Russian Ark - Production

Production

The film displays 33 rooms of the museum, which are filled with a cast of over 2,000 actors and 3 orchestras. Russian Ark was recorded in uncompressed high definition video using a Sony HDW-F900. The information was not recorded compressed to tape as usual, but uncompressed onto a hard disk which could hold 100 minutes which was carried behind the cameraman as he traveled from room to room, scene to scene. Three attempts were made to complete the shot; the first two had to be interrupted owing to technical faults, but the third (and final chance to complete the shot owing to time constraints) was completed successfully. Tilman Büttner, the director of photography and Steadicam operator, executed the shot on 23 December 2001.

In a 2002 interview, Büttner said that film sound was recorded separately. "Every time I did the take, or someone else made a mistake, I would curse, and that would have gotten in, so we did the sound later." Lighting directors of photography on the film were Bernd Fischer and Anatoli Radionov. The director later drew a distinction between the whole project and the achievements of Büttner by rejecting Büttner's nomination for a European Film Academy award, believing that only the whole film should gain an award.