Editing Russian Ark (section)

== Production ==

The film displays 33 rooms of the museum, which are filled with a cast of over 2,000 actors and three orchestras. ''Russian Ark'' was recorded in uncompressed [[high-definition video]] using a [[Sony HDW-F900]] camera. 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. According to ''In One Breath: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark'', the documentary on the making of the film, four attempts were made. The first failed at the five-minute mark. After two more failed attempts, they were left with only enough battery power for one final take. The four hours of daylight available were also nearly gone. Fortunately, the final take was a success and the film was completed at 90 minutes. 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."<ref name="indieWIRE">{{cite web | work=indieWIRE | title=Interview: Achieving the Cinematic Impossible | date=26 November 2002 | url=http://www.indiewire.com/article/interview_achieving_the_cinematic_impossible_russian_ark_dp_tilman_buttner_/ | access-date=13 October 2011}}</ref> Lighting directors of photography on the film were [[Bernd Fischer (cameraman)|Bernd Fischer]] and Anatoli Radionov.<ref name="IMDb">{{cite web | work=Russiky kovcheg | title=Full Cast and Crew for Russiky kovcheg | url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318034/fullcredits#cast | access-date=1 August 2008}}</ref> The director later rejected Büttner's nomination for a European Film Academy award, believing that only the whole film should gain an award.<ref name="Sokurov">{{cite web|work=The Island of Sokurov |title=To the European Film Awards |url=http://www.sokurov.spb.ru/island_en/ans_1.html |access-date=1 August 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070816133343/http://www.sokurov.spb.ru/island_en/ans_1.html |archive-date=16 August 2007 }}</ref>