FX shop Hybride, out of Piedmont, QC, played a crucial role in the making of the groundbreaking Robert Rodriguez feature Sin City, the top movie in North America after hauling in US$28.1 million in its April 1 opening weekend. The film’s Canadian release through Alliance Atlantis pulled in $3.3 million in the same time frame.

Sin City is based on graphic novels by acclaimed artist and writer Frank Miller. Set in a crime-ridden scumopolis, the film tells a series of intertwining stories involving tough guys, sexy dames and plenty of gunplay. The style of the piece, in black and white with dramatic splashes of color, is akin to a comic book come to life. Rodriguez achieved this by filming his actors in HD in front of green screens and later inserting digitally created backgrounds.

‘This project was more of an artistic and stylistic challenge than a technical achievement,’ says Hybride VFX producer Daniel Leduc. ‘But, having already worked together with Robert Rodriguez for over seven years, [our] artists are flexible and adaptable to Rodriguez’s methods and style.’

Eighty-five Hybride artists contributed FX production and artistic and technical supervision to 54 of the film’s 126 minutes. The studio designed nearly 50 interior and exterior environments, including hotel rooms, a church and an electrocution chamber, and animated elements such as helicopters and car chases.

Hybride previously worked with Rodriguez on the Spy Kids trilogy, The Faculty and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

-www.hybride.com