Robert Rodriguez
speaker
1,180 appearances
3 recordings
3 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard 16 Nov
Robert Rodriguez’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Nov 2025 with 1.
Appearances
I called up a place in Dallas that rented that kind of equipment. And I said, I have an Aerie 16 S here. two motor looking things. One has a 24 and one has a bunch of numbers. Oh, that's a variable speed motor. That means you can do different speed. I can shoot slow motion with this. Oh, wow. Do you have a torque motor? I don't know. What is that? Is there something on the side of the magazine?
Yeah. Now you can just look up on YouTube and it shows you how to do it. I was doing it by phone that way. And then I went and shot the movie right then. Yeah. And I didn't know if any of it was exposing or if the film camera was working until I finished the whole movie. So imagine you have to go down to Mexico, shoot for two weeks, come back, send it off to a lab.
You want to talk about being nervous.
just hoping something exposed. And when I saw it come back and the tape, you know, they transferred it to a tape so I could edit it deck to deck again. I was so relieved. Some things didn't come out, but I can cut around that. It's like, oh yeah, cause I'm doing everything. Like right here, you're doing everything. Imagine if you forgot to stop down and it's open all the way.
And one shot is blown out. You know, I'd have stuff like that because I'm moving fast and I'm doing it.
That's why I only did one take. So my idea was this. How gangster is that? Wow. It was a test film. Right, right. I thought it was going to be a test film. It's the only movie in history ever made where the filmmaker did not think anyone would see it and expect it and even set it up that way. I mean, why would I make an action movie for the Spanish market called basically The Guitar Player?
Promises no action. No one's gonna watch it. But I thought if someone actually picks it up and has the balls to watch this thing, they're gonna be surprised I put a lot of action in. It was just to learn from. I just needed to make it for as little as possible, see how much I could sell it for, If I could double my money, great. I can make another one and just get more practice.
It was just, I was so intrigued by this idea because you've heard advice about screenwriting. I heard advice back then that I thought was ridiculous. It said, it's going to take you a long time to be a good screenwriter. So write three scripts and throw them away. The fourth script will be the good one. It's so hard to write a script.
Who's going to write three full scripts knowing they throw them away? Wouldn't it be better if you write three scripts and then shoot each one and be the cameraman, be the sound guy, be everything. Cause that way you're learning, not just writing, you're learning how to make a movie. So that was my idea. I'm going to make three of these, hide it on Spanish video, but make money back.
That's like my own film school paying me, paying me to learn. So the first one I thought, let me just shoot it. one take each because my friend Carlos lives in Mexico. If we shoot two takes, most of the cost is to film. I've just doubled my budget. So let me just shoot one take. Some of it's gonna not come out, but I'm not gonna know what. I'm not gonna shoot a safety one.
That doubles my, let me see. Some things might come out. I expected like 70% of it to maybe be okay, but 30% I might have to come reshoot, which is fine. I just drive back there and then I just reshoot just those shots, right? So I just went, let's shoot.
we stop we come back then I send it off to develop because we're shooting two weeks consecutively to get film shipped back and forth from Mexico to see if it came out you just couldn't do it I just had to you know, double down on it, do it. One take everything. I remember one time I was still an actor, man, I told you to run through that shot and you, and you go, Oh, let me do it.
No, one take, dude, just think about next time. Do what I say. I didn't think anyone was going to see it. So you, and because you don't think anyone's going to see it, you end up doing something remarkable, which is, well, I'm just going to make something for myself. Because if I was making a movie that was going to go to Sundance, I wouldn't have made that movie.
I would have thought, okay, I got to get serious. But because I made this movie that was just entertaining myself like bedhead, it entertained audiences. So that naivete is really important when you're starting out or at any point in your life, be naive about what things are going to, and just do something for yourself. That taught me a very valuable lesson because I didn't want anybody to see it.
I just thought one take, one take. When I got back home, A bunch of stuff didn't come out, but I'm like, I'm not going back to Mexico. I'll figure out a way to edit around it and make the movie shorter. and that's just going to be the movie. And then that's the one that won Sundance.
They weren't actors. That's right. They were just friends of ours, which is why, and because, um, and this was the magic of not having a crew. They didn't feel like they were making a movie. It's like this, you know, we're, we're just here. Yeah. Me with my one camera. In fact, The gal, Carlos said, this one girl, I forgot, she's in town.
Maybe she would work because we're trying to get a soap star. And she backed out. So we got this gal over and she goes, but I don't know how to act. And I said, here, let's watch. I want to show you something on Mexican TV. A telenovela was on and you see someone, you know, all over, over acting. I said, that's acting. I don't want you to do that. I want you to just talk like you're talking about.
She's amazing.
Because I got a video of her. I said, I want you to just do this one line. Pretend like you're just talking to your boyfriend. Yeah. And I showed her. I showed her the video. That was cool because I couldn't show her the film because we'd have to develop it. But I showed her a video test of herself doing it. And she saw herself doing it. She suddenly had the confidence. We went through her closet.
This red dress you can wear in that. And everyone just brought their own clothes.
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