Cephissius and Raymondo,
Great to notice that other GetBiggers appreciated that battle scene in The Revenant in which the camera did a 360 pan of all t he action that took place in that fantastic and extremely complicated shot.
I have witnessed a good number of Hollywood filming sequences and was very impressed that it all came together so elaborately.
I left that theater asking myself two elementary questions….
Where was the film crew hiding as the camera did its 360? Did the 20 or so other crew members plus all their equipment simply walk around in order to stay out of frame? Or were they all hidden in that distant tree line in the background?
Was it even possible to rehearse that scene before the camera rolled and then set that scene up again before the camera actually shot it?
That scene was more impressive than any other part of that movie, except for the fact that the acting was damn good too!
I think it was down to exhaustive rehearsal, they must have practiced for days. To coordinate such a large amount of actors, stuntmen, extras, horses, camera crew, plan out their movements, in the middle of the wilderness where they filmed must have taken some serious effort. As the battle scene started I was vaguely interested, yet another scene with Indians attacking Americans until I noticed there were no cuts, suddenly the screen had my full attention.
The Revenant is probably not the best film ever shot, but one of the most unique. Despite some discreet CGI here and there, the setting made this film as real as it could possibly be, a truly immersive experience and I only watched it on a 27" monitor. I can't imagine what it would have looked like on the BFI IMAX screen I usually go to.
