Robert Rodriguez The “Wizard” of Hollywood
Robert Rodriguez has been a massive inspiration of mine since watching El mariachi in the early 90s and learning about how he made it for $7000 and went on to win at Sundance. This episode of The Tim Ferriss show is a great listen and covers a lot of why I think he is someone everyone needs to take a tip or two from. I had the pleasure of meeting him at IBC in 2014 which was great. Very hard not to be a massive fan boy but I got through it. If you haven’t read Rebel Without a Crew you should but at least listen to this show.
Robert Rodriguez (@Rodriguez) is a film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer, editor, and musician. He is also the founder and chairman of El Rey Network, the new genre-busting English-language cable network.
While a student at the University of Texas at Austin in 1991, Rodriguez wrote the script for his first feature film while he was a paid subject in a clinical experiment at a drug research facility. That paycheck covered the cost of shooting his film.
The film, “El Mariachi,” went on to win the coveted Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and became the lowest budget movie ever released by a major studio. Rodriguez wrote about these experiences in Rebel Without a Crew, a perennial guide for the independent filmmaker.
Rodriguez went on to write, produce, and direct a series of successful films including, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, the Spy Kids franchise, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Frank Miller’s Sin City, and Machete, among many others.