Roar (film) narrative location Africa
Filming
Principal photography began on October 1, 1976, and was initially scheduled to last for six months, but filming was restricted to five months at a time because the cottonwood trees on set turned brown from November until March. Filming the big cats was difficult and frustrating; cinematographer Jan de Bont often spent hours setting up five cameras and waiting for the cats to do something that could be included in the film. This eventually led to Marshall and the crew recording footage in documentary style with up to eight Panavision 35mm cameras. One scene where Marshall and Mativo drive a 1937 Chevrolet containing two tigers took seven weeks to complete, because Glassey and Miller had to train the animals to ride in a car. Marshall often refused to stop filming because he did not want to lose a take; sometimes only one take was usable from a day's filming.The opening footage of Marshall racing a bull giraffe on a motorcycle was filmed in Kenya, with the location acknowledged in the credits. One session involved a leopard licking Hedren's face which had been coated in honey; Hedren considered it to be one of the most dangerous scenes she agreed to film as although handlers were 8 feet (2.4 m) away, they would not have been able to stop the cat from biting her. In the scenes where some of the big cats are shot and killed by hunters, the effect was achieved by filming the animals when they were tranquilized for their annual blood draw.Filming took five years to complete. Although Hedren has claimed that principal photography ended on October 16, 1979, after just over three years, additional pick-up shots were filmed in Kenya during the editing stage. The total production time was 11 years.