Yea, itz a long ass title but itz most certainly a good read.
This is a book written by Robert Rodriguez. You may have heard of him. He's directed films like From Dusk Till Dawn, Spy Kids, Sin City , or the upcoming...GrindHouse (oooooh yeeea)? Well before Rodriguez got famous he was a broke struggling filmmaker just like us and he was waiting for his big break.
The only problem was, he didn't have the budget to make a feature length movie.
So this guy, this genius we'd like to say, took it upon himself to make a feature length film to distribute to the Spanish video market. He got together his friends and family to help with the production and casting of a massive indie hit called El Mariachi. The film took 7K to make (which is peanuts) and became one of the most popular independent films of 1994. It won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Feature and gave Rodriguez an opportunity to meet a cool famous Hollywood director named Quentin Tarantino that would later become his producing partner.
In the book, Rodriguez talks about using flood lights from Home Depot for his lighting and when writing the script thinking of location ahead of time that he knew he could shoot a movie in. The guy was so broke that he even underwent lab experiments for extra money to fund his film! Crazy? Or Clever? Rodriguez is a man of many hats and did everything from shooting, to lighting, to scoring and editing.
It's a motivating read for all young filmmakers, especially if you are interested in shooting a feature. Click here to purchase the book from Amazon.
Happy Filmmaking!
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