With the Robert Rodriguez’s smash hit Sin City hitting the DVD shelves Aug. 16th, a small group of reporters sat down with the maverick filmmaker to talk Sin, sequels, and breakfast tacos.
Sin City is based on three graphic novels, The Hard Goodbye, The Big Fat Kill, and That Yellow Bastard, written by Frank Miller - who co-directed the film with Rodriguez. The film incorporates more of Rodriguez’s digital style of filmmaking along maintaining the graphic novels gritty feel through state-of-the art visual effects.
Q: Is this (the visual style of the film) going to be the future direction for you, doing film the way that you did Sin City? Will you do any sequels exactly the same way using Green Screen and all?
RR: Probably, I’ll probably do all Green Screen. It depends; there might be a couple sets. We did a bar set, did some other stuff in the bar. It just couldn’t get the same look. The look will be so stylized, even more probably in the second one. You’d have to shoot it Green Screen.
RR: I think we’re willing to try anything at this point. We (Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino) had dinner last night with Tony Scott and we were talking about that same thing. He was trying to pull out of us how we are doing these movies. We’re trying to figure out how he makes his movies and he’s asking us how we make ours. “I don’t understand how you guys do it on Green Screen. I want to get into some of that.”
Q: Audiences seem to respond to your use of Green Screen and the way you’ve incorporated it into the story telling more than they do some of these big block-buster movies. What do you think you’re doing differently to make people look past the tricks and really get into your films?
Rodriguez is at home in a green screen environment
RR: I think they’re unusual movies. People like stuff that’s different, kinda quirky and weird. That’s what my stuff is, it’s pretty out there. They’re all fantasies and completely ridiculous. And they’re inexpensive so you have a chance to make a profit.
Q: I was impressed by the fact that you struck a balance between this extraordinary visual look and performance. Is it very hard for the actors to perform the way you got them to perform and do it well?
RR: You pretty much set the stage. It was all-new for a lot of people. They came in not knowing what to expect. I told them: “It’s like theater. You’re going to be on a blank stage with very few props and the rest is imagined.” And they’re like: “Oh! We can relate to that.” It became easier to get the performances because that’s all you had to concentrate on. The visuals I had already done tests for and I already knew we could make that look good. I’m doing the effects and the photography, so I’m taking care of that. They don’t have to worry about that. I’m just getting the performance. All that other stuff, I do later. I had already done enough tests to know that that was going to work fine.
Q: Is it comfortable to know that you have the actors that can come in and do those particular scenes, where there’s nothing around, and they’ll go in and just bang those scenes out?
RR: People go: “How do you do a scene where there’s no car and there’s just a steering wheel? Isn’t that weird?” Well they’ve all driven a car before and even when you’re shooting a regular movie they’re not driving there either. The car’s always towed and there’s lights around it or it’s a partial car. So they’re always having to act. This is just taking it another step. They get into it right away. I mean they’re actors and they really can pretend.
Miller (left) and Rodriguez discuss an upcoming scene
Q: Were any of your actors surprised at the end result?
RR: Oh they all were. When they all saw it and were like: “Wow, when did all that happen? When were we there?” We shot it so fast; they probably don’t remember doing it. Benicio (Del Toro) was there for like four days. Brittany (Murphy) was there one day. Jamie King was there a day and a half. Bruce (Willis) was there ten days. It was very quick.<!--page-->
Sin City is visually amazing to watch
Q: I know you like to work fast but do you have any desire or need to do a really prolonged “Lord of the Ring” style on-set experience movie?RR: (Makes the motion of shooting himself in the head) Nah. I’m having to do this with something, but it’s still fast.
Q: It seems that DVD has become the director’s new best friend. Is that really [the case?]
RR: Yeah, I mean the way you can perceive how entertainment is viewed. Not just for DVD but future HD/DVD and all the extra things you can put on. When I was doing Sin City you’re just very aware, ok there’s a theatrical release which is pretty much a one-shot, people go see that in theaters for a couple weeks and then they kinda forget about that. Whatever comes out later is the more definitive version. I told Frank [Miller] let’s just do three stories. I know that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But we cram three stories together, shoot the full books, but in editing I’ll figure out what stuff to cut out to make it flow as a feature, for the theatrical release.
R.R. (continued) So people can sit there and under two hours and see sort of resemblance of what the movie is. But when the movie goes to DVD we can do a special edition where a second disc can have the stories separated out in their full cuts and you can see it the way you would read the books. You can watch “The Yellow Bastard” and see its full cut or see “Big Fat Kill.” That’s the way you’re supposed to read the books. You’re not supposed to read three in a row really quick. So that’s going to be cool. I really thought about that. We shot the full books and all the voice over knowing that we could put it together as single episodes. And then eventually if we did part 2 and part 3 we’d end up having a disc that had all the stories separated and you could put them in any order that you’d want, watch them any way that you’d want.
Sin City seems like it jumped from the comic to the screen thanks to its unique filming
Q: Knowing that there may be different iterations of a movie released on DVD, do you do anything in particular, as a filmmaker to make sure that you distinguish one release from the other? Like Peter Jackson did with Lord of the Rings movies.
RR: It (the special edition version that will be coming later) has everything: it has all kinds of stuff on there: it will have a 20 minute film school, a new cooking school “Sin City Breakfast Tacos.” My favorite feature is, you know people watch DVDs and complain: “The only about home entertainment is you miss that audience experience.” Well the best audience is in Austin especially for a movie that was made there. We show premieres with the actors there in a 1500 seat theater and they go crazy. Sin City was a big reaction. I recorded the audience in 5.1. So watching the DVD, if you want to see it with an Austin audience on premiere night, just click a button.
Quentin (Tarantino) when he directed his sequence usually just let the tape roll and it would tape for an hour. So there’s like 20 minutes of uninterrupted tape. You see him go in front of the camera, talking with the actors and directing. You hear the whole sounds of the set. It’s like you’re right there on the set seeing the movie being shot from the point of view of the camera that’s shooting the movie. Uninterrupted, that’s really cool. You feel like you’re right there and you get to see what it’s like to work with Quentin and the actors and how the movie actually gets made.
Q: Is Quentin going to return to do some directing in [Parts] 2 and 3?
RR: I dunno. I haven’t finished the script yet. He might.
Willis shoots a scene in front of the green screens
Q: Do you think Sin City benefited from the comic book boom? Could it have been as successful in the mid-90s, assuming that the technology was around to do it?
RR: I don’t know that it even would have been discovered the first time around. I thought it would be something that would be discovered later on DVD. You don’t know how people are going to react to black & white or anthology stories. It was going to be something that was really different. People may have noticed right away but later would find that was something really cool. So I was surprised that people found it right off. I don’t know why that is.<!--page-->
Q: What drives you to work so hard and fast? You seem to be always doing something.
RR: I know I’m on vacation and I’m over here writing. I think I skipped the vacation part. I kept talking about how when all these movies are done I’m gonna have the whole summer off. Somehow we’re still working. I’m like: “What did we do? We never went anywhere for vacation.” I just like making stuff. It doesn’t feel like work really. It’s very life-giving to be that creative all the time. I mean when you have that many projects you’re forced to be creative. So you’re forced to be alive. In a way it’s kind of a downer when it all goes away. Cuz you’re like: “Now what am I going to do, watch TV? Gotta get another project going. My life-support’s going out.”
Q: Are you going to have the same kind of working relationship with Frank Miller on the sequels? Is he ready to direct on his own?
RR: Yeah, he wants to. He loved it. He said:’ Oh I can see why you want to do this all the time.” He can’t wait to get back on set.
Q: What are you guys thinking about for the sequels? What stories will you do?
RR: “A Dame to Kill For” is the part of the basis for the second one.
Q: So which characters would be returning?
RR: I think Marv comes back (this is before he dies). Dwight is in that one. Gail is in that one. Both Goldie and Wendy are together, she’s [Goldie] still alive so you see the twins together, one blonde, one black and white. Miho’s in that one. And then there’s a bunch of new characters.
Rourke’s Marv is like watching the graphic novel come to life
Q: Have you looked at “Hell and Back” which has a lot of that color?
RR: Totally. I’d thought about “Hell and Back” and “Family Values”. There are so many good books. It’s really just picking and choosing. We’re starting with “Dame to Kill For” and a couple of other shorts to kind of see how they work together.
Q: That’s the second one. And then the third one is yet to be determined?
RR: Yeah, I’m still writing the script to see if there’s enough for the third one or if we’re just going to do a second one.
Q: Is there a timeline for any of this stuff yet?
RR: We’re supposed to shoot in January. I’d like to do it earlier if we can work it into the schedule.
Q: Any actors you’re thinking about bringing in, any new people that you’ve got in mind?
RR: No not yet.
Rourke rehearses a scene in front of the green screens
Q: Do you have a bigger budget this time around?RR: No, usually we make each sequel a little bit cheaper than the one before. So it will probably be less.
Q: But you were saying that it might be on a grander scale. Does that mean that the technology has already improved that quickly?
RR: Yeah. We did that on each Spy Kids. The movies just got cheaper. The third one had the most effects and was in 3-D even and was less expensive than the first one. It always does and also how you use it. There were some things I did early in the test that I thought I might have gone too far. So I pulled it back a little bit.<!--page-->
Q: Where did you come up with this concept, even just to say “I’m going to do a movie on Green Screen”?
RR: It was gradual. Spy Kids I had started doing stuff with Green Screen. Spy Kids 2 had more; full sequences that were done in Green. Spy Kids 3, because it was in a video game had to be done all CG. They didn’t even have props. They would hold out their hand like that and I would put a prop in so that it would look like it was generated by the video game. When I went to look at Sin City [I said]: “Oh I know how to do this now.” It’s all Green Screen. It’s the only way to photograph this. Because you can’t naturally photograph and bend light like that on a real set. You have to do it green.
The movie doesn’t water down the comic’s violent tone
Q: What kinds of challenges are there to have to jump back and forth between these two series or unique films (kid friendly like Spy Kids to the more adult Sin City) that have such different tones?
RR: That happened by accident when I did Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Spy Kids 2 and 3. I like doing two very different projects at the same time. As opposed to doing Mexico and Sin City at the same time, then you get it all mixed up. “Whose head are we cutting off?” “Whose arm is that?” These were so different it’s almost easier to two at once. Because then you’re not as fixated on one project and over-thinking it. It gives you a lot of distance to switch; do a kids movie for half a day and then come back to Sin City and go: “Oh I know what to do here.” You get a lot more objective, like your mind went on a vacation.
Sin City is available for pre-order at Amazon for an Aug. 16 release. It is available for pre-order at AmazonUK for a Sept. 26 release. Visit the film’s database for more information. Click here to read the second part of the Robert Rodriguez interview where the director talks Spy Kids, Conan, and Quentin Tarantino
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