The document compares and contrasts the 1962 film "The 300 Spartans" and the 2006 film "300" in terms of their genres, stars, technologies used, budgets, distribution methods, and social/political contexts. The 300 Spartans was a historical epic filmed on location in Greece with a $1.7 million budget, while 300 used extensive CGI and had a $65 million budget. Technologies advanced significantly between the films, allowing 300 to utilize digital editing and blue/green screens. Both depicted social norms of their eras, with 300 featuring more diversity in actors and gender roles.

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The 300 Spartans (1962) VS 300 (2006)
In this document, I will be analysing and evaluating the genre, stars, trends,
determinants, technologies, distribution and exhibition, synergy and social, political
and regulatory features as the distinctions between the two films. The 300 Spartans
film was first released in 1962 whereas the second film, 300, was presented in 2006.
The two movies have shown to have some differences to one another even though
they follow a similar storyline, the ​Battle of Thermopylae​, when the Spartans had to
fight against the Persians. For instance, the 300 movie tends to have fantasy
included but not with the 300 Spartans film as they decided to have realistic
humanistic characters shown and due to effective digital technologies not develop
then but which were used for the second movie as the technologies were developed
during that time.
The 300 Spartans film is a historical epic genre as the film
consists of mainly battle fighting scenes which was
happening in the past. The film shows conventions which
make it historical epic as it included historical context, based
on real events that happened a long time ago and epic
features used as big battle scenes with a sense of romance
contributed as well. This genre was very popular in the
1960s as people would want and desired to see fighting with
romance included in a movie that everyone would see at
drive-in cinemas as it would have a big screen which
everyone could come together and experience watching the
movie altogether. On the other hand, the 300 film is a hybrid
genre which consists of two genres such as action and fantasy
because the film consists of big fight scenes with some
characters that are created as monster-looking type which are
created to show the audience scenes that consists of surreal

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actors created that take part in the film. Zack Snyder, who wanted to create the film,
300, that was based on a comic that turned into real life, which supports the
evidence for the uses on the fantasy based characters.
The main characters in the 300 Spartans film were Richard Egan as King Leonidas,
Ralph Richardson as the counsellor of Athens, Diane Baker as Ellas and Barry Coe
as Phylon and David Farrar as Xerxes, the king of the Persians. Richard Egan was
chosen to play the role as the king of the Spartans, he was chosen as he seen to
have a fit physique that would be representative of a warrior. He was a successful
American actor, an action man who had took part in the WW2. Men wanted to be like
him and women adored him. He completed the role of the character as strong and as
a leader. Sir Ralph Richardson, the word sir before his name, as he was older and
respected, also as a contribution to his well performance ​through working in films for
most of his career​ as ​often played proud patriarchs and authority figures such as
given the role in the film as a Greek counsellor.​ Diane baker was the main female
actress as she was attractive and young. She had a love story with the other
character, Ray. Although, she did not have much of a speaking role as in the past,
women didn't have that much independence yet as they do today, in modern society.
In the second film, it mostly featured British actors as Americans became to watch
more British movies and were more enlightened of British people. Gerard butler, a
British and Scottish actor, played the role as King Leonidas. He had to train for
months with a personal trainer in order to fully look and be as the character in the
film. He was also chosen due to playing in numerous other famous films such as
Olympus Has Fallen, Gamer and P.S. I Love You. Lena Headey was chosen to play
the queen’s role as she fitted the part, being good looking and featured in other
famous films such as The Purge, Zipper and Dredd.
From looking at both the films, I noticed that the roles were
predominantly played by men and with women not having any
speaking roles or only a short sentence to say in a scene. In the
first film in 1962, there was only a short use of women speaking
throughout the whole film, the queen and Ellas had a speaking
part but only for a short amount. Other women used in the film
would just stand in the background around the men, such as the
scene of the women dancing in side the tents around the Persians
and when Ellas and Ray are speaking to one another to show a love
story. Also, in the second film made in 2006, the scenes were still
mainly given the roles to men, having the most speaking and acting
roles rather than giving similar amount of speaking and acting roles to
women. However, in comparison to the first film, the second film does
have more scenes with the women talking as the times got more

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modern to have women speaking more in the film, Queen Gorgo speaking to the
Greek counsellors and involved in more other scenes. But still not that much of her
as they had to refer to the past years as the movie followed that time line.
Analysing the trends for both films, it shows that in the 1960s, the most popular
genre was seen to be historical epic, for instance movies such as Spartacus (1960),
El Cid (1961), Lawrence of Arabia (1962) and Cleopatra (1963). These movies we
watched the most as the audience expected and desired to watch movies that
consisted scenes battle fights with a hint of romance too. At that time, the hippie
movement was happening who believed in anti-war but along with the Cold War
happening too. The Civil Rights movement, also occurring at that time, started by
Martin Luther King who was non-violence action and more popular than Malcolm X
who promoted violence.
In addition, in 2006, it became more digitised, the digital revolutionary as digital
communication and consumption of media grew among the years. Furthermore,
genres such as action and fantasy at the time were typically popular like Spider Man,
Green Lantern, Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. These movies had the most
audience views as people wanted to watch new different motions in movies and due
to society becoming more digital, producers were able to use more green and blue
screens to make films more modern.
Financial determinants point out how much money would be spent on making the
film. For the 300 Spartans, 1962 film, it was close to $1.7
million budget. The most money was spent on big name
actors, equipment, props, flying the crew and equipment to
Greece as this country was used as the primary location to
film the whole film in and the marketing of film, even though
there was not much of it and as big, creating posters to show
the audience to go watch the film, as done for the second
film. The film used a lot of actors and extras, as if the
producers wanted to have 1000 people to play in a certain
scene such as in a battle scene, then they would have had to actually have
physically, 1000 people come and be recorded in the scene as there were no
equipment or technologies like using CGI (​computer-generated
imagery)​ to copy and paste people onto a screen rather than having
them actually live on the set.
For the 2006 film, it was at $65 million for the budget, worldwide 456
million dollars. This budget for this film is bigger than what was used for
the first movie because the second movie used more expensive
equipment such as spending money on CGI, famous actors, mainly
British, more merchandise and marketing such as promoting the film as

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trailers in cinemas and using synergy to expand the project, and hire studios which
most scenes were recorded in but only one scene was recorded outside the studio
for the scene with the horses, to look physical and realistic.
Blue screens were used for most scenes in the film because the film is mainly
presented in dark lighting leading to the use of the blue colour
rather than using green screen as the green would normally just
present the film in normal lighting. Therefore, due to the producers
wanting to present the film in the dark lighting, the blue screen
would have been essential to use. As you can see from the image
on the right, it first shows how the actors are acting out for the
scene that would require a background to be inserted after as the
desired background may not have been available in real life but
would be created and accessible when editing onto the editing
programs in order to complete the scene. The picture shows how
after the background is inserted, it is shown in a dark dull colour
due to the use of the blue screen rather than the green screen. The characters would
only need to act out scenes and then background would be inserted.
However, even though during most of the recording for the film in a hired studio,
there was one scene used in a real location, for the scene with the horses, when the
messenger of the Persians comes to deliver a message to King Leonidas,​ as they
needed to record somewhere with an actual location that would be big enough to
record the actual movements of the horses in order to make that footage of the
horses look realistic.
The 300 Spartans film is presented in low quality, no use of HD (high definition)
which suggests that the equipment used to record the footages were not the top of
the range at the time and because they were not really developed in the past. This
suggests that the equipments used to record the scenes were not as efficient as they
are today with more modern and developed equipment. Hence, why the 300
movie is filmed and shown in high definition. There would be different
companies doing different stuff, for example, one for sound and another for
colour. They used 35mm film in which still images were captured and played
in one second using FBS. Sound recording equipment better so the words

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and music heard better in the film than in the first one. During post-production, use of
moviola as it was the most popular, advanced and effective tool at that time to edit
the footages.
The technologies used in 2006 film were more developed than the ones used in the
1962 film as digital computers developed. It became easier and quicker to edit than
in the past. The film was recorded and edited on computers in HD but also used the
35mm film which then went through the digital process. When the film would be
presented in the cinemas, it would need to gone tp to upscaled it to 2k which would
then be printed perfect. The editing software in
the 1960 couldn't use the Autodesk MAYA
software as it wouldn't have been developed
in the past years, used to make 3D models,
the motions captured for instance, for the
creation of the monsters, people would be in
bodysuits and then act out the actions that the
monsters would do do the motions that would
show in the movie as the monsters would act
like that. Furthermore, blue screens used but the characters don't wear the colour as
they will not be seen. The dark theme mainly presented throughout the movie is
shown in dark lighting. The first film just has actors speaking with no narrator,
whereas second film has actors speaking too but with a narrator speaking in over the
scenes. ​And loud external and internal music used which would play in the film.
Although, in the first film there was none used. Lighting throughout video tends to be
dark dull colours showing original colouring quite dark.
The distribution and exhibition used for the first film was that it was shown in the
cinemas like drive in cinemas as well. There was some posters made that would
have been put around the area in order for people to see and then encourage them
to go watch the full whole film in the cinemas. People would then spend more money
to go watch the film on the big screens. In the past, there were not that many
televisions available in people's homes and if they did have TVs, they would have
only been little as not big flat screen TVs and in HD were not created those times.
Although, the 300 film was presented first in the cinema and if people didn't get to
watch it in the cinema, it was then 6 months later released in DVDs. The audience
appeal was to attract more people to go watch the movie in the cinemas and be
released 6 months later out in DVD which people could purchase a copy of the film
that could be watched at home, whenever and wherever. Digital streaming movies
was available at that time and then in 2008 the movie was able to shown in Blu-Ray.

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For The 300 Spartans movie, there was not much synergy, not released on other
platforms, at the time. No use of synerging text and images. Only the film was made
and no other platforms were created from synergy to gain more audience
awareness. Whereas, for The 300 film, there was much more use of synergy such
as, the film was first created from a graphic novel into the movie. Them was divided
into parts, look story before, during and after as known as transmedia, the storyline
transmitted through different platforms. After the movie was released, into sequence
(2014) 300: rise of an empire as sequels. Release of soundtrack and then turned into
video game PSP. Shows use of clever marketing as the producers of the film 300
created different platforms to expand more the movie and gain more audience view.
For the social, political and regulatory features, In the 1960s, the Cold War was
happening, between the USSR and USA. The USSR (Russia) a communist country
and the USA a democracy and capitalist country would threaten one another but no
actual fighting occurred. The USSR wanted to spread communism, everyone having
the same payment and the government control over everything to make it fair but the
USA did not want this. They argued that people should have their own income and
independence from the government, as represented in the scene with the Greek
counsellors talking with one another. So the film replicated the war in a way, the
Spartans as the USA and the Persians as the USSR.
The regulatory used for both the films is BBFC, created in 1913, states what age is
required in order to watch a specific movie. The 1962 film, BBFCINSIGHT suggests
that the movie contains some mild violence so therefore the age that is convenient
to watch this film is from young ages and above but the children can only watch the
film with an adult, parental guidance. The second film in 2006 has more violence,
profanity and nudity used in certain scenes than compared to the first film. The
BBFCINSIGHT suggests that the 300 film contains strong bloody violence so
therefore the appropriate and suitable age to watch the film must be 15 years and
above, no ages under this number should watch the film. The use of this regulatory
will make sure that the correct target audience will watch the film that will not bring
them any harm and be approved for them to watch.

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The social feature used in The 300 Spartans movie, shows there was a
representation of women, in which the film was made for mainly the male audience,
using the male gaze theory, due to showing in the scene of the Persian tents,
women dressed in little loose clothing dancing around men. This scene is also
shown to be similar in the second movie, when Greek women, Persian guy said
“woman's tongue is more dangerous than physical sword” said by Persian king.
Emphasising that they are not good people, what they say is harsh. In the 1960s
there was hippie movement. Ellas and Ray speaking the young love, which
suggested that the young were the future and the age shown young couple in their
mid 20s which would be represented as rebellious and the
rest of characters were from around ages of 40 plus, old
and shown to be educated. All the characters shown in the
film tend to be all white with no other ethnic minorities
acting in the film. They even used makeup to darken
actors to get a darker tone skin colour to look like the
Persians, rather than including real ethnic minorities with
darker skin colour.
However, in the 300 movie, there was more use of ethnic
minorities, like the black messenger, and not all actors
were predominately just white people. Due to the times
becoming more modern,​ different ethnic minorities were
able to play in film rather than only using white people as
shown in the first film and it would be argued that in the
past years, it was more racist towards people who did not
have a white skin colour but not seen as such today.​ The images on the side show
how the first film has only contributed white people as actors but in the second film
there is an actual non white person acting in the film.
Moving onto the social class feature, The 300 Spartans movie predominantly has
white, upper/middle class people playing as the main actors in the film. Also, the
languages used in the film are formal, articulate and no use of profanity or swear
words. The generation tends to be the older generation, men from ages of 40 years
old and plus.
On the other hand, the 300 movie uses variety of new features in movie such as
different accents, negative and hurting words , use of profanity, as some of the
characters ‘don't care what they say’. Later in the years, the film 300 included more
violence within the battle scenes than shown in the first film in 1962 due to at that
time, the society did not approve of violence, as linked to the hippie movement as
well, along with profanity and nudity, but only a bit of sexual material, a scene where
Ellas and Ray peck on the lips but nothing more, were not seen as appropriate to be
shown in videos to the audience. But, in modern times it became more socially

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accepted to include these features mainly presented in films. The 300 shows the
uses of blood splattered on the screen and characters using bad language/swear
words.