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Two Days at the World’s Coolest Studio
- University Press of Mississippi
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143 Two Days at the World’s Coolest Studio Nick De Semlyen/2010 From Empire, April 2010, 120–25. Reprinted by permission of Bauer Consumer Media Limited. The reception area at Troublemaker Studios does not resemble that of your average movie-making facility. For one, the art on the walls is notably hipper, including an ultra-rare From Dusk Till Dawn poster by fantasy artist Frank Frazetta (only five in existence), a lurid painting called Shotgun Messenger by George Yepes, and a sepia mugshot of George Clooney. Then there are the toys: an explosion of movie memorabilia and geeky gizmos that would make Harry Knowles weep. (And probably has, since he lives around the corner.) To the right, beneath an ornate table, a pair of the gun-packing guitar cases from Desperado (we never get round to checking whether they’re still crammed full of munitions). To the left, pistol in hand, an intimidating life-sized statue of Sin City’s Marv. Here, the candy-colored powersuits from Spy Kids; there, a forlorn-looking skeleton slumped in a chair. And, perhaps most eye-catching of all, a wooden confessional booth, which has been shipped here from its original home, a Mexican church. One wonders what admissions may have been whispered in there. “Oh Father, forgive me, for I hath created a prosthetic of Quentin Tarantino’s penis melting,” perhaps. Or, “Lord, I repeatedly draped a python across Salma Hayek’s bust. Ave Maria.” Or maybe just, “The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D. Sorry.” Occasional U-rated misfire aside, Troublemaker remains the coolest studio in the world, a hotbed of creativity where genre flicks—some family -friendly, some anything but—are conceived and crafted far from the prying eyes of Hollywood studio suits. Based in northern Austin, Texas, it’s the name behind releases like Grindhouse (the one with the melty penis), Sin City, the Spy Kids trilogy, From Dusk Till Dawn (the one with 144 rober t rodriguez: inter views the snakey bust), and a batch of exciting in-development projects. And Troublemaker’s name is well-earned: the studio makes the big boys in Hollywood look bad, and not just in terms of lobby decoration, creating cutting-edge cinema on a budget that would just about cover the salad buffet on a Burbank soundstage. “I’m still making the same backyard movies I made when I was twelve,” says Robert Rodriguez, Troublemaker’s mogul. “Except now they get released!” Empire has been invited by Rodriguez to spend two access-all-areas days on the lot (from dusk Wednesday till dawn Saturday, to be precise), with the multi-hyphenate filmmaker as our guide. This is especially nice of him, considering when we first meet he’s operating on less than two hours sleep, having just jetted back from a meeting in L.A. “I try to stay on a regular schedule, but Predators is shifting to nights soon so we’ll all be going nocturnal anyway,” he smiles. “Besides, I like working at night. No temptations, no one you can call, no place you can go. So you’re like, ‘I may as well blaze through an edit, or pick up the guitar and figure out some music until the sun comes up. . . . ’” Aside from puffy eyes, there’s no indication that the Mexican American (born in San Antonio) is close to meltdown. His assistant trails him, holding a to-do list with the girth of a phone book. Outside, on a marvelously gory killing-ground set (and across the road at Richard Linklater’s Austin Studios), Predators are running amuck for the Rodriguez-penned threequel; we spend most of our first day observing the mayhem and giddily exploring the creatures-’n’-weapons workshop. Upstairs, at Troublemaker Digital, the studio’s visual effects hub, scuzzy exploitation homage Machete is in post-production (the artists are currently creating a fake Nintendo Wii game that will be played by Lindsay Lohan’s saucy socialite, April). And several more upcoming films, including Spy Kids 4 and sci-fi epic Nerveracker (which Rodriguez describes as “my Blade Runner , set in Mexico in 2085”) are in gestation. Just as well, then, that he’s a multi-tasking demon. “It seems chaotic , but I’ve always been able to juggle,” he says. “Actually, I can literally juggle too! But I’d hate to put all my energy into a project then find out an actor’s not available and have to start over...