Filed under: Software
Macs join the fight in '300'
With a shocking and awesome $70+ million in weekend box office, the film adaptation of Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 has shot (and hacked, and stabbed) its way to the 3rd best R-rated opening and the all-time best March opening in US film history. Way to go, Spartans.As noted on ballergoods.com and also at IMDB, the Mac played a big role in bringing 300 to the screen, with chunks of editing done in Final Cut and 2D graphics created in Shake. In fact, the IMDB article notes that while much of the production was on Avid systems (platform unspecified) and Linux workstations (presumably for Maya and other tools), "the filmmakers prefer Macintosh." Like we always say, there is no substitute.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
dmitry said 4:16PM on 3-13-2007
for the record, combustion doesnt run on linux.
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CraHan said 4:38PM on 3-13-2007
Hybride (http://www.hybride.com/index_en.html) are the Canadian specialFX company who did most of the special effects for the movie.
They also did the FX for Sin City, the icecave sequence for Sky Captain and the world of tomorrow, The Faculty, Mimic, etc.
Check the 'tools' section on the site mentioned above to see the complete list of apps they use for their work.
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Michael Rose said 4:45PM on 3-13-2007
dmitry -- thanks, updated the post.
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Jon said 5:10PM on 3-13-2007
Also bear in mind that they may be running Shake on Linux or Irix instead of OS X. I know that's what Weta Digital does.
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Matthew said 6:02PM on 3-13-2007
So what you're saying is that Mac's are just a hobby thing and don't pay the bills?
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ThePete said 7:11PM on 3-13-2007
Enjoy the film for it's visual FX, but hate it for it's racism/homo-phobia. Sorry, casting your world-conquering badguy as a 9 foot tall West Hollywood resident isn't exactly historically accurate and is a bit irresponsible in today's climate--especially considering we could go to war with Iran (full of Pesians) sometime soon. Sorry, I just can't root for the Spartans (or their movie). :(
No offense to *actual* Spartans, of course.
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Benson Leung said 7:27PM on 3-13-2007
ThePete : The film wasn't meant to be historically accurate. The film is tightly based off of Frank Miller's excellent graphic novel by the same name.
He did that book long before the "political climate" changed to make you so pissed off about it.
You are the one making the connection between this work of fiction, based loosely on real events 2500 years ago, to the political climate of today, so I'd say this says more about you than it says about the filmmaker's intentions.
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Jon said 12:28AM on 3-14-2007
Somehow I doubt Zack Snyder was thinking about the current political climate when he made the movie. If you read interviews with him, he seemed to make directing decisions solely on whether he thought it would be "cool" or not.
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JoshK said 9:58AM on 3-14-2007
@ThePete
Homophobia? Have you a) seen the movie, or b)studied Classical History? The Spartan army supported homosexuality between soldiers during times of war while the men were away from home - that can't really be deemed in any way as homophobic. I in no way saw anything against homosexuality in the film - it had half naked men in almost every seen. Also, this is not racism, its loosely based on history, people from one land fought people from another, in a time when the world was not so easily integrated racial assimilation did not exist to the extent it currently does - note that the Persian empire was much larger than just Persia (hence the empire). I hope this does not sound like flaming, as that is not my intents, simply I saw the movie, enjoyed it, and disagree with your points as they both seem to be largely untrue with weak, if any, logical foundations.
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