How did the re-enactors help make Roman history come alive?
We got a lot of mileage out of empty rooms. We created the sense of human presence by leaving remnants of human activity around a burning oil lamp, a dripping ink pen. In some instances, though, we felt we needed more: we felt the scene demanded more dynamism. So we turned to a handful of amateur historians to help animate the shots. We worked with individuals who’ve dedicated their adult lives, in a number of cases, to studying and recreating the costumes and the habits of ancient Romans particularly Roman soldiers. We worked with two groups that are particularly well known for their authenticity one in Germany and the other in England. We asked them not to re-enact any specific event, but just to fill the shoes of anonymous Romans. We shot them in a stylized way both to signal that the action was being re-enacted and to maintain a trance-like atmosphere. Michael Chin often used long lenses and a lot of diffusion. We frequently positioned something in the foreground and shot through o
