The process through which modern movies are made is fascinating. Over and over we see essentially the same stories, quite literally if you consider the 7 basic movie plot themes, and yet we continue to want to see movies. The adaptions that explore the themes of man vs. himself and man vs. everything else are endless and as textured as life itself.

What I find so interesting though are the challenges that have to be overcome before that first scene is ever shot. The movie title The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is just that kind of movie.

Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald (who’s name has been in the news lately with The Great Gatsby moving forward as a new movie) in 1922, this movie endured six decades as a project before coming to life as a motion picture. Aside from the commitment of the producers who took on this challenge, this is also a story about how technology is making movies possible that might not have been so in years past, indeed this one sentence sums up that thought… Fitzgerald would never have imagined his story ending up on anything but a can of film in his day, much less the CGI that makes it possible to age one actor an entire lifetime in 148 days.

But on Nov. 6, 2006, the shoot at last got under way, and 148 days later, the images had been captured on a hard drive.

[From All about the 'Benjamin']