By Brian McKernan, November 2002 "Digital HD isn’t the future of filmmaking," explains director Robert Rodriguez, "it’s the now. It has quietly arrived and it’s here to stay. I don’t think everyone realizes this yet. But as soon as you bring an HD camera to your set, it’s over; you’ll never go back to film. HD offers up so many new possibilities; you can create a new movie language with it. Now we won’t just be living off the inheritance of tricks learned from decades of past filmmakers. Digital HD enables us to come up with something new." Like the action heroes in his films, Rodriguez is a rebel. The Texas-born filmmaker burst onto the movie scene in 1992 at the age of 24 with El Mariachi, a $7,000 feature for which he was the entire crew. He financed the movie by working as what he calls a "human lab rat" for a drug company during his summer vacation from the University of Texas at Austin. "The drug they were testing was a speed-healing drug," he writes in his 1995 book, Rebel Without a Crew (Plume/Penguin, ISBN 0-452-27187-8). "In order to test it they had to wound you. Now I’ve got two tiny football-shaped scars to remind me of how I used to finance my films." Columbia Pictures bought El Mariachi, funded its blow-up to 35mm, and signed him to direct a sequel, Desperado, for $3.1 million. Rodriguez then went on to score continued triumphs with such fast-action films as From Dusk Till Dawn (1996), The Faculty (1998), and his family-friendly blockbuster Spy Kids (2000). Rodriguez not only writes and directs his movies, he also prefers to serve as production designer, director of photography, and editor. "I try to do all the key jobs because it’s actually easier that way," he explains. "You don’t have to have a meeting with somebody every time you get an idea, which is all the time." Knowing of his hands-on interest in production technology, George Lucas showed him early digital HD footage of Star Wars Episode II during a January 2000 Spy Kids sound-mixing session at Skywalker Ranch. This prompted Rodriguez to do a side-by-side test of 35mm film and Sony’s HDW-F900 HDCAM CineAlta 24P camera system. "When I screened the film-out I was shocked to see how bad film looked compared to HD-originated film," Rodriguez recalls. "The studio [Miramax] couldn’t understand why anyone would shoot film after seeing those tests. So they gave me their blessing to try it. I was so convinced after I did that test I went out and bought two F900s for myself." Rodriguez then embarked on shooting his two most recent films, Once Upon A Time in Mexico (the third in his El Mariachi series, which will be released later this year) and Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams, which arrived in U.S. theatres on August 7th. Digital Cinema editor Brian McKernan and contributing editor Bob Zahn recently caught up with Rodriguez and provide this interview. DC: Why shoot in digital HD? Rodriguez: I was always disappointed by the limitations of film. I don’t find it to be creatively conducive. It’s really limiting in how fast you can move. With HD, when I’m lighting I’m looking at the monitor, I’m looking at the set, knowing how it’s going to translate. I check the monitor, and we just move, we don’t stay there forever wondering, so it’s very fast. DC: Can you elaborate on limitations of film? Rodriguez: There’s a lot of technical hang-ups to film. I DP my own pictures, pick the lenses, operate all the cameras and Steadicams, and pick all the angles. Usually I had someone just keeping track of the exposures because film was so unpredictable. I didn’t want to have to be messing around with all the f-stops and wondering, "Oh gosh, how’s this film gonna behave with this lighting? Is it going to cook something or underexpose something too much? It was always so unpredictable. HD is very freeing and is more like going back to the basics of filmmaking, where it’s fun again. It’s just so much easier to shoot in HD. Since I’m my own DP I’m able to see exactly what I’m getting on the monitor, and I’m able to be much edgier with the lighting. When I was shooting Johnny Depp in Mexico I would sometimes just use the bounce card and a little piece of tinfoil bounced into his eye and I knew at what level to do it because I’m watching it on the monitor, and then we moved on and kept going. There’s no guesswork or waiting for dailies. We moved a lot faster and it was a lot more satisfying. I also edit my movies, and it felt like HD is like the difference between cutting on film and cutting on an Avid; it was that big a change in the creative process. DC: What other things did you like about digital HD? Rodriguez: The F900s were so much lighter on the Steadicam, which is good on my back. And since you could take the tape, play it back, and see what you were getting you knew when you nailed it; then you could move on. The freedom that HD gives you saves so much time, money, and headaches. For that reason alone, you should just ditch film. I also do a lot of my own production design, so while I’m designing the set I’m already thinking about how I’m going to light it. But when I get the film back I’m always disappointed because it never looks like it did when we were shooting on the set. HD turned that around. HD was the first time I saw that what I was getting was what I had seen on the set. With film it’s always downhill from the moment you walk on the set until you finally see your movie released. Everything we do now ends up as work on the screen. Every color we paint isn’t all turning gray like it does with film, the color isn’t sucked out of it, we don’t have this extreme amount of contrast that film does now these days because of the way they process it. DC: How did shooting digital HD influence your work with actors? Rodriguez: Since I didn’t have to cut, my takes would go longer. That really helps when you’re in the flow with an actor, to just keep doing the take over and over till you get it right. You don’t want to cut. I found that in shooting children for Spy Kids I had to let the camera run a lot so I could get the best takes. And the time spent running out of film right when they were getting warmed up was just brutal. I think any filmmaker who compares film and digital on-set will suddenly look at their film camera like it’s a lead brick or an old vinyl LP record, and realize, "There’s recordable CD now; what am I doing with this vinyl record that requires me to change sides?" DC: Did digital HD save you time and/or money? Rodriguez: It saved a lot of time, which always saves money. I shot Once Upon A Time In Mexico before Spy Kids 2 to learn what the strengths and limitations of digital HD were. I never could have made Mexico on film. It would have been too much work -- too much trouble -- to get that kind of movie onto film. The only reason I did it was because of the possibilities of digital HD; we shot it in the same amount of time that we shot Desperado, seven weeks. But Mexico is a much bigger movie. We saved so much time each day because we knew what we were getting. That alone, to see what you’re doing, just lets you move faster. That’s just how it goes. But cheaper isn’t why I use HD. I’d use it even if it was more expensive. Do you think everyone who’s cutting on an Avid is doing that because it’s cheaper than cutting on film? No, it’s ten times more expensive. But the process is 100 times better. Of course you’re going to eat the cost because it’s a better process. With HD you’re actually saving money, and it’s a better process. DC: Tell us more about that process. Rodriguez: HD has changed the creative process. People will be surprised how enormously entertaining these movies are, and it’s because of that changed filmmaking process. You can actually make a much better movie by shooting on HD than you can on film just because of the process, and people don’t realize that yet. Most actors don’t like to see themselves after a take, but I would drag them over to the HD monitors so they could see. It’s exciting, like being at a premiere while you’re there on the set. A lot of times with actors you’re pushing them in a certain direction; they always have doubts: "Are you sure that was good?" Now I can drag them over to the monitor and say, "Here, look for yourself." And they were always impressed. I think everyone found it helpful. Everyone watching there on the set could see what they were doing and they would improve upon it. That never happens on film. And everyone was surprised by how good the image was on the HD monitors. You can make each moment count much more with HD. It really helped with the kids to be able to show them exactly what they had done, and to tell them what to do next. Film is like painting on a canvas in the dark; you don’t get to see what you did until the next day when the dailies arrive. It’s as if the lights turn on the next day. You go home each day after shooting film thinking "I wonder if I was even hitting the mark? I wonder if I was even on the canvas?" You have no clue, and it’s a ridiculous way to work. So for that reason alone there’s no point in shooting film. Unless you like to guess. With HD you finally can see what you’re doing, and you can do much better work. The HD process alone is the reward.