News culture 5 million dollars, 1 year and 135 cameras… It’s the most difficult scene to produce in the history of cinema. All that for a word!
Published on 02/11/2024 at 08:30
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Directors sometimes give their all to their film. 5 million dollars, 1 year and 135 cameras were needed for just one word of this scenario.
Operation Swordfish was the film of all madness. Dominic Sena, director of the feature film, has indeed given his all. In addition to having one of the most expensive scenes in cinema (which still cost $15 million), another sequence required colossal work. 5 million dollars, 1 year and 135 cameras were needed for the scene considered the most difficult to achieve in history.
Operation Swordfish, released on September 12, 2001, tells the story of Stanley, a prodigious hacker who tries to start his life over again after going to prison. However, he will quickly plunge back into crime when he is hired by the mysterious Gabriel and his assistant Ginger, who form a team of mercenaries. Their objective ? Stealing the sum of 9.5 billion dollars that the American government set aside in the 1980s during the anti-drug operation known as “Swordfish”. However, everything will not go as planned, and the situation will quickly become explosive.
30 seconds long and only one word… “Kaboom”
The famous sequence lasts a total of 30 seconds in the film and contains only one word: “Kaboom”. Dominic Sena reflected on the creation of this moment in the film’s production notes. “During that scene, police cars are exploding, guys are flying through the air, and it had to be timed so that when we got to camera number 125, this guy was flying into the frame,” he says. . “I’ve never seen anything so difficult to prepare. There were a whole bunch of layers: one for the explosion, one for the car being thrown into the air, one for the people who were supposed to be next to the car. It was a separate passage so no one would get hurt. So it was a succession of scenes that took 3 days to complete,” he explains.
Buy or rent Operation Swordfish on Prime Video
A scene 85% real
Even though the filming time was relatively short, it was the preparation time that was important. Considering the time of its release, the visual effects technologies were not sufficient. Ultimately, 85% of what you see on screen is the result of practical effects. CGI was used primarily for adding dangerous objects into the explosion.
“For all the exterior shots of the scene, we had to slow down 134 frames to 400 frames per second. Generally speaking, it was necessary to generate around two new images between each take and this could sometimes go up to 7 for certain camera angles” concludes the director.
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