Films produced by Robert Rodriguez are made unlike most studio films are. However, his movies are influenced a lot by the Hollywood norms and standards. Rodriguez manages to produce Mainstream movies and stay loyal to his own style, roots and attitude. Rodriguez has lots of experience in the film production. He became interested in the film industry when he was still a little boy. He was raised on the silent movies and got interested in the filmmaking process the first time he went to the theater.
Armed only with his fathers 8mm camera and a large family to act as his cast he quickly gained a reputation as the Kid who made movies around his neighborhood. Before Rodriquez even started film school he had made over thirty short films on both film and video editing them himself using the basic techniques of connecting two VHS cameras together, because he had spent the majority of his time dedicated to his home movies, his academic grades in other areas had suffered and t his posed a problem when it came to applying to film school. It was only because of the fact that three of this home movies entitled Austin Stories had won a local festival, beating those submitted by some of the top film students at the University of Texas, that he was allowed to join the course.
Academically speaking his grades were well below the usual accepted entry requirements. His agenda for wanting to go to film school was possibly slightly different to other students, not being interested in the prestige the qualification had to offer and already being unconventionally self taught in the majority of filmmaking aspects, including Directing, Cinematography and Editing, Rodriquez only really wanted a place because as he puts it I knew as a student I could get my hands on 16mm equipment for free, its too expensive to rent, as so he could continue making his own types of films but with the benefits of using more professional tools, than he had access to previously . This kind of beg steal and borrow mentality and his guerilla style practices is still one of the key factors which makes him such a successful and influential filmmaker today. Utilizing the colleges facilities Rodriguez produced his renowned 8 minute short Bedhead; which went on to win multiple awards in short film festivals, any prize money received went back into the film to polish it, before entering it in to the next festival. The successful short began to get the aspiring filmmaker the outside attention he craved, but he was concerned that if he was asked to make a feature film, he wouldnt quite know how, as he had always worked in the somewhat obsolete art form of the short film. As Rodriguez admits himself, he liked to produce shorts, they were entertaining and encouraged his relativity limited audience to watch again and again.
I wanted to make the movies entertaining enough that theyd want to rewind it and watch it again and again. Thats why I stayed away fr om the longer movie, because it;s hard to keep that kind of energy up for an hour and a half. Taking this into account he also accepted that the short film really carried no weight in the industry and his next project would have to be longer if he was to move on to the next level of his chosen career path. From this point on he began preproduction for a project that would eventually lead to one of the most groundbreaking independent films of the 90s and earnt him the title of a legend not only in independent, but also in ultra low budget filmmaking. El Mariachi was initially an idea dreamt up by Rodriguez and fellow student Carlos Gallardo, about a lone musician who becomes a hit man, hell bent on revenge after the murder of his girlfriend. The cliched action movie was originally intended to be the first in a trilogy of Mariachi films aimed at the Mexican straight to video market. More importantly Rodriguez saw it as an opportunity to practice filming a feature, still utiliz ing his individual techniques, Rodriguez raised the money for the practice project by selling his body to science. He checked into a drug testing clinic and was paid $30, 000 by being a human guinea pig for a month. During his stay at the clinic, he wrote the entire script and cast fellow patient Peter Marquardt to act as the main villain Moco On an overall production budget of less than $70,000 Rodriguez shot the film in Mexico, where production facilities were either cheap or free and fellow producer Gallardo took the lead acting role of The Mariachi to again save on cost. The local residents of the town of Ciudad Acua were hired as extras working for little more than Beer and Doritos.
Rodriguez took the definition of Independent filmmaking literally by taking on the role off Producer, Director, Cinematographer, Editor and Sound recordist himself. Any assistance for grip work and lighting were provided by the cast who were not in front of the camera at the time. Rodr iguez again explored his beg steal borrow ideology by lending one 16mm Ariflex camera from a friend, and from previous experience shot similar shots from different angles to give the illusion there were multiple cameras on location, He used the camera handheld, whilst being pushed around in a wheelchair, making the picture look as if expensive tracking and dolly equipment had been used. This resulted in giving the impression that the budget of the movie was higher than it actually was, something which Rodriguez planned to rely on when selling the movie, so if nothing else he would at least recuperate his initial $70,000 investment..
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