‘Robin Hood’ Trailer Gives Audience the Shaft

Filming a speeding arrow--from the arrow’s point of view--for Warner Bros.’ “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” teaser trailer was no flight of fancy.

It took unusual footage shot in an English forest, combined with special effects involving an eight-foot arrow, to give audiences their exhilarating ride with the feathered shaft as it flies to its target--splitting another arrow.

The trailer is now in theaters, well ahead of the summer release of the Morgan Creek film, which stars Kevin Costner as the legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest. While the footage will also be used in the TV campaign, says Joel Wayne, Warner Bros. senior advertising veep, it may or may not end up in the film itself.

Tony Seiniger, the ad exec who directed the trailer, utilized a camera traveling along 300 feet of dolly track covered with leaves straight to a stately beech tree. The camera was “undercranked” at one frame per second--rather than the customary 24 frames--and the footage then projected at the normal 24 frames, creating the illusion of flying.

Special-effects director Michael Bigelow then constructed an eight-foot arrow here, as well as a huge prosthetic hand to draw the arrow back. The objects were filmed frame by frame on a motion-control rig and the footage optically joined to the forest footage, to create the illusion of an arrow in flight.

If the sequence seems reminiscent of a tree-dodging chase in “Return of the Jedi,” it should.

“That’s what inspired us,” Seiniger said.