Robert Rodriguez’s comic book film Sin City
will be the first film to be shot in 4:4:4 HD. It managed to beat George Lucas’ last installment of Star Wars.
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Who is Robert Rodriguez ?
He is one of the few successful Indie film makers who not only have made it big in Hollywood, but have done so with an unique style of film making. The others include Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Kill Bills), Steven Sodenberg (Oceans 11 , Erin Brokowitch, Traffic). These film makers started from zero, and based on pure talent commanded a cult following among fans. Rodriguez as a 23 year old, made a ultra low budget mexican gangbang flick “El Mariachi” with just $7,000. The movie was so well done that it was picked up by a Major studio and made pots of money. Rodriguez then followed up with Desperado and stylishly shot “Once Upon a time in Mexico”. He also did the kids flick “Spy Kids”.
Rodriguez successfully proved that he can do everything himself and not rely neither on Hollywood machinery nor its mammoth unions (WGA and DGA – he resigned from both places) to be successful. He completes his movies in his ‘Garage’ – shoots, edits, composes out of his HOME. But does it with such flair that it is indistinguishable from big budget movies. When budgets were soaring north of $100mil, he made desperado under $7mil. Infact, all his movies are mounted on flashy glossy frames, but is actually D-I-Y stuff.
He has denounced film films and is a staunch supporter of digital film making. He has been shooting digital since 2000.
So why is SIN CITY a path breaker ?
Well, this is the first film to be done in 4:4:4 space. It is full-bandwidth RGB – the maximum visual data you can get out of a scene. It is very hard to edit and produce a feature using existing technologies in 4:4:4. Lucas ‘ upcoming Star Wars is done on 4:4:4. Sin City beat it by about a month.
Ok back to 4:4:4. Consumer digital video cameras typically use a 4:1:1 format. SD (standard definition) cameras use a 4:2:2 format. HD cameras can use 4:2:2, or a 4:2:0 format based on “spatial” samples of 2×2-pixel squares. So 4:4:4 is the highest possible source sample you can get out of a camera. Theoretically its even better or on par with Film. But being an all digital signal, it has so many advantages over film.
One of the key features is chroma-keying. Rodriguez being a home-based film maker has a lot of computer generated shots. He had live actors acting in front of Green screens totally detached from everything else seen on screen – they talk to air, they react to air, even kiss air – but when fully composited they might as well be talking to a 3 headed alien under Planet Neboolah’s purple acidic ocean with firespitting sea ants in the background. These green screens have been used for a long time – but being all digital just makes it easier. ‘Skycaptain and the world of Tomorrow’ was the first film which was done totally using chroma keying (and the chinese fantasy movie Casshern). So 4:4:4 offers maximum data to do seamless chroma keying.
This is one movie I can’t wait to watch. Its releasing on April 1 – hope it doesn’t turn out to be an April fools movie.
Another interesting name attached to ‘Sin City’ is Quentin Tarantino. QT was paid $1 to direct a small segment in the climax. Maybe that’s Roberts way of getting back at QT for paying him $1 to compose musical score for ‘Kill Bill2′. No, actually they are good buddies and even directed an indie hit ‘Four Rooms’ (1995) together. Then they collaborated in mexican vampire movie ‘From Dusk till Dawn’ (1996).
Rodriguez is also partially responsible for energizing the careers of Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek and George Clooney.
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