|  ANTONIO
BANDERAS
Antonio Banderas returns to SPY KIDS 2 as Gregorio Cortez -- daring
secret agent, suave and seductive husband and now, a dad worried
that his growing kids no longer need him. This time Banderas gives
his character new comic twists by adding to his vulnerability. Despite
his brilliant spy work, Gregorio Cortez proves to a husband afraid
of his in-laws, a working man about to be passed over for the promotion
he deserved and a father who needs to know his kids still think
he’s their hero.
Banderas
was thrilled to be back in one of his most surprising yet favorite
screen roles to date. “It feels so good to part of something
that has wonderful family principles, but is also magical and high-action
with a hip sense of humor,” he says. “That’s what
brought me back. And it’s also exciting to work with Robert
Rodriguez in one of the most creative and imaginative moments of
his career. He is creating something with SPY KIDS that is larger-than-life,
the kind of movies that capture your heart no matter how old you
are. And this time he has put in even more thrills, more ideas and
more funny stuff.”
He
might be larger-than-life but in THE ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS, Gregorio
Cortez finds himself baffled and bewildered when his kids seem to
no longer come to him for advice – whether related to espionage
or otherwise. Instead, they seem to favor the fantastical abilities
of do-it-all robots and have come to rely on their own spy-smarts
. . . until they get into trouble so big they discover just how
much they still need their father.
“Gregorio’s
having a series of very bad days when this movie begins,”
observes Banderas. “He is not quite as happy-go-lucky as he
was previously, but that allows me to really bring a sense of humor
to his character beyond what we did in the first film, when people
were getting to know him.”
He
continues: “But that’s what I love about this movie
– we take these kind of mythic characters, these fantasy,
invincible spies and give them everyday family problems. I love
the possibility of laughing at these characters. I think it shows
us that it’s OK to laugh at ourselves.” For many, it’s
Banderas’ ability to play the fool and the sophisticate equally
well that makes Gregorio so appealing to kids and adults. Sums up
Holland Taylor, who plays his mother-in-law in SPY KIDS 2: “Antonio
is the perfect combination of clown and great romantic hero. When
an elegant man willingly and happily makes fun of himself, the way
Antonio does in this role, it is irresistible.”
Banderas
was also intrigued by the idea of introducing a new generation into
SPY KIDS 2: Carmen and Juni’s veteran spy grandparents, who
also happen to be Gregorio’s skeptical in-laws. “There
is a whole new side of family relationships to be explored with
the addition of the grandparents – and there’s a lot
of comedy for adults in this, too, because we bring in the dimension
of dealing with your own in-laws and parents,” points out
Banderas. “Carla and I tried to put in little funny things
about that for the parents that kids might not catch.”
But
Banderas also liked that the kids – both Carmen and Juni and
their rivals Gary and Gerti Giggles -- take center stage in this
adventure when it comes to the spy intrigue. “The situation
is kind of reversed in this new adventure,” he says. “The
kids get in trouble and their parents have to find them. But it’s
still about what is important in life: using your head and your
heart and working together to do the right thing.”
 INGRID
CORTEZ
Current Status: Active, World’s Great Spy Mom
Carla
Gugino once again portrays Ingrid Cortez, the mom whose makeup mirror
is secretly a supercomputer with a direct connection to OSS spy
headquarters. Gugino had so much fun in the first “Spy Kids”
adventure; she couldn’t wait to return. “Kids are the
best audience because they’re so appreciative of entertainment
that doesn’t condescend to them,” she says. “And
what better character could there be than the world’s coolest,
greatest, funniest mom?”
This
time around, Ingrid Cortez is fighting for something even closer
to home than the fate of the world: she’s battling to save
her children from harm. This vigorous passion attracted Gugino,
as did the opportunity to check out Robert Rodriguez’s latest
and coolest new inventions. She says: “I remember when we
were shooting the first ‘Spy Kids,’ Robert had so many
ideas, we just couldn’t get them all in. Well, now he has
created an even bigger adventure, to really bring his passion for
invention into it. This new movie has more surrealism, more Bond-style
gizmos and this whole island filled with fabulous, crazy creations.
He’s taking the whole concept a step further, instead of playing
it safe.”
As
with Rodriguez’s first film, Gugino found all the fantastical
fun infused with something else kids crave: a sense of meaning.
She explains her take on the journey in SPY KIDS 2: “This
one’s about how even though your family drives you crazy –
whether it’s your mother chiding you or your in-laws pushing
your buttons – ultimately when a family all works together
there’s no greater power.”
Like
Antonio Banderas, Gugino was excited to have two new Cortezes join
the fray: her equally savvy spy parents. “It’s a whole
multi-generational spy thing now,” she says. “It’s
allows us to explore what Ingrid has learned from her parents and
how she has passed that along to our children. I mean now Carmen
is hacking into the Pentagon computer, which is taking her mother’s
sense of curiosity and adventure to a whole new level. Each generation
seems to go one step further and sometime we can only watch in awe
at what our kids can do.”
 GARY
AND GERTI GIGGLES
SPY STATUS: Active, assigned to UKATA; on trail of Transmooker Device
SPY
KIDS 2: ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS sees the return of Daryl Sabara and
Alexa Vega as the world’s most coveted Spy Kids, Carmen and
Juni Cortez. But this time they meet up with a pair of rival sibling
spies: Gary and Gerti Giggles, the very latest kids working their
way up the ranks of the OSS. Gary and Geri just happen to be the
children of Donnagon, head of the OSS, and he makes sure they get
the plum assignment of UKATA – a top-secret quest to uncover
what’s happening on a mysterious island where the powerful
Transmooker Device, which can shut down all electricity on earth,
was invented. But Carmen and Juni have their own ideas about who
should get to go on the mission, and reroute the Giggles to the
Gobi Desert – and that’s just the start of their rivalry.
To
play Gary and Gerti Giggles, two new young actors were initiated
into the Spy Kids family: Matt O’Leary and Emily Osment (sister
of Haley Joel Osment). As a fan of the first film, O’Leary
was excited to see the ranks of Spy Kids personnel increasing. “I
definitely like that there are more kids in the OSS organization
now,” he says. “Juni and Carmen are really professionals
now – I mean they’ve proven to be just as good as the
adults. And the Giggles want to be seen the same way. It’s
a really cool position to be in.”
O’Leary describes the character of Gary Giggles like this:
“He’s very rich, very smart and very smart aleck. All
he wants is to be the very best Spy Kid in the world, but he’ll
do whatever it takes to be on top. I think he’s probably one
of those kids you just love to hate, which is a really fun role
to play.” Adds Emily Osment: “Gerti also thinks she’s
sort of better than everyone, but it’s easy to understand
because she and Gary are very smart and they do a lot of cool things.”
Even
though they become competitors with Juni and Carmen, both O’Leary
and Osment had sympathy for their characters as kids who are led
astray by their ambition. “The Giggles aren’t really
evil,” sumps up O’Leary. “They just want to stay
one step ahead of the Cortezes but that means there’s a lot
of twists and surprises as they each race to accomplish the same
assignment. They all learn later that to really win, we have to
work things out together.”
All
of this required some of the most physical acting O’Leary
and Osment had ever experienced. While Alexa Vega and Daryl Sabara
were already used to working in harnesses and performing specially
designed stunts, O’Leary and Osment got a first-time immersion
into spy skills. “We’ve been climbing volcanoes and
swinging on vines and flying in the air and all sorts of things,”
says Emily Osment. “I think the whole idea is that this time
around the missions are even harder because the Spy Kids can handle
it.”
For
both O’Leary and Osment one of the one of the hardest things
to handle in ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS was that during the Giggles detour
to the Gobi Desert, they are glopped with an overwhelming amount
of camel dung – and wind up wearing it for part of the movie.
“It was in our hair, in our ears, all over our faces and it
was really disgusting – but it was also really funny,”
says Emily Osment.
 GRANDMA
AND GRANDPA CORTEZ
STATUS: Retired but not tired; still a force
Playing
the Cortez kids’ grandparents, who still have a few sneaky
spy tricks of their own up their sleeves, are two veteran Hollywood
actors: Ricardo Montalban and Holland Taylor. For Montalban, the
chance to be in ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS was a dream come true because
it was like becoming part of a fairy tale. “To me, this story
is exactly the kind of tale I would tell my own grandchildren, a
wonderful story with all these gadgets and adventures that is also
about camaraderie,” he comments.
He
also adores the character of Grandpa Cortez , who though wheelchair-bound
and retired has more zip and zing in him than spies half his age.
“I love playing this grandfather who has so much vitality
and excitement to him and I hope it will open more doors for showing
the elderly on screen,” he says. “I combine three invisible
minorities in one: I’m Latin, elderly and handicapped. But
this was not a problem for Robert because he has such a grand imagination.
He even gave me a magical wheelchair that can fly. He made the character
so much fun.”
He
continues: “It’s also great fun to be Antonio Banderas’
father-in-law because I have so much respect for him as an actor,
but in this film I have to look down on him. I mean no one is good
enough for my daughter. Not even Gregorio Cortez, superspy extraordinaire.”
Playing
Grandma Cortez, herself a pretty sly super-spy in her day, is Holland
Taylor. Taylor says she joined the cast of SPY KIDS 2 because “Robert
Rodriguez is like the Pied Piper. -- adults, children, we all want
to follow him.” Adds Taylor: “This is probably the only
movie in which I would be content to play a grandmother. At least
I’m a hip, cool grandmother who does exciting things. And
I also get the opportunity to play with Ricardo Montalban, who I
have long thought is one of the most attractive, sophisticated,
charming, gallant men ever to be on the screen. Between being with
him and Antonio Banderas, it’s like I’ve died and gone
to heaven.”
Wise
and savvy as her character is, Taylor also loved being in SPY KIDS
2 because it allowed her to play like a kid. “I adored being
on the set,” she admits. “It was like a game, it was
like sheer play. I couldn’t resist pushing all the buttons,
trying out all the gadgets, checking out the rocket shoes. I kept
thinking: I want shoes like that, I want a sub like that, I want
gear like that. I think secretly a lot of us, no matter what age,
want to be Spy Kids.”
 ROMERO
STATUS: Mastermind behind island of wild inventions and weird mutations;
afraid of own shadow
The
adventurous journey to the ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS, brings the Cortez
family face-to-face with a madder-than-most-mad-geniuses mastermind:
Romero. Once a brilliant genetic scientist, Romero’s experiments
to create Zoo Too --a collection of unique household pets made up
of miniaturized, hybridized, exotic animals -- have gotten way out
of control. His zoo has trapped its own keeper, and Romero lives
in fear of the odd and outrageous assortment of creatures he has
created, creatures such as the Slizzard, a bizarre mixture of lizard
and snake. Playing Romero is Steve Buscemi, breaking away from his
reputation for complex adult roles to bring a whole new sensibility
to a family film villain.
“He’s
a scientist who is absolutely paranoid and crazy afraid of his own
creations,” explains Buscemi. “But luckily, I didn’t
have to work with the creatures, because they were all added in
later as special effects. I only had to imagine them, which was
pretty exciting, because Robert explained them all to me and I realized
just why Romero is so worried.”
For
Buscemi, working with Rodriguez , for whom he previously starred
in “Desperado,” on a family film was an exciting process.
“It’s just fun watching Robert do what he does,”
he says. “And because this is a kid’s film, he can be
even cooler and more imaginative, knowing that they really appreciate
that sort of thing. It’s hard to imagine that one person has
so much talent and can come up with so many ideas, but that’s
Robert.”
Says Antonio Banderas of Buscemi: “He’s perfect for
Romero because he can have this kind of romantic soul and at the
same be very funny in that special way that kids really like.”
DIRECTOR
DONNAGON
STATUS: Brand New Head of OSS, Father of Spy Kids Gary and Gerti
Giggles
Turning
his “Spy Kids” cameo until a full-fledged comic role,
acclaimed animation mastermind Mike Judge (“King of the Hill,”
“Beavis and Butthead”) portrays Donnagon, the brand-spanking
new head of the OSS, father of Gary and Gerti Giggles and power-hungry
prima donna. Judge says of his return: “I scored some big
points with my kids by being in the first one and I figured the
more I’m in them, the better I’ll look. This time around
we get to learn much more about Donnagon, his family and what I
can only call his shady side.”
Carla Gugino explains the character like this: “Donnagon is
a great foil for Gregorio and Ingrid because they’re these
larger-than-life, always a little over-the-top, enthusiastic people
and he’s completely dead-pan. Mike is great at making that
kind of delivery so funny.”
For
the rest of the cast, working with Judge was a bit like being transported
into the world of irreverent cartoons. “It was just so fun
hanging out on the set with him because we could talk Cheech &
Chong to Beavis & Butthead,” says Cheech Marin, who also
returns playing the Cortez’s mysteriously unrelated “Uncle”
Felix. Adds Emily Osment, who play Gerti Giggles: “Donnagon
is supposed to be kind of mean, cause he’s the head of the
OSS and he kind of takes control even against his kids, but we liked
Mike anyway, because he always made us laugh.”
THE PRESEDENT
PRESIDENTIAL STATUS: Endangered. Daughter possibly linked romantically
to Juni Cortez.
The
adventures of SPY KIDS 2 all begin when the President’s daughter
takes her dad’s top-secret Transmooker Device on an amusement
park ride that’s on the fritz – and the Spy Kids have
to save the day. Playing the President is Chris McDonald, a long-time
friend and colleague of Robert Rodriguez. Says McDonald of his friend:
“Robert’s like a one-man movie-making machine. But he
also goes after what matters: family matters.”
When
he read the script, McDonald was pleased to see that SPY KIDS 2
puts more power into the hands of the kids. “I really like
that these Spy Kids can even tell the President what to do,”
he says. “Only a handful of people can do that, but Carmen
and Juni are now among them – and that’s also a pretty
attractive to the President’s daughter.”
Starring
as the President’s daughter Alexandra is Taylor Momsen (“The
Grinch”) who wanted to be a part of ISLAND OF LOST DREAMS
because she’s always had her own secret dream of becoming
a real-life spy. “I was always really into secret agent stuff
and I created a whole bunch of spy gadgets so when I showed them
to Robert Rodriguez he thought it was really cool,” she explains.
Although
Momsen doesn’t exactly play a spy, she plays the girl who
falls for a spy – when she develops a crush on the increasingly
suave and debonair Juni Cortez. “Juni does the one thing that
really matters to Alexandra – he helps her get a better relationship
with her dad,” explains Momsen. “Even though her dad’s
the President, he doesn’t always have time for her and that
makes her sad. But she can relate to Juni because they both like
to sneaky things. I can relate to that too!”
Juni
wins over Alexandra at a luxurious ballroom dance for heads of state,
where he sweeps her off her feet with his moves – his ballet
moves that is, including his jetées. “Daryl and I both
study ballet so we could really have fun with this scene,”
comments Momsen. “It was my favorite.”
She
continues: “My other favorite part is Alexandra’s bedroom,
which is round with a round bed in it and is a girl’s total
fantasy room. It has a cordless phone and a supercomputer and all
these books and toys and dolls and diaries and even fuzzy pens.
It was everything you could imagine a girl would love. I said to
my mom, ‘do I think I could have this room at home?’
She thought that was pretty funny.”
DINKY
WINKS AND HIS AMUSEMENT PARK RIDES
Status: Under Federal Investigation
Bill
Paxton takes on the role of Dinky Winks, the misguided inventor
who created the cutting-edge amusement park ride known as The Juggler
that nearly is the undoing of the President’s Daughter. Like
much of the rest of the adult cast, Paxton was introduced to the
Spy Kids concept through the enthusiasm of his children. “My
kids loved the first one and so did I,” he says. “And
then when I read this script it had this bigger-than-life, tongue-in-cheek
comic book flavor that was filled with constant frenetic energy
and I just wanted to be a part of it.”
Although
it is a small role, Paxton engaged in some rather surprising physical
transformations to become the wild-eyed Dinky Winks – including
putting on a fat suit. “You can be as inventive as you want
when you work with Robert and I thought it would be fun to give
Dinky Winks – this part-huckster, part crazy-genius guy who
invented this surrealistic amusement park – a big, fat stomach.
I wanted him to be a kind of jovial host in this weird world, and
Robert allowed me to be totally spontaneous in my performance and
have fun.”
And
speaking of inventors, also returning to SPY KIDS 2 is Danny Trejo,
as Izzy Machete, the family’s own creative genius –
who teaches Juni and Carmen the importance of such low-tech items
as a simple rubber band that saves the day. Joining Trejo for a
second round of SPY KIDS are also Alan Cumming’s, who makes
an appearance as the inimitable Floop and Tony Shalhoub, who exhibits
four heads as the mutated Minion.
 GADGETS
AND GIZMOS
Robert Rodriguez prepared for SPY KIDS 2 by going back to his intensely
creative drawing board and coming up with an a whole new assortment
of wildly inventive spy gadgets – the kind that use playful
smarts and savvy strategy to outwit villains, rather than violence.
Using his own childhood dreams of super-spy paraphernalia and hiring
his own kids as test-pilots, he updated every part of the Spy Kids
gear – from their modes of transportation to their means of
surveillance, using the latest technology and his own facile brand
of future-think. As Danny Trejo says: “This guy has that kind
of mind that could have been a rocket scientist but instead he makes
movies for families. That’s pretty lucky for kids.”
Among
the items on every spies must-have list from ISLAN D OF LOST DREAMS
are:
*
Hover-Shoes – a rocket-powered pair that never let your feet
touch the ground
* Nanotechnology Spy Watches – with satellite and internet
uplinks Does everything but tell time
* R.A.L.P.H. – a multi-legged personal robot that’s
as cute and cuddly as it is useful
* The Dragon Spy Ship – a fully automated, do-it-all, morphing
underwater speed machine that buzzes around like a dragonfly
* OSS Jr. Headquarters – a tricked-out tree house with super-computers,
satellite dishes and a helicopter landing pad
Rodriguez says that he dreams up most of his wild ideas while driving
in his truck. “I find my most creative time is spent driving.
I live a good distance from Austin, so while driving I tend to zone
out on the Texas Highway. I’ll get an idea and can’t
write it down, so I phone myself and leave a message. There’s
nothing more fun than coming home and hearing a bunch of cryptic,
static filled messages that I don’t even remember leaving!
Finding the FLOOP SONG being sung into my answering machine was
a special thrill this time out. I ended up getting a lot of mileage
out of that one theme, which also became the single that Alexa Vega
sings at the end of the movie.”
The
very best ideas then become realities on the set. It’s a process
that fuels Rodriguez’s passion for pure creativity. “I
love to create challenges for myself to solve creatively, to put
my imagination on overdrive,” he says. “Sometimes creativity
and imagination is more important than skill. If you confront every
challenge with a creative solution, you can get very far very fast.
So usually the wilder the idea the more fun I have with it. And
with SPY KIDS 2, I really wanted to up the drool factor. I wanted
to create the kind of gadgets that make kids say ‘I want that’
even though it might be 20 or 200 years before these things exist.
It sparks their dreams and imaginations.”
“I
also wanted to make their new watches twice as cool as the previous
ones with the twice the gadgetry. The whole idea is that kids always
want the very, very latest updated, coolest gadgets, but the minute
you get them, there’s something new. That’s what happens
to Carmen and Juni when they think they have the very latest watches,
but then the Giggles get the even newer Nanotechnology watches.”
As
for the Dragon Spy Ship, Rodriguez got his inspiration from nature.
“I like to design my gadgets the way a kid would and kids
love bugs so this time their ship looks just like a dragonfly –
and each Cortez kid sits in their own little glass eyeball. It even
makes a buzzing sound underwater just like a real dragonfly. I love
that sort of gadget – it’s high-tech and streamlined
and super-colorful, but it’s also very kid-like. It’s
just the kind of thing a child would dream about.. By turning back
the clock on my imagination I was able to solve many creative challenges.
For instance, in the script I had written MAGNA RACERS, which were
supposed to be magnetically propelled aircraft. I drew and drew
but could never come up with a design I thought fit the movie. I
then realized I needed to do what I have always done with these
two movies: simplify even further. It dawned on me that a magnet
ship would simply look like a giant horseshoe shaped magnet. The
plain obvious simple kind. The kids would stand on this, and would
hold an even smaller magnet as the steering wheel. A child’s
imagination is simple, clean, and pure. I had to work hard to wind
my adult mind back to those freer times.”
One
of the most popular new gadgets both in the Rodriguez home and on
the set was R.A.L.P.H., a robotic creature who is part cuddly pet,
part wizard-like personal assistant, another item that Rodriguez
says was inspired by the kind of thing little boys and girls fantasize
they could have in their lives. “R.A.L.P.H. is a creature
that sits on Juni’s shoulders, kind of like a cross between
a spider and frog in appearance, but the cool thing is that it can
solve a lot of his problems, in fact so many of them that he kind
of threatens Juni’s dad a little bit,” he explains.
“The best part about R.A.L.P.H. though is his personality
– he’s got more personality than some humans do!”
Another
dream item was the OSS Jr. Headquarters – which Rodriguez
says was his chance “to create the ultimate kid’s tree
house, the one I always wanted, only so much cooler, complete with
helicopter pad.” Other unique creations include The Juggler
– an amusement park ride that “spins as fast as the
U.S. government will allow”, which gives Juni and Carmen the
chance to rescue the President’s trapped daughter. “With
The Juggler, I asked the question: what is the craziest possible
amusement park ride that doesn’t yet exist? And the answer
was the Juggler,” says the director.
And
then there are the mixed-up messed-around animals on Romero’s
island – including combos of horse and fly, cat and fish,
spider and monkey, all created by Rodriguez. They even include such
outrageous hybrids as a Slizzard – a mix between a lizard
and a snake – and the Spork – a flying pig that’s
a cross between a sparrow and pork -- not to mention mythical Centaurs.
“A lot of kids dream of being scientists and making their
own creations,” says Rodriguez. “I got to actually do
it for this film. It’s a lot of fun – you just get an
idea and see where it takes you. Also again, simplicity plays a
big part of it. A child would find the idea of combining animals
into obvious fun ”play on words” jokes like HorseFly
(a horse mixed with a fly), BullFrog, (a bull with frog legs), catfish
(a cat with a fish head), etc. This movie was so much fun, I feel
like the only way to have this much fun again is to make a 3rd one!”
 ROMERO'S
ISLAND
In
addition to serving as writer, director and master inventor, Robert
Rodriguez also served as the film’s production designer –
turning the remote wilderness of West Texas into an exotic Island
of Lost Dreams, a rocky, rugged, ruins-filled volcanic landscape
of run-away creations, where there isn’t even electricity
to plug in a gadget.
“I
really wanted a very specific look for this film so that’s
why I decided to be the production designer too,” comments
Rodriguez. ““I wanted the world of the film to appear
as if a kid had designed it – and Kids love scale,”
he explains, “anything that’s really big or really tiny,
so a lot of what I designed is either miniaturized or much larger
than you would expect.”
Rodriguez’s
concept for Romero’s hideaway was a reaction to all the villain’s
lairs he’s seen in other movies. “In Bond movies, the
lairs are always these huge, elaborate, and probably very expensive
lairs,” he observes. “I wanted Romero’s lair to
be pre-existing. A pile of ancient civilization ruins, that he happened
upon and set up camp in.” But inside that hideaway, Romero
has created an entire miniature of the island and all its creations.
“I love the idea of him being able to look down on this little
model of everything like the Gods looking down on humans in those
old mythological movies,” says Rodriguez. “It also works
kind of like a video monitor for him, since there is no electricity
on the island.”
Wearing
so many hats might have flummoxed some but for Rodriguez, it was
an opportunity to return to his EL MARIACHI roots. “I got
into moviemaking because I had a lot of hobbies as a kid. I loved
photography, drawing, music, sculpture… Moviemaking seemed
like a big project I could throw myself into creatively, full immersion,
and get to do all my hobbies. When I got to Hollywood, the last
thing I wanted to do was give any of that up. So I simply continued
making my bigger budget movies in this home movie style, where you
do most everything yourself.”
In
addition to his constant innovations in design, Robert Rodriguez
also instituted an entirely new way to shoot with SPY KIDS 2: using
a customized high-definition digital cameras instead of film. Says
Rodriguez: “The HD cameras not only make production move much
faster but it also makes everything more immediate and less technically
binding. Technology is wonderful in that it frees you creatively.
Film was a true creative obstacle, slowing down the process of moviemaking
to the point I was getting very frustrated with the medium. “I
was tired of film,” he says, “because I would look at
SPY KIDS and feel that it should be so much more colorful, that
it should really have captured all these hot Latin colors I was
using on the set, but it didn’t. It just never translated
on film. Then George Lucas showed me some footage from the new ‘Star
Wars Episode 2’ and I was very impressed. I knew this was
the way to go. With high definition digital, it captures all of
the vividness and vibrancy of the sets we created. It feels like
you’re shooting in Technicolor. Everything really pops.”
Rodriguez
also liked that he was able to immediately see the results of each
take. “With HD you can see exactly what you’re going
to see on the screen – and the actors can also see it, so
they can always say ‘Oh, I have a different idea.’ In
fact, people learned on this production to just put away their scripts,
because every new idea would lead to ten other ideas and you end
up going much farther and getting more creative than you ever thought.”
“It’s
simply revolutionary. I just made two really big movies in HD in
the amount of time it would have taken to do one on film.”
“I know there are many people out there right now thinking
that film is forever, but no one edits on film anymore after just
a few years of being introduced to electronic editing. I’m
predicting that as filmmakers see what Hi-Def is all about, they
will abandon shooting on film as quickly as they abandoned cutting
on film. Yes, HD is less expensive, and yes it looks much better
than film, but the real reason you would switch to it is because
Hi-Def changes the creative process of moviemaking so dramatically
that you could never to back to film once you tried it.”
The
cast was in complete agreement after giving themselves over to the
unique experience. “I think Robert is really a pioneer and
in five or six years, we’ll see many people using this same
system,” says Antonio Banderas. Adds Carla Gugino: “It’s
so much faster, it took awhile to learn the new rhythm of it, but
once we did, it was amazing. In terms of visuals, I was blown away.
It’s really groundbreaking.”
Summarizes
Cheech Marin: “The best thing about Robert is that he uses
a classic style of story-telling but uses all the newest technology
and coolest ideas to really give it a whole new dimension.” |
