ps

it strikes me now that my last post can be read as being a bit pretentious... the point is not to say "i'm great" but just that i know first-hand what rodriguez is talking about, with people wasting money trying to do it "the 'right' way" instead of being creative and spending your budget where it counts (in my case, on editing and buying lunch for my awesome actors --- the editor and actors are the real stars of those films of mine). rodriguez has this great story in the book where the studio he ends up selling his film to pays him a per diem of $2000 per week to come to LA and supervise a transfer to 35mm.... they also gave him an office, so he just slept in his office and pocketed the $2000 per week. in a month they had spent more money to cover his (non-existent) hotel and meals than he had spent on his entire feature film. now THAT guy (not so much me) knows how to direct!!

Rebel Without a Crew

Cross-posting this because I haven't written on here for a while, and my last personal blog entry (this) was about a book...


I just read Robert Rodriguez's Rebel Without a Crew, which details him making his first film El Mariachi for $7000 (with no crew) and his subsequent rise to Hollywood stardom. It's a great book. Rodriguez really has his head screwed on. No nonsense, just a "here's what I did" approach, and he's not afraid to talk numbers, which most books don't. His common mantra is that Hollywood is wasteful and uncreative because it just throws money at problems instead of coming up with creative ways to solve them. Indeed.

I made my first short, Spoony B, for about $300. (I spent another $300 just prior, taking a few classes in how to develop film, use a camera, etc.) It's 7min, which conventional wisdom says should cost about $7000 (as much as Rodriguez's whole feature film debut). I developed the film in buckets so that I could save on lab costs, I transferred it to video by projecting it onto my kitchen wall and shooting it with a video camera, I didn't record any dialogue, I did all manner of other things "wrong"... and then I sold the thing for a little under $2000, almost 7x its cost. Other filmmakers have to turn down offers like that because they are too low. You might say I could have milked the film more and tried to "make a name" with it. Well, who cares? It's my first film, ever, as a director. I just shot it for practice, and more because I wanted some film I could develop to make sure I was developing the film correctly than for any other reason. And it's better than half the films I see by people who have gone to film school and spent thousands with a proper crew, etc. (I have no formal training other than a few one- or two-day workshops).

Filmmakers need to stop wasting money. I shot a second film which should be edited and ready for distribution in June. It also cost about $300. It would be less but I paid my editor/star $150 because he is the man. Even if I don't make a dime off of it, I've made two films for less than what most people spend on ONE MINUTE of screen time. And they don't suck, which is more than I can say for most minutes of screen time. I was watching Movieola while home for Easter... HOLY CRAP!! DIRECTORS WHO ARE NOT WRITERS!!! STOP WRITING YOUR OWN FILMS!!!!

Rodriguez, you da man!!! Everybody with ANY interest in making films, read this book!

don't do this

I've been reading this book called Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It's actually kind of interesting...it's semi-autobiographical and he had a crazy life; escaping prison, working for the mafia in Bombay, setting up a free clinic in a slum. Anyway, it's an interesting book but I'm not sure he's a writer, per say. Whenever he tries to get descriptive, it's disaster. I nominate the following sentences for being the most gay/least sexy ones I've ever read:

"We kissed. Our lips made thoughts, somehow, without words: the kind of thoughts that feelings have. Our tounges writhed, and slithered in their caves of pleasure. "


I feel sick.