Robert Rodriguez: Rebel and Troublemaker

Nothing about Robert Rodriguez is conventional. His first movie is El Mariachi in 1992 where he was the director, writer, editor, director of photography, and music score. To finance El Mariachi, he took volunteer as laboratory rat. For more than a month, a local research hospital paid him to ingest an experimental cholesterol drug. Combined with his own money, he spent $ 7,000 to make El Mariachi. Originally, the film intended for the Spanish-language low-budget home-video market but then Columbia Pictures invested in it as distribution company. Fortunate for him, the movie won the Audience Award at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival; at the time, it was the lowest-budget film ever released by a major studio.

Even after Rodriguez got backing from Columbia for his next projects, he didn't go by the book. When studio executives wanted to bring in an outside editor to work on Desperado, his follow-up to Mariachi, Desperado, starring Antonio Banderas, Rodriguez demanded to do it himself and won. Desperado itself was not actually a sequel of El Mariachi. It was much more a remake. Also while making From Dusk Till Dawn, he insisted on using a non union crew.

His stubborn head not always successful. While directing Sin City (2005), Directors Guild of America (DGA) forbid Frank Miller's name for co-director in movie's credit. DGA stated that only 'legitimate team' can share co-director credit, which is same rule doesn't apply to Wachowski or Hughes brothers. Rodriguez insisted that Miller direct the film with him because he considered the visual style of Miller's comic art to be just as important as his own in the film. By DGA's force, Rodriguez resigned from DGA and back to work outside major studio once again. He had to lose his next big project in Paramount Pictures.

The breakout film for Rodriguez was Spy Kids (2001). A film that grossed more than $ 110 million in domestic box office and earned him the confidence and cash to settle in Austin, Texas, with his family. One of his son is named Rebel. He rented two soundstages and turned his garage into a series of post-production. He named it Troublemaker. The following films, Spy Kids 2: Island of Lost Dreams and Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over was shot entirely with HD cameras and edited at Troublemaker.

At the Toronto International Film Festival in 1992, Rodriguez met his next partner in crime, Quentin Tarantino. Quentin Tarantino was earning rapturous praise for his thriller Reservoir Dogs. Robert Rodriguez had recently made an even bigger splash, selling his $7,000-budgeted debut feature El Mariachi to Columbia Pictures and signing a two-year deal with the studio. As the story goes, they spent ninety minutes talking in a hotel lobby. Back in Los Angeles, the upstart directors discovered that they both had offices on the Sony lot.

They also discover that they had same similarity; out of the book, out of mainstream style. Quentin appeared as cameo in some Rodriguez's movies and gust directed one scene in Sin City. Tarantino is not a typical director. He collects rare 35-mm prints and doesn't even use monitors on set while directing. After work together in Sin City, Tarantino now says he'll shoot his own digital feature.

Rodriguez's movies are not about narrative but about style. He is master in editing and digital visual effect. As Rodriguez refines the tools of digital filmmaking, and the liberty that comes with them, others are slow to follow. Hollywood purists tend to dismiss the geeks in the business as more interested in technology than storytelling.

Rodríguez not only has the usual credits of producing, directing and writing his films, he also frequently serves as editor, director of photography, camera operator, composer, production designer, visual effects supervisor, and sound editor on his films. This has earned him the nickname of "the one-man film crew."

Alone in his austin garage, he is preparing his next project and learning more digital movie making.

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