The film is being made much like Miller's Sin City and Zack
Snyder's adaptation of Miller's 300 with actors doing all of
their performances in front of a green screen and all the backgrounds and
environments created using the latest computer graphics. This was
ComingSoon.net's second visit to an all green screen set after
spending some time on the set of 300 two years ago, and while one might not
expect there to not be a lot to write about when a movie is being made with no
actual sets, in fact, there's still stuff to see, since it's an
interesting process that requires a lot of clever workarounds for things that
tend to be easy when using practical sets, such as how actors interact with
objects within their environment, or lack thereof.
The production had taken up two of the larger soundstages at the brand new
Albuquerque Studios facility, where security was extremely tight. Cameras and
audio recording were verboten, and anyone who wanted to visit the stages needed
to turn in their personal ID in order to get a special badge with an image of
what looked like a Frank Miller drawn full body portrait of The Spirit. There
wasn't any question that it was worth losing or forgetting your
driver's license or passport there, if it meant a chance to watch a master
like Miller at work. The Spirit is the first production to use the
complex's two newest stages and they were on Day 27 of a shoot that
would be going through December 14.
After a quick meal, our tour consisted mainly of visiting those two main
soundstages that were being used simultaneously, each of them serving a specific
purpose and function. Stage 7 was being used almost exclusively for
stuntwork and the neighboring Stage 8 was used for shooting the key scenes
with the primary characters. Stage 8 had been split in half with one half
completely covered with green screen material, including the floor, which had
cardboard down so we wouldn't have to remove our shoes as the sign on the outer
door warned; the other half was surrounded by black drapes, which apparently is
another way of creating the backgrounds, maybe in the scenes that require more
of the noirish look that Miller made famous in Sin City. When we arrived, there
was a truck on the green screen side of the stage emblazoned with the words
„Ditko's Speedy Delivery“, obviously a nod to Steve Ditko,
another one of Miller's inspirations and the co-creator of a certain
superhero some of our readers might be familiar with.
Stage 7 seemed larger maybe because it wasn't split in half, but the
green screen went up over 40 feet and there were black drapes visible that
could be pulled over the green screen in order to do larger scenes requiring the
black background. There were a number of large set pieces on this stage, objects
in the environment that would require direct contact with the actors. The first
one was a two-story fire escape very much like one we might see in
Eisner's comics, not too far away was a medium-sized brick wall, and then
on the other side of the stage was a larger set piece referred to as the
„grassy knoll.“ Instead of being a bright green patch of land, this
looked like the kind of dead area of foliage you sometimes find in big city
slums under overpasses with the grass being overgrown and brown from lack of
water with scattered debris and objects, like a mangled bike, strewn about it.
Again, it was very much like something we would see in Eisner's view of
Central City. (The other stage was even referred to as „The
Projects“ which made sense since Central City was very much a darker
version of New York's Lower East Side where Eisner happened to live.)
We walked around a bit surveying the three minimal set pieces and then spent
20 minutes talking to producer Deborah del Prete, who also produced Lexi
Alexander's Hooligansironically, Alexander is in Montreal
making Lionsgate's other superhero movie Punisher: War Zoneand she
told us a bit about the origins of the project when she first met Batman
executive producer Michael Uslan at Comic-Con and he asked if she'd be
interested in producing a movie based on Will Eisner's The Spirit. Even
though the movie will be distributed by Lionsgate, it's being produced
entirely by del Prete's Odd Lot Entertainment, so that Miller can make the
movie he wants to make. Miller's sensibilities tend to steer towards
the R-Rated though Eisner's work was considerably more wholesome, yet Del
Prete didn't say that they were „going for“ any particular rating
but would just let Frank make his movie and see where things lie. The key motto
on the set was that this movie was very much going to be Frank
Miller's take on Will Eisner's „The Spirit.“ Any concerns about
Miller making this movie without his Sin City partner in crime Robert Rodriguez
probably should be dispelled, as he has a great team on this one, including
cinematographer Bill Pope, who shot movies like „The Matrix“ trilogy
and the last two „Spider-Man“ movies, so yeah, you can say that he
has his action and effects chops all set. Many might be expecting a very dark
movie due to Miller's past work, but Del Prete has promised that the movie
will be funny as well.
After speaking to her, we got to watch as Miller set-up a stunt on the fire
escape where Gabriel Macht was hanging on from the top tier and swinging up with
his feet, presumably to climb up there. Macht practiced the stunt a few times
with some mysterious dust flying everywhere (presumably for effect) and at one
point, Miller had to give him a bit of direction because Macht was smiling
instead of „snarling“ which is what Miller required. After shooting
this stunt, Miller came over briefly to talk to us, fielding most of the
journalists' questions with short answers, deliberately giving very little
detail away. (We'll run both interviews sometime soon.)
To some, Gabriel Macht might not seem like the best visual match for Denny
Colt, being that he's known for his blonde hair, but it's been dyed
jet black, and unlike Eisner's comics where the Spirit's coat is
seemingly colored blue, Macht wears a solid black coat, pants and hat with a
white shirt and a bright red tie, which really stands out against the black
outfit. Later, we'd get to meet with him for a few minutes and up close, you can
see that the costume is ripped in places, at least at the end of the movie after
fighting with The Octopus, giving it even more of the look of
Eisner's raggedy take on the character, who rarely looked as pristine as
Macht. We could also see that his mask seemed to be painted on his face,
although it was just wafer thin and attached to his face with spirit gum. Macht
really looked great and any diehard Spirit fan should be happy with this
unconventional choice. Macht considers the role one of the greatest
opportunities as an actor and he felt that it was his „absurdity“
that came across in his first meeting with Miller that got him the part since it
lent itself to the character's sense of humor.
As mentioned above, The Spirit's main enemy in the movie is Samuel L.
Jackson as The Octopus, a mysterious behind-the-scenes crime figure seen in the
comic books merely as a single gloved hand, but Miller knew that if he used the
character we'd have to see his face and Jackson was Miller's first and only
choice. Later, we'd have a chance to see Jackson and Macht in a fight sequence
that happens late in the movie, which would give us a closer look at the
Octopus' costume, which is pretty freaking wild. From a distance, it looks
almost like a fur pimp coat covered with images of intertwined octopus
tentacles, but it's actually heavy leather with a fur collar, and Jackson
seemed to have a number of different variations of the black and white outfit,
longer and shorter versions with seemingly different variations for different
lighting circumstances. Jackson's head was shaved bald as we've seen him
many times before, but he seemed to be wearing contacts that kept his eyes wide
open, and he had black dots all over his face and heavy white make-up around his
eyes, possibly to give him a freakier look like one of The Spirit's classic
rogues.
Jackson came over in between filming to shoot the sh*t and we got to see more
details of this crazy-looking outfit once he took the jacket off. Underneath, he
was wearing a tight-fit red tunic and a wide studded belt with his left arm
covered up to the shoulder by a black glove and his other hand covered by a
smaller white glove. Between that and the jacket, the outfit made him look
almost like if the Bad-era Michael Jackson shaved his head and became a pimp.
(::shudder::) Still, Jackson knew how to sell the character, and one can expect
that many enterprising fans will try to imitate the costume at Comic-Con once
they see it.
We also got to look at the production board with some of
Miller's sketched-out storyboards and black and white still photos from the
production including a few seductive pictures of Eva Mendes in heavy mascara as
Sand Sarif and Scarlett Johanssen with glasses as Silken Floss, another classic
Eisner femme fatale. Del Prete and Miller both hinted that there'd be lots of
cameos by other Spirit characters, and we already know that Jaime King and Paz
Vega (Spanglish) will be playing two of them.
There was also a photo of Macht in silhouette striking a pose similar to the
teaser poster for the movie with his bright red tie off to the side as if
blowing in the wind, creating a neat effect.
Sadly, our set visit and time spent with Miller and the actors was far
shorter than we had hoped, nor did we get to see too much of the production or
concept art besides what we saw on the board. We also weren't given too clear an
idea what the plot was about, except that it was by no means an origin story and
that it mainly told the story of Sand Sarif, the Spirit's great love who
went bad. I'm sure that once Miller gets what he's shooting into the
computers and the computer guys start messing around with it, it will look just
as cool as Sin City and 300.
At the time of this writing, Will Eisner's The Spirit is scheduled for
release by Lionsgate on January 16, 2009. Check back later soon for our
interview with producer Deborah del Pete.
Source: Edward Douglas
November 16th, 2007
Categories: Spirit . Author: admin . Comments: No Comments
