THE POST-PRODUCTION: the three companies

HYBRIDE TECHNOLOGIES and SAPPHIRE PLUG-INSa leading canadian visual effects company that has a very long-standing relationship with rodriguez when working on previous films together. hybride company was called upon to tackle 735 shots in the first chapter of the film, "the hard goodbye," as well as other several shots. sapphire plug-ins created from genarts (adobe, maya, etc), was the main tool used at hybride to make the scenes they way they look. some of the design that hybride included in the film were the hotel rooms, alleys, buildings, statues, an electrocution chamber, a hospital elevator, a church, car chases, collisions, rain storms, gun shots, blood, gore, severed limbs, etc. the sapphire plug-ins provide digital artists with a collection of over 175 state-of-the-art image processing and synthesis effects.

CAFeFX and LIGHTWAVE 3D
-genarts demo reel
cafefx used lightwave 3D for the 3D elements in nearly 600 shots produced for sin city's, "the big fat kill" segment of the film. it was said that nearly all 600 shots used the lightwave program. cafefx started out with a complete green screened segment of the film and they integrated the scenes with complete cg environments (room interiors, brooding cityscapes, weather, exterior scenes, etc) using lighwave 3D

THE ORPHANAGE and BRAZIL
a san francisco based company, the company was given the segment of the "that yellow bastard" consisting of almost 600 shots. the orphanage paid close attention to the details that frank miller incorporated into his works and they tried to integrate that sort of style into their segment of the film. to apply that graphic aesthetic to the cinematic realm, the company first created complex 3D images. then to concentrate on the lighting, they used a global illumination ray tracer rendering engine called brazil, developed by splutterfish. the effect sometimes shadowed over the special effects that was just produced, which is something 3D artists never want to let happen, but it proved to have a pleasing result.

THE POST-PRODUCTION: digital backlot

sin city is one of the first films (along with sky captain and the world of tomorrow, casshern, etc) to be shot primarily on a digital backlot. a hd camera was used to shoot footage of the actors working in front of a green screen that allowed an artifical background (and some major foreground elements) to be added in later during post-production (though some hand-constructed sets were built for a few of the scenes). with the use of a sony hdc-950 high-definition camera and green screen together made sin city one of the few fully digital, live-action motion pictures. the whole movie was shot in color against a green screen and then was converted to a high-quality black and white film. as noticeable in the film, colorizaion was used on certain objects in a scene for emphasis. the film was color-corrected digitally and then was treated for heightened contrast (film-noir style tradition) to separate the whites and blacks more clearly.

THE POST-PRODUCTION: principal shooting/shot-for-shot

SHOT-FOR-SHOT:
(shot-for-shot adaptation, shot-for-shot representation) a term that describes visual work thats transferred almost identical from the original work without much interpretation. this term is mostly used in the film industry these days when it comes to producing films that come from a sort of comic/graphic novel origin. usually when screenplays are adapted for film, there are storyboards created for visual representation so that the crew knows how it should be shot. however, some directors (such as robert rodriguez) skipped that process and just used the comic panels as the storyboardseach scene or cut thats from the movie is identical to the panel in the publication.examples: sin city, 300, tintin


PRINCIPAL SHOOTING:
during the production of sin city, many of the scenes were shot before every actor was signed-on for their roles. in order for this time conserative process to work, there were several stand-ins used before the actual actors were digitally added into the film during post-production. some of the actors that share the same scene in the movie didn't shoot the scene together in real life. rodriguez, a knowledgeable person of cinematic technology, used the same sort of techniques in the past.

SIN CITY MOVIE: the comics brought to life

sin city is a film released in 2005 that is based off the comic book series by frank miller. the film adapted the same film-noir style that miller uses in the series. there were three main stories from the series that was used to compile the movie together:

(the customer is always right: a woman is out on a balcony and is later accompanied by a man who admits his infatuation with her. after they kiss, he kills her and says 'i'll cash her paycheck in the morning." side note: miller discusses that the woman is committing suicide. she tried to break it off with her boyfriend mobster and he told her he would kill her in a very excruciating way. she used her resources to find a hitman to kill her instantly)
that yellow bastard (part 01): an aging policeman, hartigan, tries to rescue an 11 year-old nancy from the sexual predator and serial killer of roark junior.
the hard goodbye: marv gets revenge on the people who murdered his love, a 'lady of the night.'
the big fat kill: a war between the prostitutes of old town and mercenaries from a wealthy upper class status.
that yellow bastard (part 02): hartigan is released from jail of 8 years to find nancy once again after evidence leading to her kidnap. however, hartigan is surprised to find that nancy is a dancer at kadie's and they both run away to escape a yellow man that follows them.
ending: the traitor from old town, becky, is leaving the hospital and goes onto an elevator. on the elevator is a 'doctor' who offers her a smoke, and she realizes that hes a hitman sent out to kill her.

THE CAST:
the movie was comprised of an all-star cast
jessica alba - nancy callahan
devon aoki - miho
alexis bledel - becky
powers boothe - senator roark
jude ciccolella - liebowitz
rosario dawson - gail
jason douglas - hitman
michael clarke duncan - manute
rick gomez - lump
carla gugina - lucille
josh hartnett - the salesman/the colonel
rutger hauer - cardinal patrick henry roark
nicky katt - stuka
jamie king - goldie/wendy
michael madsen - bob
frank miller - priest brittany murphy - shellie
nick offerman - shlubb
clive owens - dwight mccarthy
mickey rourke - marv
marley shelton - the customer
nick stahl - roark junior/yellow bastard
benicio del toro - det. lt. jack 'jackie boy' rafftery
bruce willis - det. john hartigan
elijah wood - kevin
makenzie vega - young nancy callahan
patricia vonne - dallas

THE DIRECTORS:

originally, robert rodriguez was the main director for the film. however, he did not want to continue with productions until he got frank miller's permission to do so. after an eventful day, miller agreed for the movie to go into production and rodriguez made him his co-director and should be credited for it as well. even though frank miller didn't have any sort of directorial background, he was just as part of the film as rodriguez. even though the directors guild of america wouldnt allow the two directors that weren't an established team to be credited (especially since miller never directed before), rodriguez planned on having miller taking the credit for the film. however, miller didn't want to accept that sort of credit since the movie production wouldnt have happened without rodriguez. so, rodriguez decided to resign from the guild so that the joint credit could remain. they also brought in quentin tarantino as a special guest director to direct a scene in the movie.

SIN CITY: the comics were just the beginning

the comic book series with a film-noir style created by frank miller. the series began in dark horse's fifth anniversary special (april 1991) and continued in dark horse presents #51-62 from may 1991 to june 1992. the comic was serialized into thirteen parts and all took place within basin city with all the characters intertwining in some way.

THE SETTING:
the city is called basin city (aka nicknamed sin city). a fictional town in the american-west. very corrupt city to live in. the police and swat team have access to any sort of heavy weaponry whenever requested because of the turmoil sin city is in with all of the high-end crimes. the policemen are usually classified as lazy/corrupt, and only a handful of them are honest. when the gold rush hit, the roark (the biggest name in the city) brought over a large amount of attractive girls to keep the miners entertained and brought much success to the family. the family migrated to other sort of business areas, leaving the girls to take absolute rule and order of old town, the prostitution central. the main settings the stories take place in:
-the projects: a run-down and poor side of sin city. there are several high-rise apartments and the crime rate is through the roof. the individuals that inhabit there formed a sort of society where they dont have to enounter other people from outside.
-the docks: a collection of wharf and warehouses that are local to the projects
-kadie's club pecos: a strip club/bar where nancy and shellie work, and marv and dwight hang out. even though brawls do happen within the joint, kadie's is one of the safest places to be in sin city.
-roark family farm: several of the stories take place at this location and it is where kevin, the serial killer, resides.
-old town: a red-light district and where the police have no jurisdiction within the area. the city's majority population of prostitutes reside here and twins named goldie and wendy took control over it. the women will do any sexual behaviors for a reasonable price but show now mercy to anyone who breaks the rules. they will fight back with force.
-sacred oaks: home to the rich and powerful of basin city.
-basin city central train station: is directly connected to phoenix
-the santa yolanda tar pits: an abandoned amusement park where tar pits are located and where dinosaur bones were excavated from. there are dinosaur statues all around and was used as an attraction sight until an old lady fell into one of the tar pits and died of a heart attack (thus, park was closed). its frequently used as a place where people take dead bodies to dump in the tar pits to never be found and where high schoolers sneak into a lot. miller admitted that the only reason why the tar pits exist is so that he has a reason to draw dinosaurs.

CHARACTER ORGANIZATIONS:
-the basin city police department: so corrupted that they are considered to be their own sort of gang paid thugs. they only assist to those who are willing to pay and turn a blind eye towards those that are too poor.
-the roark family: a dynasty of corrupt landowners and politicians that reign over basin city. famous roarks of this generation include a senator, a cardinal, an attorney general and roark junior (aka. yellow bastard)
-the girls of old town: old town is occupied with a majority of the city's prostitute women. they govern their own territory
-the wallenquist organization: a powerful crime syndicate led by herr wallenquist, a mysterious crime lord with a broad range of criminal enterprises to his name. the wallenquist seem to be the most peaceful and forgiving of the various crime leaders.
-the maligozzi crime family: the purest example of a "true" mafia lifestyle.


COMIC BOOK COMPILATIONS:
-the hard goodbye
-a dame to kill for
-the big fat kill
-that yellow bastard
-family values
-booze, broads and bullets
-hell and back (a sin city love story)

MAIN CHARACTERS:
-marv
-dwight mccarthy
-nancy callahan
-gail
-mho
-john hartigan
-wallace
-roark junior (aka yellow bastard)

FRANK MILLER: the introduction

frank miller: an american comic book artist, artist and director who created the sin city series (and obviously much, much more!) and is known to have a distinct style of creating film-noir comic book series. his first published work as an artist was for gold key comic's "twilight zone" issue #84 in 1978. it later followed some job opportunities at dc comics and then marvel comics. it was at marvel where frank miller became a regular fill-in artist and worked on different titles. while working on "spectacular spiderman" feature daredevil, miller wanted to go more extensive on the daredevil's character (at the time the daredevil was a minor character and never had any good sellings), so he asked his editor and began working on daredevil as a regular title series. as miller continued with the daredevil series with issue #158, he incorporated his film-noir style into the series and it proved to be very successful. the comic started to sell more and more and was produced monthly. miller even introduced the character elektra ino the daredevil series and she was proven to be a big hit. when miller decided to finish his daredevil run, he had successfully brought a minor character to the spotlight of a major character's role and made daredevil one of the most important comic book heroes today. he became well-known for his daredevil series and was one of the most sought-after comic book artists in the industry. he continued to write and draw for other comic books until he made it big with his own series, sin city in 1991. after its success, miller continued to work on more comic book projects and made it big again with his 300 series, a homage to the battle of thermopylae. he was inspired by the movie "the 300 spartans" that was made in the 60's and wanted to tell the story from point of view from leonidas of sparta. afterwards, he went back to dc comics and worked on the batman: the dark knight returns series. soon, miller was approached by robert rodriguez and was asked for permission to create a sin city movie. he became the co-director for the film and even had a cameo in the movie as a priest. the movie became a successful hit (obviously). miller's 300 series was also turned into a movie and became another success story in the film industry. now, miller directed the film, based off the comic book series by will eisner, the spirit. miller is also working on the production of sin city 2.

FRANK MILLER'S CREATIONS: he made what??

http://moebiusgraphics.com/

a website dedicated to the complete works of frank miller. even though he's well known for comics such as sin city and 300, there's literally handfuls of his works that have been published. just in case a person was interested and wanted to check out his stuff, then thats one of the places to go.

THE ONE THAT STARTED IT ALL

SIN CITY
THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT

this is the opening scene for the movie. this part of the movie segment is what started the whole movie production for the comic book series, sin city. just wanted to show how the movie adapted the high-contrasted style and minimal colors of objects from the comic book to the big screen (first: link is to show the green screen of the footage; second: the video of the result)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91SiTspiFoc

BACKSTORY:

robert rodriguez contacted frank miller to ask permission to make a movie adaptation of sin city the comic book series. with several unsuccessful comic-turned-movies, miller wasn't sure about it. however, rodriguez made a deal with him: i'll fly you out to texas for a one day test shoot. if you dont like it, we'll stop the production. if you like it, then we want to continue. so, miller went to texas and rodriguez took him to a digital back lot to begin filming. actors josh harnett and marley shelton began filming on a green screen soundstage of a segment from the comic book called 'the customer is always right.' after filming, rodriguez began editing the footage with visual effects and sound and presented the final product to miller. miller was blown away and stated, "a test?? come on! you dont put josh harnett in a test!! i dove right in."

SIN CITY CASE STUDY: the outline

very simplified case study outline.


INTRODUCTION

Sin City's Neo-noir style black and white world makes a stand as it proves that a certain unreal chiaroscuro stylistic comic book can be brought to life with a digital backlot and CG rendering.

1. THE BEGINNING (COMICS)
- Graphic Novel series (Dark Horse Comics 1991-1992)
- Frank Miller (creator)
- Film-noir style (aka Neo noir)

2. THE BEGINNING (FILM)
- Frank Miller and Robert Rodriguez (writers, producers and directors)
- Quentin Tarantino (special guest director)
- Three main segments used (plus additional scene):
--- The Customer Is Always Right
--- That Yellow Bastard (part 01)
--- The Hard Goodbye
--- The Big Fat Kill
--- That Yellow Bastard (part 02)
- Practice sequence in one day
--- The Customer Is Always Right
--- Josh Harnett and Marley Shelton
--- The beginning of it all

3. THE (POST)PRODUCTION
- Principal shooting (aka shot-for-shot)
- Digital backlot (greenscreen)
--- Mostly complete CG environments
--- Pure black and white necessities and color complications
- Sony HDC-950
- Hybride Technologies (The Hard Goodbye)
--- GenArts Sapphire Plug-ins
- CafeFX (The Big Fat Kill)
---LightWave 3D
- The Orphanage (That Yellow Bastard)
--- Brazil
- Avid's SoftImage XSI

CONCLUSION