He is one of cinema's most unique visionaries and fastest working directors. Making films for himself, with his friends, he shuns mainstream Hollywood by having quite the Directors Guild insisting on total creative freedom that he is denied working within the studios. Always revealing and ferociously passionate, he talked at length about the upcoming Sin City DVD, and future projects to a group of handpicked online journalists. Our LA correspondent Garth Franklin was there.

Question: Where is that famous hat of yours now?

Rodriguez: It's all smashed.  My son sat on it.  Reshape it.

Question: So is this going to be the future direction for you, doing film the way that you did since you, if it does come out, will you do it exactly the same way or?

Rodriguez: Probably, probably do all green screen, depends, might be a couple of sets.  We did a bar set, some other stuff in a bar but it just, you couldn't get the same look, so, yeah.  The look will be stylised even more probably in the second one then we have to shoot it, shoot after shoot of green screen.

Question: I know you like to work fast but do you have any desire or need to do a really prolonged Lord of the Rings style onset experience?

Rodriguez: No, I mean I'm going to do something but it's still fast, I'm doing an exploitation with Quentin, double feature called Grant House, a lot of location stuff on that, but, we shoot it really fast because it's supposed to be like an old 70's drive-in type movie so we have to shoot it quick.

Question: When do you start that?

Rodriguez: As soon as we finish the script.  I'm at his house right now, writing, so, we're writing our scripts so probably in the fall.

Question: Not casting or anything?

Rodriguez: No.  We threw a few ideas out but nothing, it's really, a great project.

Question: Are you writing your scripts completely separately?

Rodriguez: They're two different movies, yeah.  When he reads me stuff, he acts out and reads me his stuff and he tells stuff that I do.

Question: Are you co-directing?

Rodriguez: They're separate movies but it's like seeing a double feature.

Question: So do you have to pay each other a dollar?

Rodriguez: Yeah.  Exactly.  That's a good idea.  That'd keep the budget down.  I'm going to DP his movie.

Question: You're DP-ing his movie?

Rodriguez: He wants to shoot in Austin.  He loves shooting there so he says I'm coming down there, let's make a movie.

Question: Is it easier for you to kind of work independently outside the system when you've got a guy like Quentin that you can keep bouncing ideas and you both kind of approach material the same way?

Rodriguez: That one isn't the one I was thinking of doing before Sin City had an idea to do a double feature and I kind of forgot about it, an old double feature poster.  It had two movie posters on the same poster, saying, two hotrod flicks together, dragstrip girl and rock all nighter, something like that.  I thought, that's cool, we should do something like that.  Truncated features, like an hour each one, like an hour.  I went to Quentin's house to show him, I'd forgotten about it, I went to show him the Sin City DVD, his section, his scene for Sin City, and he had the same poster on his floor, hey!  I thought about doing a double feature.  You should do one, I'll do the other one.  He's like, oh fuck yeah, we'll play Grindhouse, so and we'll do fake trailers in between for movies that don't exist anymore, so we just kept going, oh this is going to be great.  We're just having so much fun.

Question: Is there a studio attached to it so far or anything?

Rodriguez: It'd the new Weinstein Company.

Question: What's the basic plot of your half?

Rodriguez: I can't say but it's just got some really cool, it's like, I'm so excited for her.  I've come up with some really good stuff.

Question: What's the basic plot of his half?

Rodriguez: I can't say

Question: Whose is going to be more violent?

Rodriguez: I can't even say, I don't know.  Depends.

Question: Is DVD the kind of director's new best friend?

Rodriguez: Yeah, for I think it's just the way you can perceive how movie entertainment's viewed and that's just for DVD but like future HD DVD and all the extra things you put on it.  When I was doing Sin City, you're just very aware that, OK, there's a theatrical release which is pretty much a one-shot.  People go and see it in the theatres for a couple of weeks and then they kind of forget about that, and then whatever comes out later is the more definitive version.  So, it's all frank, let's just do three stories and I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, cram three stories together and we'll shoot the full books but in editing, I just figure out what stuff we need to cut out to make it flow as a feature for the theatrical release so people can sit there under two hours and see sort of a resemblance of what the movie is.  But when it goes to DVD, we do the special edition where a second disc would have the stories separated out in their full cut so you can see it the way you would read the books.  You just watch the Ol' Bastard and see it full cut or see Big Fat Kill, and that's the way you're supposed to read the books.  You're not supposed to read three in a row really quick.  So that's going to be cool.  So we already thought about that so we shot the full books knowing, and all the voice-overs, knowing we could put it together as single episodes and that eventually we did part two and part three, you'd end up having a disc that had all the stories separated and you could put them in any order you want or watch them any way you want.

Question: Well, knowing that there may be different versions of the movie, released on DVD, do you do anything in particular to make sure you distinguish one from the other.  I mean, as a film maker, do you make sure to do something to distinguish one release from the other?  Like Peter Jackson did with The Lord of the Rings movies.

Rodriguez: Well you guys put out one.  This one Barry put in that one that comes out next week that was just bare - I had not put anything extra on that because I didn't have time to finish my DVD extras, they put that out four months later because of piracy and stuff like that.  So they'll make sure you don't put anything on there so that they know, well this isn't the real DVD.  The real DVD should come out fairly quick which will be just obviously the double disc with all the goodies on it.  It has everything,  all kinds of stuff in there.  It'll have a twenty minute film school, a new cooking school, Sin City breakfast tacos.  My favourite feature is, you know, when people watch DVDs they complain, well the only thing about home entertainment is you miss that audience experience.  Well the best audience is in Austin, especially for a movie that was made there, could be showed, the premieres with the actors there, with a 1500 seat theatre and they go crazy.  In Sin City there was a big reaction.  I recorded the audience at 5.1 so watching the DVD and you want to see it with an Austin audience on premiere night, you just click a button and they're all there, so it's really cool.  And then Quentin when he directed his sequence, he just let the tape roll while we were recording or shooting, and sit and tape for an hour or so.  There's something like twenty minute uninterrupted tapes, his sequencing.  You see him go in front of the camera and talk with the actors and directing and you hear the whole sounds of the set.  It's like you're sitting right there in the set, seeing the movie being shot, from the point of view of the camera that's shooting the movie and uninterrupted, it's really cool, you feel like you're right there and you get to see what it's like to work with Quentin and the actors and how the movie actually gets made.

Question: Is Quentin going to return to do some directing in 2 and 3?

Rodriguez: I don't know.  I haven't finished the script yet.  Few months.

Question: Do you think Sin City benefited from the comic book boom and could it have been as successful in the mid 90s, assuming if the technology were around.

Rodriguez: I don't know if it had even been discovered the first time round. I just thought it might just be something that was discovered later on DVD.  You don't know, people react to black and white or anthology stories or, I knew it was going to be something really different in that people may not notice it right away but later would find it was something pretty cool but so I was surprised people found it right off. 

Question: I was very impressed by the fact, that with Sin City, you struck balance between an extraordinary visual look and performance in this.  Was it difficult to do that and was it very hard for actors to perform the way that you'd got them to perform, and do it well?

Rodriguez: No, it was pretty much at the stage, it was all new for a lot of people that came in, not knowing what to expect, told them it's just like theatre.  You're going to be on a very blank stage with a few props and the rest is imagined.  They go Oh, OK, they can relate to that.  So it became easier to get the performance because that's all you were concentrating on.  The visuals I had already done tests for and I already knew we could make that look good so I'm doing the facts and the photography so I'm taking care of that so they don't have to worry about that.  I'm just getting the performance and all the other stuff I do later.  I'd already done enough tests to know that it was going to work fine.

Question: Is it comfortable to know that you have the actors, that can come in and do that particular scene, you know, scenes that there's nothing around, and you know you can just go in there and just get that and they can then bang it out.

Rodriguez: Yeah, I mean, people think, they go, how do they do a scene like when there's no car there, just a steering wheel, isn't that weird?  I haven't even driven a car before and even when you shoot a regular movie, they're not driving there either.  Their cars' always towed and just lights all around it, sometimes it's a partial car and so they're always having to act that stuff.  It's just taking it another step so they get into it right away.  It's not, they're actors, they really can pretend.

Question: Were any of the actors surprised at the end result?

Rodriguez: They all were.  When they saw it, they were like Wow when did all that happen?  When were we there?  They shot it so fast they don't even remember doing it. 

Question: What drives you to work so hard and fast because you seem to be always doing something, always something coming out?

Rodriguez: I know, I'm on vacation and I'm here writing.  It's like, I think I skipped the vacation part, I keep talking about, oh when all these movies are done, I'm having the whole summer off, but somehow we're still working.  Wow, what are we doing, we never went anywhere for vacation.  I just like making stuff, it doesn't feel like work really.  It's really, it's really just, life-giving to be that creative all the times.  We have so many projects are forced to be creative, so you're forced to be alive all the time, so in a way it's a kind of downer when it all goes away, you're just like, now what do I do?  Watch TV, I don't know. I'd better get another project going.  My life support's going out.

Question: You've been at the forefront for the whole,  new 3D technology.  Are we going to see Sin City 3D.

Rodriguez: That would be a great 3D movie.  Like panels and stuff

Question: Are you and Greg doing anything?

Rodriguez: He's probably wondering what we're doing in Grindhouse   It's funny.

Question: So when are you going to get around to doing a proper special edition of the first Spy Kids?

Rodriguez: We're doing that right now.  I think that comes out at Christmas.  Yeah, I just did the commentary for it and they shot a whole bunch of new interviews with the kids and stuff and the actors and they've got all the deleted scenes and things that never made it to special edition.

Question: Are you done with that franchise?

Rodriguez: We might do an animated, straight-to-DVD thing but that would be it.  Couldn't do a live action thing - kids are too big. 

Question: What would the Film School and Cooking School for the first one be?

Rodriguez: For the first one?  The Film School, I'd already cut a Film School for it.  I don't know if there'll be a Cooking School for that.  Is there anything to eat in that one?  But the Sin City Breakfast Taco was an exciting event. 

Question: Are you going to have the same kind of working relationship with Frank on the sequels?

Rodriguez: Yeah.

Question: And is he ready to direct on his own too?

Rodriguez: If he wants to, yeah, he loves it.  He does a set job.  He says, I can see why you want to do this all the time.  He can't wait to get back on the set.

Question: What are you guys thinking about for the sequels, what stories?

Rodriguez: Dame to Kill For is part of the basis of the second one.

Question: So which characters would be returning?

Rodriguez: I think Marv comes back, before he died, and Dwight's in that one, Gail's in that one, both Goldie and Wendy are together - she's still alive - the twins together, one blonde, one black and white, and then there's a whole bunch of new characters.

Question: And the second one and then the third one?

Rodriguez: Yeah we're still writing the script to see if there's enough for a third one or if we're just going to do a second one.

Question: Is there a time line for any of this stuff yet?

Rodriguez: We're supposed to shoot in January, might do it earlier if we keep working at this clip.

Question: Any actors that you're thinking about bringing in?

Rodriguez: No, not yet.

Question: Have you got a bigger budget this time around?

Rodriguez: No, usually we make each sequel usually cheaper than the one before so it'll probably be less.

Question: You were saying it might be on a grander scale so does that mean the technology is already improved that quickly?

Rodriguez: Yeah.  We do that on each Spy Kids, the movies just got cheaper and the third one had the most effects and was in 3D, it was less expensive than the first one, a few years later.

Question: How does technology improve so much?

Rodriguez: It just always does and also how you use it and there are some things I did earlier in the test that I thought might be going too far that I pulled it back a little bit, but that's kind of where we'll take it for the sequel, some original stuff I wanted to do.

Question: Where did you come up with this concept, even just to say I'm going to do a movie on a green screen?

Rodriguez: It was gradual.  I mean Spy Kids, I started doing things on green screen, Spy Kids II had more whole sequences that were done in green, then Spy Kids III because it was in a video game, it had to be done all cg, once they got, even the props, they didn't even have props, they would just hold their hand like that and I'd put a prop in so it looked like it was generated by the video game.  And that was just so fun that when I went to look at Sin City, I thought I know how to do this now, it's all green screen, it's the only way to photograph this because you can't naturally photograph, you can't bend light like that on a real set.  You have to do it green.

Question: What kind of challenge is it to jump back and forth between these two series or these kinds of films that have such different tones?

Rodriguez: It's easier to go, it was by accident when I did Once Upon a Time Mexico and Spy Kids II and III.  I like doing two very different projects and the same time as opposed to doing Mexico and Sin City at the same time, you'd get it all mixed up, whose head are we cutting off?  I don't know.  Whose arm was that?  These were just so different, it's like, it's almost easier to do two at once because you're not fixated on one project and over-thinking it, it gives you a lot of difference to switch and do a kids movie for half a day and then come back to Sin City and go, oh I know what to do here, cut, cut, cut.  You get a lot more objective.  It's like your mind went on a vacation.

Question: What's going on with the old Mariachi franchise, the whole franchise?  Anything else going on there?

Rodriguez: No, unless they come in and say, we want another one, a man with no eyes. 

Question: If he would, would you bring Johnnie back?

Rodriguez: I thought about doing a PSP game that was like following that character so it would be cool, Once Upon a Time Mexico video game for the PSP.  Man with no eyes, be a blind gunfighter, that'd be kind of cool.

Question: Now your name was attached to some big franchise in the past, like the whole Conan stuff.

Rodriguez: Conan and Princess of Mars.  It's hard to do the studio pictures now that I'm out of the DGA so, because they developed projects, control project.  I couldn't do it, so I'm just doing more original material like Grindhouse and Sin City.

Question: More creatively fulfilling for you then?

Rodriguez: Yeah, they are too because you end up having to create your own movies and your own franchises and that's cool.  You make Spy Kids and once upon a time Mexico, instead of doing a James Bond movie, you make your own franchise that you own and control rather than just making a studio film.

Question: Are you working with Bob and Harvey again?  Do they give you complete control?

Rodriguez: Oh, totally yeah, and that's why I like working with them.  Something like Sin City, you're already a regular studio, everything's black and white, all voice-over, it's an anthology, what do you think about that?  Rated R. 

Question: Quentin's done some TV.  Do you ever see yourself doing some TV directing?

Rodriguez: I don't know.  I might direct an episode of George Lopez show for George just because it sounds like fun.

Question: Would you step in and try to stay true to the show so far or would you kind of like, like Quentin did with CSI, and just take it in a whole different direction

Rodriguez: No you'd know I was there. 

Question: When you did Mariachi, did you ever imagine that you'd have your own studio and be calling the shots?

Rodriguez: No.  Never, I didn't think the movie was ever going to be seen, no.  I had no aspirations at all.

Question: Was that a dream of yours then at the time, to go from there to where you are now?

Rodriguez: I never would've dreamt that.  I was just trying, somebody was making straight to video action movies in Mexico?  They want me to direct one?  To spend $30,000, that means they must sell them for at least $40 or $50, shit I can do that, I'll make them for under five grand and I'll be rich.  I'll just do that for a living, Mexican exploitation movies for the video market.  So I thought, hey, I never had a real job, that's great.  I had real small goals.

Question: When you started becoming successful, at what point did you dream bigger and say, well now we can build our own studio.

Rodriguez: It was all gradual.  We just ended up renting the studio space at an old airport hangar and it looked like they weren't going to take it away from us so we just kept adding onto it, and just a couple of years ago we ended up putting all our props and the posters up and we painted it and it was like, shit, this looks like a real studio.  George and Francis Coppola came down and it was like, this is my dream for movies.

Question: You and Quentin have these great styles, separate but they complement each other.  Where do you guys meet and at what point do you kind of push each other away as you collaborate?

Rodriguez: Where do we meet?  I think we just have an enthusiasm for the material and we just got our own approach to it but we borrow from each other all the time.  He likes to learn from me the things I'm doing and vice versa. 

Question: What do you do that you know he would never do, and what does he do that you just go, I don't want to go there.         

Rodriguez: I don't know, I think we're willing to try anything at this point.  We had dinner with Tony Scott last night and we were talking about that same thing and he was like trying to pull out of us how we're doing these movies.  We were trying to forget he makes his, and he's trying to forget how we make ours.  But I don't understand how you guys do it green screen, and I want to get into some of that.

Question: Austin seems to be like the new hotbed for film makers, you've got Richard Linklater - are you guys friends?

Rodriguez: Yeah.

Question: Thinking about doing some pilots together?

Rodriguez: Never mentioned it.  We're both so busy all the time and it's great we're both busy.  Have a couple of movies going at the same time.

Question: You hire out your studio to film makers who are interested, or would you consider doing that or is it mainly for yourself and those interested in doing experimental?

Rodriguez: I like my own stages, I like two stages and right next door is Austin studios that Rick and I got from the city, and that one is city-run and it's a non-profit and that goes to any outside film makers that come in.  Rick will use them or I'll use them, but mine are just dedicated to my own productions.

Question: Audiences seem to really respond to your use of green screen, the way you incorporate it into the story telling, more than they'd use some of these big blockbuster things.  What do you think you're doing differently that's making, really look past the tricks and really get into your films?

Rodriguez: I don't know.  I think they're just unusual movies.  People like stuff that's different, kind of quirky and weird and that's what my stuff is.  They're pretty out there, they're all fantasies and they're all completely ridiculous but some people like that stuff, and they're inexpensive so they have a chance to make a profit.

Question: Earlier you mentioned which characters were returning for the sequels.  Do you have all those actors signed?

Rodriguez: No, but they would come do it.  It's like two days in their life, yeah, I'll do that again for, I have a free weekend this weekend.

Question: So you wouldn't have to worry about replacing, especially someone like Mickey Rourke.

Rodriguez: No, he would want to come do it.  It's fun.

Question: Quentin always used to cameo in his own movies.  Is he going to cameo in Grindhouse?

Rodriguez: He said if I have a part for him, he'd love to do it.  He'd love to work with people like, he loved what he did in From Dusk Till Dawn with me and something that's different from what he normally does.

Question: Did the Grindhouse stories intersect at all or are they really.

Rodriguez: No, they don't intersect at all but it's done like really Roger Corman style where some of my cast would show up in his movie but as the characters in his movie, it's almost like a troupe of actors and one of the trailers might feature the cast of his movie in another movie.

Question: Like it doesn't exist.

Rodriguez: It doesn't exist but this is it.  Oh, there's actors that are going to be famous from that little look where we actually show up in this trailer of a movie that doesn't exist.  I tell you what I did.  It's an exploitation movie starring Danny Trejho.  Bit like sort of Mexican, he's the hero and he's really cool.  I can't say what it is, but it is cool.