OTHER TECH

Did this evolve from shooting movies on Super 8 when you were a kid, using family and friends as cast and crew? Totally. The room where I work on my films is just a big-boy version of the one I had when I was 12. I just roll out of bed and work on my movie - it's just the best. I do the sound mix, music, and everything right there in my garage. It's crazy.

Is this the direction moviemaking will take as it becomes ever more digital? It easily could. That was the big thing that happened in music 12 years ago or so, when people realized that they could make a whole album in their house. Now, you can do that with a feature. It's not hard at all.

George Lucas introduced you to digital filmmaking. What did you learn from him? He turned me onto the idea that the process could be nonlinear. I mean, Quentin and I are still writing the script for Grind House, but I already showed him the opening titles and I already did the score. It's just all out of whack - you're working completely out of sequence, but it all makes sense because it inspires you even more. You don't have to follow the traditional way of doing things; you just do what ever comes natural to you creatively.

Do you have a home theater for a screening room? Yeah, I did the sound mix there for the movie.

What kind of TV and speaker system do you have? Oh man, it's huge. It's like what you would find in a movie theater, but it's in my garage. It's like a wall. The speakers take up a whole room.

What kind of speakers? They're specially made by people who do stuff for [Lucas's] Skywalker Sound. They're custom cabinets.

Do you have a big DVD library? Yes, it's in three different sections of my house.

Sergio Leone is an obvious influence on your work. Who are some others? Wow. Off the top of my head, I'd say probably all of them [laughs]. You get inspired by all kinds of people. Alfred Hitchcock - anybody who's really visually inventive.

What's a great DVD you've seen recently? Fight Club. I like any DVD that's got a comprehensive, well thought-out set of extras. Not ones full of studio fluff with the same old talking-head interview documentary cut up into three sections and given three different names. Or the commentary track where you have the guy saying, "Hmm. Yeah. Haven't seen this movie in 20 years. I don't know what's going on here." Thanks, buddy.

The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, a film about a kid's fantasies turning out to be true, came from your son Racer's drawings and dreams. Is there a biographical statement in there about your own approach to filmmaking? I'm sure there's a lot in there. Everything that Sharkboy or Lavagirl spew forth is stuff I'm always thinking and use all the time. I'm the voice of the shark: "You must keep moving to survive. Always go forward, never back."

Is that the way you write scripts - wherever your fancy takes you? Yeah, yeah, totally. I live in that dream world. That's where all the ideas come from. It's free association and just sitting around coming up with things.

You seem to do just about everything on a film - you even did some of the music for Kill Bill. Do you have control issues, or does this also come out of your days making movies on Super 8? Same thing, yeah. I used to do music on those old movies, and I've done orchestral music for all my features since Spy Kids I. It's just an extension of the writing on the movie, writing the music notes that go with the character you're also writing the dialogue for. Rather than go hire someone to come make some pretty music, you're doing something that goes with the vibe you're creating. It just makes sense.

Kerry Conran worked out of his garage to create part of his first film, which he then expanded into Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Do you believe that the best way to break into filmmaking now is to just go out and shoot your own thing? Totally. That's what I did with Mariarchi. I went and developed my own project just to see whether I could do it. You actually have something tangible that shows you know how to make a movie.

Conran took over directing A Princess of Mars from you after you quit the Director's Guild. Was it a relief to you to not have to do such a big-budget project? It would have been your first $100-million film. No, it would have been fun to do if I could have used it to build an infrastructure in Austin - to build a bigger sound stage and things like that. But I can do that on another movie - it's no big deal.

Do you also get involved in making the transfers of your films for the DVDs? Oh, yeah, I do all that stuff.

You're just a one-man band. Well, you've got to be. No one else is going to give it that much attention to detail or even know what it's supposed to look like. You've got to do all that.