A long-rumored sequence cut from Quentin Tarantino’s 2003 film Kill Bill has finally reached audiences, thanks in part to RPI’s Sarah Beth Eisinger, senior administrator in the Games & Experiential Media department. 

Eisinger served as effects supervisor on Quentin Tarantino’s recent Kill Bill x Fortnite After Dark collaboration, Kill Bill - The Lost Chapter: Yuki’s Revenge. 

The project is a 10-minute animated short that debuted in theaters December 5 as part of the 25th anniversary rerelease of Kill Bill. The sequence was originally written for Kill Bill but ultimately left out of the 2003 release, with the script circulating publicly for years and fueling fan speculation about whether it would ever be realized.  

“My involvement in this began when working with Epic Games and The Third Floor, who wanted to release the sequence as a streaming video for Fortnite — which had never done a project like this before,” said Eisinger. “At 10 minutes long, it’s significantly more involved than their usual game season trailers, and it has a cohesive story with emotional peaks and troughs that we wanted to build up.”  

Midway through the project they got the news that it would be printed in 70mm and released with the 25th anniversary theatrical release of Kill Bill.  

Eisinger’s participation in the short follows 13 years in the animation and games industries. “As effects supervisor, I oversaw technical problem-solving, interpreted and communicated the animation director’s vision to my team, and completed shot work using SideFX Software’s Houdini and Epic’s Unreal Engine.”  

“One challenge we faced is that Fortnite and all its trailers are rated T for Teen, and the world of Kill Bill is definitely not,” said Eisinger. “So, for example, we had a ton of discussion and exploration around the portrayal of blood in the piece and finally came up with a variant of the ‘blue cube’ effect from the game that joined together the distinctive visual styles of both Fortnite and Tarantino’s films.” 

At RPI, Eisinger draws directly on professional projects like Yuki’s Revenge to help guide programming and priorities within the Center of Excellence in Digital Game Development, ensuring students gain experience with industry-relevant tools and workflows that will help them be even more successful after graduation.  

“Real-time rendering engines like Unreal are reshaping the animation process by providing feedback at every stage,” says Eisinger. “We have such an incredible pool of talent at this school, and projects like this help us shape the program to best prepare students for the latest advances in the industry.” 

Working on Yuki’s Revenge not only reinforced the professional experience Eisinger brings to RPI, it also gave her the rare opportunity to contribute to a film that had shaped her creative interests. 

“I mentioned Kill Bill in my interview completely independently of knowing anything about the project as an example of an effects style that I love, so I just about hyperventilated from joy on the first day when I found out what we were making,” said Eisinger.  

That enthusiasm carried through the work itself, shaping the care and precision that went into bringing a long-lost chapter of Kill Bill to the screen.