo 14, Left CD, Track 7)

-The movie was shot on three small sets.

-Efialtis is the Greek word for nightmare. Even though back then it was a name, since his betrayal, the word adopted in language with the meaning of nightmare.

-Shortly after its release, Iranian bloggers and journalists were outraged by the movie. With headlines like "Hollywood Declares War on Iranians", they chastised the movie for it's monstrous portrayal of the Ancient Persians, ancestors of modern Iranians. A cultural adviser to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called it, "American psychological warfare against Iran."
Zack Snyder’s son plays young Leonidas in the child fight training scene.

-The line "Come back with your shield, or on it" was a common phrase said by Spartan women to their sons and husbands.

-The monologue said by the narrator when it shows Leonidas and his men dead is actually found on the tomb of the real King Leonidas.