Thursday, October 4, 2012

Fun Film Fact 10/4/12

Happy Birthday to the great Charlton Heston!

In honor of his birthday, here are a couple fun facts about his most famous film
BEN-HUR (1959)

The famous chariot race had a 263-to-1 cutting ratio, meaning that for every 263 feet of film that was recorded, only 1 foot made it into the movie. This is one of the highest cutting ratios in the history of film.

William Wyler was offered $1,000,000 to direct the film, the highest salary ever for a director at the time.

At the time there were very few 65mm cameras in existence, and one of them was destroyed during the filming of the chariot race.
(A similar thing happened to an IMAX camera on the set of The Dark Knight)

Ben-Hur is the first movie remake to win Best Picture at the Oscars. The Departed became the second, 47 years later.



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