I’ve just finished Robert Rodriquez’s book “Rebel Without A Crew“. It outlines how he made “El Mariachi” with no crew and a budget of only $7000. Although I’m planning on making a documentary and “El Mariachi” is really an action movie I thought it might be a little inspiring to read it.

Well, inspiring just isn’t the word. I was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by what Mr. Rodriguez accomplished. The story begins by outlining how he started to make little movies from the age of 12. By practicing this way and simply making short (all under 15 minutes) movies he was able to learn a tremendous amount about the film making process. He freely admits that the first 20 films he made were crap but that he learned a ton by doing them. By steadily working at it he was able to progress to the point where he was sending his short movies into film festivals and actually winning awards. Upon graduating from high school he wanted to go to film school but his grades were not good enough. However he was able to show one of the professors some of his short films and he was able to get into the program.

While going to school he decided he wanted to make a feature film. He had already made a short 15 minutes movie for $800 so he figured he could make a 90 minute one for $7000. In order to raise the money he actually volunteered his body for medical experiments at a local drug testing company. Besides being quite lucrative it also afforded him the time to write the script he had in mind. His entire book is written in a diary style and these are some of its funniest parts.

Rodriquez planned things in advance really well. He had already scouted a number of locations and he wrote his script around what he had access to. He shot everything on film with the plan of transferring it and editing it on video. To me this is almost mind blowing. I can’t believe he accomplished this with film and video tape. During the filming of El Mariachi he was literally a one man crew. Everything he did he did himself.

The story drags a little when he finishes the movie and tries to sell it. What happens is he tries to sell it to the Spanish video distributors as a direct to video movie. This proves unsuccessful (although I’m sure everyone he met is kicking themselves). However his movie is picked up by film festivals where it is noticed by some of the Hollywood Big Wigs. Before long he is being wooed by Hollywood with money absolutely beyond his dreams. This is quite a story but to me its simply isn’t as interesting as the making of portions of the book.

Since reading the book I went out and watched the movie. I thought it was fantastic. I had so much more fun watching “El Mariachi” than I did a film like “Transformers 2″ it isn’t even funny. One mistake that Robert says first time film makers make is to try and make their movies look like big budget Hollywood films. He didn’t try and do this at all and it works. “El Mariachi” looks like a gritty foreign film and I think that contributes to it’s uniqueness.

For myself the takeaways from reading this book and watching the movie are that it’s entirely possible to make your own movie. The fact that I’m planning on making a documentary makes it all the easier (at least I think so). Also the fact that I have access to digital film tools is also a huge plus. Back in the day I’m sure Robert Rodriquez would have crapped his pants if he had access to IMovie.

I’m most likely going to get Final Cut Express though.

I’m also planning on making little “Documentary Shorts” and putting them on youTube. This will allow me to learn the tools while at the same time hopefully learning what people like and don’t like.

If you’re interested in getting “El Mariachi” or “Rebel without a Crew” feel free to order them through my Amazon link. You’ll be getting a great book and movie as well as helping me out a bit. Thanks!

On a completely different topic I’m having some trouble with this wordpress blog. I’m on 2.8.4 and I’m having trouble formatting the text in the way I like as well as uploading images. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Related articles by Zemanta

• It’s a guerrilla-style film, Darling (guardian.co.uk)
• Vintage Mexican Sci-Fi Beams a Blast From the Past, con Queso (wired.com)