Let’s take a ride into Sin City. All “That Yellow Bastard” (left) images property of Dimension Films. Courtesy of The Orphanage. All “The Big, Fat Kill” images property of Dimension Films. Courtesy of CaféFX.

“Inspired by…” It’s the formula followed by just about every studio that’s ever translated a comic book into film. Looking to mine the rich stories and inspired visuals of decades’ worth of superheroes and dark anti-heroes, Hollywood’s aim has never been about creating literal translations from print to screen. They’ve been more intent on capturing the spirit of the original or just bringing life to a character…until now. Rebellious filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has built his career on doing things his way, literally directing, shooting, writing, cutting, scoring and even creating the visual effects for his films. Yet when he became obsessed with the idea of translating Frank Miller’s heralded Sin City graphic novels to screen, it wasn’t to put his own spin on the groundbreaking works. Instead, Rodriquez wanted to give Miller the chance to see his drawings and words faithfully adapted to the big screen — the first graphic novel made real on celluloid. For years, other directors had tempted Miller with the same promises, but the writer declined every offer. That is until Rodriguez, in Miller’s own words, literally seduced him into giving his blessing. But a blessing wasn’t enough for Rodriguez and he drafted Miller as his co-director on Sin City (to the detriment of Rodriquez’s DGA membership), ensuring that Miller’s vision would remain the guiding principle for all aspects of the production.

Rodriguez and Miller shot Sin City entirely at the filmmaker’s Austin, Texas, compound, Troublemaker Studios, with a large cast of Hollywood veterans and up-and-comers, including Bruce Willis, Benicio Del Toro, Rosario Dawson and Jessica Alba. Yet even more enticing was Rodriguez’s plan of how to approach tackling the visual look and feel of Miller’s novels for the movie. Following the path of his Spy Kids films, Rodriguez made the choice to shoot the actors almost entirely in greenscreen environments, using the barest minimum of props, with the intention of creating Miller’s world digitally. While Troublemaker did some initial previs work for the segment they shot to sway Miller’s approval for the film, Rodriguez knew the scale of the film would be too big for his in-house facility and bid the project out to three visual effects boutiques with whom he had previously worked: Hybride, CaféFX and The Orphanage. Each facility was awarded one entire story to create for the film, either “The Hard Goodbye,” “The Big, Fat Kill” or “That Yellow Bastard.” They were then provided Miller’s novel, the filmed footage for their story (with Troublemaker establishing the look with Rodriguez along with invaluable groundwork), and were mandated by Rodriguez to create their segment with Miller’s artistic vision as their guide. Rodriguez also told the houses to work independently, in a virtual creative bubble, so that each story’s look would remain true to Miller’s own artistic evolution over the series of the novels. The three stories would then be connected together in HD post, where the assembly would connect the three visions together for the first time. VFXWorld talked to the visual effects supervisors from each house to get their perspectives on this unique creative process and their personal challenges in making these stunning pages come to life.

Daniel Leduc and his Hybride had to adjust to doing real characters on CG backgrounds instead of CG characters on real backgrounds. All “The Hard Goodbye” images property of Dimension Films. Courtesy of Hybride.

Hybride — “The Hard Goodbye”
Visual effects collaborators with Rodriquez since the first Spy Kids, Hybride of Quebec was the first house to begin work on Sin City after the initial test was done at Troublemaker in late spring of 2004. Daniel Leduc, vp and visual effects producer of Hybride, became the supervisor for the house on the film and he explains that they were approached by Rodriquez to join the project despite their lack of familiarity with Miller’s novels.