#2310 - Robert Rodriguez
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Who is Robert Rodriguez and what is his filmmaking journey?
Very, very nice to meet you. Incredible to meet you. I'm a fucking gigantic fan.
Man, I appreciate that.
How did Robert Rodriguez create his first movie with just $7,000?
I just love what you've done because, like, anybody who could start their career off and make a movie for $7,000 is a hero. That's just an incredible accomplishment to make a movie that people still watch and talk about today for $7,000.
It was an experience for sure. I had a really good plan. And it backfired. So I tried to, right away, when it worked in a different way, I wanted to share that experience. I wrote a book called Rebel Without a Crew that really inspired filmmakers.
You did the audio for it, too.
Just recently. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't read it since I wrote it. And I had forgotten a lot of the details. And now I can see why it inspired so many people, because it... You know, when you're in your early 20s, six months feels like six years. Right. So when you read it now and go, oh, my God, from inception to making it penniless by myself to Toast of the Town, it's like that. It was unbelievable. I couldn't wait to shout from the rooftops to all the other filmmakers like me who thought they couldn't get in how I did it exactly. I wrote a book about it. And I'd read it now and I'd go, oh my God, this is an impossible story. I keep laughing during the audiobook going, okay, what you're reading right now never happened before and it never happened again.
It was like lightning in a bottle. And you would see every time I thought something wasn't going my way and I was really bummed about it, within weeks, an upshot beyond. And it really taught you that you just got to follow your instinct. If you have an idea, go. Even if you know no one else has ever done this before. And you'll end up someplace different. I want to ask you about that because I know you end up doing the same thing a lot.
Yeah, for sure.
Where it's not manifesting so much in that way. You're just kind of following your nose. You're doing something that just sounds ridiculous. Even when I try to tell one of my teachers what I was going to go do that summer, I said, I'm going to go try and make a movie. He goes, oh, yeah? Who's going to be your director of photography? And I said, I didn't want to tell them I'm the whole crew. I'm the DP. Oh, the actors are going to hate you. You're going to be there setting up your lights all the time. I'm like, OK, I'm not going to tell them I'm the rest of the crew. It was just because I had read this advice that meant to be good advice, but it sounded really depressing. It was someone had written, if you want to write screenplays, write three full screenplays, throw them away.
Your fourth screenplay will be it. It's like, I've never written a screenplay. It's very hard to write a screenplay. It's hard to write. It's like three huge meals that you're just going to dump. Why not? Okay, write the script, throw it away. But while you're throwing it away, why not also shoot it and direct it? Light it yourself. Do the sound yourself so that you're training yourself on each one. So I thought, where can I do this? where I can get paid to do that, like my own film school where I get paid to learn. So I discovered that there were these straight-to-Spanish movies that are action movies. You go to the... You've seen the HEBs around here? There used to be a video section to rent movies, and there was a Spanish section. The Spanish section had movies like, they were just action movies. They had a soap star. They were made for 30 grand, 40 grand. Shot on video, no action, but it had a title that looked kind of like a U.S. title, like Perros Rabiosos 2, written like Lethal Weapon 2.
And you would rent it and be like, just crap, people in an apartment talking. So I looked at the back of those and I thought, we can make a better one, probably for like $5,000. Because I had made a short film called Bedhead. by myself with a wind-up camera. It was eight minutes, and it cost $800.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Robert Rodriguez and what is his filmmaking journey?
0:13–0:18
2
How did Robert Rodriguez create his first movie with just $7,000?
0:18–7:37
3
What is Robert Rodriguez's unique scriptwriting method using index cards?
7:37–24:27
4
How does Robert Rodriguez view the creative process and the 'creative spirit'?
24:27–39:01
5
What lessons does Robert Rodriguez share about fear, failure, and commitment?
39:01–1:09:05
6
How did Robert Rodriguez collaborate with Quentin Tarantino and develop his iconic films?
1:09:05–1:39:29
7
What is Robert Rodriguez's approach to balancing technical skills and creativity?
1:39:29–1:56:49
8
How does identity and mindset influence success according to Robert Rodriguez?
1:56:49–2:32:44