Lex Fridman PodcastRobert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking | Lex Fridman Podcast #465
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 30,082 words- 0:00 – 2:07
Episode highlight
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I write the script in December. January, Josh Arnett, Marley Shelton come down, fly Frank in. We're shooting for 10 hours on my green screen. We shoot that opening sequence. Incredible opening sequence. And the visual look? We've never seen that. I wanna just take this and make it move. I just want the comic to move. Any other studio would just go make it look like a- any gritty crime movie and they would, they would miss the point, that it's ha- the visual is half of it. I want it to look just like this 'cause it would be the boldest movie anyone's seen, 'cause that's how it reads when I read the book. It's like, if this was a movie, then it would be the most phenomenal movie. Just by being around him and working with him, you get, by osmosis, you learn stuff. And it just ups your game, because they're just swing way beyond you. Jim Cameron was like that. So like, when I first met him, I was trying to impress the hell out of him, you know, 'cause I was such a big fan. I was about to go do Desperado and I went, "Hey, I just took a three-day steady cam course 'cause I can't afford a steady cam operator, so I'm gonna operate steady cam myself on Desperado." Now, if he was just my peer, he'd say, "Oh, I, I did the same thing, and I'm gonna do the same thing." That, that would be like hanging out with somebody of your ilk. But you don't, you want somebody who's above that. Do you know what he said? He goes, "I'll buy the steady cam, but not to operate it. I'm gonna take it apart and design a better one." (laughs) It's like, uh, us mere mortals trying to learn how to operate the camera. He's designing all new systems. That's the guy you wanna hang out with, not someone who's doing what you're doing. We put so much of the world around them. Like, when you see the city, we put like a blue screen way in the back to just make the city keep going. But we built the sets there, the town. We built the real sets so everything was very tangible and real, and that way she had to fit into that world and be as real as that. Because if it was all done in CG, well then now you can fudge everything. But if you put her in a real environment, that's a real challenge. And just like with our movies, you watch it all fall apart. You watch this thing blow up, you watch this thing not work. Everything just falls apart in front of your face. Then that's when you roll up your sleeves and creatively figure out a way around it. And by the end, you have a result that's better than what you sought out. Sift through the ashes of your failure, and you'll find the key to your next success is in there. But if you're not looking for it, you don't find it.
- 2:07 – 4:06
Introduction
- RRRobert Rodriguez
- LFLex Fridman
The following is a conversation with Robert Rodriguez, a legendary filmmaker and creator of Sin City, El Mariachi, Desperado, Spy Kids, Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn, Alita: Battle Angel, The Faculty, and many more. Robert inspired a generation of independent filmmakers with his first film, El Mariachi, that he famously made for just $7,000. On that film, and many since, he was not only the director. He was also the writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, visual effects supervisor, sound designer, composer. Basically, the full stack of filmmaking. He has shown incredible versatility across genres, including action, horror, family films, and sci-fi, with some epic collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron, and many other legendary actors and filmmakers. He has often operated at the technological cutting edge, pioneering using HD filmmaking, digital backlots, and 3D tech. And always, through all of that, he's been a champion of independent filmmaking, running his own studio here in Austin, Texas, which, in many ways, is very far away from Hollywood. He's building a new thing now called Brass Knuckle Films, where he's opening up the filmmaking process so that fans can be a part of it as he creates his next four action films. I'll probably go hang out at his film studio bunch as this is all coming to life. His work has inspired a very large number of people, including me, to be more creative in whatever pursuit you take on in life, and have fun doing it. This is the Lex Fridman Podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Robert Rodriguez.
- 4:06 – 11:40
Explosions and having only one take
- LFLex Fridman
Has there been a, a time when there was like one take, and you only have one take to get it right?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Oh, all the time, where you're just like, or just you know how long it'll take to reset, and you're just... But then you know what you, you, you gotta just work with what you got. You know, you gotta look what, work with your results.
- LFLex Fridman
You get nervous, or no? In that moment?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Oh, yeah. You're, you're nervous going like, "Just, I hope it goes off," 'cause then to fix it, I'll have to go do a bunch of other steps, which we don't have time for. But a lot of times, you know, I've just learned that if something happens, it's just meant to be that way. And, uh, and I got used to doing things in one take and, and just living with it. It didn't bother me. In one movie it was, even a low-budget movie, they had, um, rigged a car to implode, 'cause I was gonna throw a guy at it. So we needed the car to implode, and then we're gonna throw him and marry it together, right? And, um, the stunt, and the, the car guy goes, "Yeah, we're gonna have three cars rigged." "Three cars? Why you need three..." "Well, in case one doesn't work, and then we have a second one after." I'm like, "We don't have all night to go shoot take after take. We're doing just, just getting one car. And if it doesn't work, we'll figure it out." Because you don't have time to do it again sometimes. It's such a long setup. So I go, "No, I'm, I'm good with just going..." What if ... And a Grindhouse movie, they didn't, they only had one take, so that'll make it more authentic. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
When it all goes to shit, when it fails, you just, what's the next thought?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
So I'll tell you, two things happened on Dusk Till Dawn. First was, okay, you know how those explosions, when somebody walks away in slow motion from an explosion, it's become kind of-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
You know that started with Desperado? Desperado's the first. If you look at all the montages, Desperado's first.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, that's right. That's right. That is the meme.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Because it was an accident, it was just supposed to be, it was just two grenades, not a nuclear bomb. He throws them over the side, and I just wanted like some body parts or, you know, something to fly up, some shrapnel. It said, literally says shrapnel. And my effects guy was so ragged, running so ragged. We get to there and I go, "Do you have any body parts and stuff we can throw up, or, or something you can shoot up? I didn't realize it's so high to get past that second floor." He's like, "No, I don't. I can give you a fireball. I can give you a nice, you know, um, fireball with propane, but it burns away really quick, like ..." "How fast?"... like that, but it'll be big and orange. And, okay, we'll, we'll shoot it in slow motion so it lasts a little longer, 'cause it just goes poof. So I told the actors, "I don't know how big this fireball's gonna be, but just walk really fast and just look real determined and then just keep walking. Don't stop or turn around 'cause you might get your eyebrows singed." So they take off and boom, it goes, and in slow motion it looks great, right?
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I remember showing to Jim Cameron before it came out, and his hand went up like he had never seen that before, you know? Six months later, Dusk Till Dawn came out. And so I, I, I liked how much it looked so much that in Dusk Till Dawn, I did it again. So those movies came out within six months of each other. That's why it turned into a thing, 'cause people saw it.
- LFLex Fridman
Crazy, yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And so I thought, how about for the opening of George Clooney and Quentin walking out of the, uh, gas station that we have the whole place just blowing up and they just keep talking like it's not happening. You know, like take it another step further so I'm not just doing the same thing. Okay, that one is like, okay, you're gonna walk out and it's all in one take. So we're only gonna do one take. We're gonna blow the thing up. We're gonna start with just, you know, some smaller explosions, then when they're further away and it's safer, then we'll do the big fireballs.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
So we're going and you're nervous 'cause like if one of them trips up a line, and you know, the pressure's on them. It's not just you that's nervous, you're nervous for them. They're the ones who gotta walk out, do that whole speech, get in the car, and drive away. What if the car doesn't start? What do... You know, there's a lot of things that could happen. Well, guess what happens? The thing you would not expect, they go in, they come out, they start talking, shoot it, it's perfect. Great, we can move on. And the camera guy goes, "I don't know what happened, but just like you had a little snafu here." He goes-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
... "We ha- we have an autofocus on the steady cam. I mean, we have a focus thing."
- LFLex Fridman
No.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
"It just went like this."
- LFLex Fridman
No.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
"I, I felt it go whack all the way out of focus and whack for a second-"
- LFLex Fridman
Mm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
"... back. Like it just reset itself. I don't know why it did that." You know, 'cause it's radio controlled. And we can't tell 'cause we're shooting film.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
You know, so we're like, "Oh, shit. Well, let's watch the dailies sure enough. Let's see if we can get, maybe I can scratch the film right there." No, it goes completely out of focus and then back in focus within a second. Now we gotta reshoot it. So we had to wait till we were back in that location. We rigged it for two more takes (laughs) just in case. So that thing that was supposed to be the one take is three takes. The other thing that happened was the front of the Dusk Till Dawn bar, that same guy that did those explosions, he packed a bunch of explosives behind the actors. When the actors come running out of the, of the bar at the end of the movie and there's an explosion through the door 'cause all the vampires are blowing up, he didn't just ... he put like 10 times (laughs) you know, so it blew out, you see it in the movie, you see this huge fireball going up. And if you watch closely, you see it already start to catch the whole place on fire. The whole front of that, which is foam, is catching on fire. And I cut just before you see that it's on fire. And we h- that was the first shot at that bar, 'cause we weren't gonna start shooting the other stuff till night. So the first shot is that, and the set's ruined. Burned to a crisp. Th- the neon lights blew up. So we couldn't even sh- Cheech goes, "Well, I guess I'm not doing my speech tonight." (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And, but right away, this is what, this is what happens. My first AD, Doug Arnakowski, comes over to me and I go over to him. The guys came out with the fire hoses, the fire hoses weren't even adding any water. It would like ... The thing was just scorching. The whole production design team was c- in tears 'cause they had just spent weeks building this thing and it was just up in smoke and charred. I said, "Let's just keep shooting. Let's just keep shooting because it looks really kind of cool like this." Yeah, they're gonna have to come repair it and we'll have to come back, but it's all black and charred. That's why that whole scene with George Clooney and Cheech and the, the building's black. We didn't go over there and touch that up. That's real flame (laughs) that burned.
- LFLex Fridman
Oh, shit.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And it ended up looking great. So then the next week when we came back to shoot that other shot that didn't work, we came back and they had repaired it and we shot all the night stuff, which is the majority of the stuff in front of it. So sometimes you gotta roll with it and then ... And look, look at the blessing you get because of this mistake. You probably actually got a better take by doing it later with them. And then you had this incredible look for the end of the movie that looked apocalyptic. If it had looked just clean, you would have actually seen that it was kind of a foam set. Just made it look better. So I kind of let the universe push you where you're supposed to go.
- 11:40 – 20:30
Success and failure
- RRRobert Rodriguez
the same.
- LFLex Fridman
So you write the story, the script, and then you have it collide with the chaos of reality. And in that moment, when you said you see the chicken shit.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Like you have to be able to keep your eyes open and notice-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
You have to do that. You have to do that.
- LFLex Fridman
... like wait a minute, okay, stuff changed.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
It's a discipline.
- LFLex Fridman
Where's the ... Not to be cliche about it, but where's the silver lining of this?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Where's the path to actually make something good out of this? And that's a skill, right?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I call it, uh, uh, and it's one of my favorite stories. I was doing one of these talks-And they said, "Come talk about creativity." I go, "I understand 'cause a lot of people read my book, Rebels Without a Crew, and told me, oh, it made me be a filmmaker, but a lot of people said it helped me start my own business because they just see how you can go be entrepreneurial like that and go where no one else is going." And I'm giving all this talk about this kind of positive stuff, and this one woman goes, "You're real positive, but what do I tell myself when I just wasted a year and a half of my life doing something that didn't work?" And I was like, "That's a real negative way to ask that. Can you just rephrase the question a little more positively before I even attempt to answer it?" 'Cause already her point of view is, is exactly what you're saying. She's not looking at all. She's just concentrating on what, what didn't follow her plan and not seeing the gift of everything else that's there. So she goes, very reluctantly (laughs) , it was so perfect I wish we had filmed it. She goes, "I learned a good lesson the hard way." And I said, "That still sucks." And I say, "When you follow your instinct, like if you follow your own instinct to go start a business or go make this movie or whatnot, it wasn't someone saying, 'Go over there and you'll make a million dollars,' you know? It was your instinct, and you fail. Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. You fail, you have to really sift through..." It's like the silver lining, but I call it sift through the ashes of your failure, and you'll find the key to your next success is in there. But if you're not looking for it, you don't find it. "I'm gonna tell you when..." And I tell them the Four Rooms story. I said, "I made a movie called Four Rooms. I, it's, didn't make any money, right? When Quentin asked me, 'Hey, would you want to make a movie with me and two, two other filmmakers? It's an anthology. It's on New Year's Eve. It's in a hotel. You have to use the bellhop. We're not gonna know what each other's making. And we make and we put it together.'" My hand went up right away, just instinctually. "Okay, that sounds... Yeah, I'll, I'll do that. I'll go make that with you." Now, should I ask the audience? I like to throw it to the audience and her. Should I have not raised my hand that quick? Shouldn't I have done a little studying first? Or should I just go blind instinct? Or should you do instinct with some studying? Okay, well, I could have gone and studied, and I would have found that anthologies never work. Like even when it's Coppola-
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
... Scorsese, Woody Allen, they bomb 'cause people can't quite wrap their head. "What is this, Twilight Zone? I don't want to go see that." But that's not, I still said yeah. I, I, I think I should just still go by instinct. So my instinct was to raise my hand. We go make that movie, 'cause I love short films. I made like Bedhead and short films, and I thought, "Oh, here's a way, if this works, I can make short films in anthologies, and I can have the best of both worlds."
- LFLex Fridman
And by the way, anthologies is when there's multiple pe-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
More than multiple, one story.
- LFLex Fridman
In one movie.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
One story, yeah, one movie. Just like that.
- LFLex Fridman
So if you did the research, you would know that-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Those always bomb. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
... very few people ever got that to work.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
(laughs) Those always bomb. Yeah, the audience can't quite wrap their ren- And then it feels like the movie's starting three times, you know? So I make that movie. It bombs. Now, I could feel real bad about that. But if you really think about it, you go, "Well, why did I sign up for it? Did I raise my hand because I thought it was gonna go be this big financial success?" No, I did it to work with my friends, to do something creative, to try something. But that's still not good enough. I need to really sift through the ashes. Now if I look through the ashes of that failure, I find two keys to my biggest successes in there. While I was on the set, they said, "It has to be New Year's." So I thought, "I'm just gonna do like Bedhead, I'm gonna have two little kids that are running around in this room, and we have to use the bellhop as a babysitter. Well, it's New Year's, let's dress everybody in tuxedos 'cause it's New Year's, they're all gonna go out." But the parents leave without them. When I saw Antonio and his wife, I thought, "Wow, they look like a really cool international spy couple. What if they were spies?" And these two little kids who, one of them keeps falling asleep on the set he's so young, they could barely tie their shoes. They don't know parents are spies, they have to go save them. Okay, there's five of those movies now, right? The other one was, I really love making short films. I really want this anthology thing to work. What if it's three stories, like a 3X structure, not four? Same director, not four different directors. I'm gonna try it again. Why on earth would I try it again? Well, because I had already done one and figured out how I could do it better, and that's Sin City. Those are by far two of my biggest successes that came directly from that failure. So I always say follow your instinct. If it doesn't work, just go... Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. So what is, where's the key in that, in the ashes of the failure? Because if I had an instinct, that means I was on the right track. I didn't get the result I want. That's because the result might be something way bigger that I don't have the vision for, and the universe is pushing me that way.
- LFLex Fridman
By the way, a lot of people that look back to Four Rooms see a lot of creative genius in there. So you say it flopped. I guess-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
It flopped financially.
- LFLex Fridman
Financially.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
But, you know, there's so many ways to measure success-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Totally, oh yeah, yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... of a movie.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
But like I said, like, I, like I would say, well, it was successful because, you know, even Roger Ebert said, "Hey, you furnished my favorite room." You know? (laughs) I was like, "Hey that's, I could take that." But now that, I think there's something else still there. I keep sifting, and it's like, oh yeah, two big successes came from that. That's an amazing lesson to, to have, because it makes you feel better about failure. Think of like The Thing by John Carpenter.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- 20:30 – 32:43
Filmmaking on a low budget
- LFLex Fridman
your journey is super inspiring. We'll talk about it. Let's go to the beginning-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Sure, sure.
- LFLex Fridman
... 'cause there's a few technical things that are fascinating about your beginning. So you started making films when you were very young-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... with an old Super 8 camera, and you were editing on a VCR.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
You see, I've met a lot of filmmakers who, you know, they start a certain way but then they finish another way. They get to be big filmmakers and all that. I still do it that way. Like, I still ... I like doing things that way. I have a new company called Brass Knuckle Films where the audience can actually participate by investing in this mo- being investors in these movies that are done the same way. They're action films like we did with Mariachi, but 10 to 30 million. It doesn't take a lot of money to start a billion dollar franchise. You know, like John Wick only cost $20 million, the first one. Second one was 40. Third one was 80. Fourth one was 100 because the audience kept growing and growing.
- LFLex Fridman
By the way, when you, you say, you know, $20 million like it's not n- a lot of money, we should mention-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
It's not for an action film. Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
Th- that's right. But also, we should say that El Mariachi, the fi- the, the film on which the book Rebel Without a Crew is $7,000 movie. So let's put it all in context. (laughs)
- RRRobert Rodriguez
But, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna hire bigger actors.
- LFLex Fridman
Yes, yes.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
You couldn't get a big actor like a Keanu Reeves for a $20 million movie. You know, I asked Jim, I said ... Jim Cameron, I said, "You know, like, Terminator cost $5 million." And he goes, "I wish we had that much. (laughs) We had less than $5 million for that." So you can start a billion dollar franchise using these methods. And, uh, and with the audience investing, they get to make money on them. Th- and this is what I'm gonna say now about how I started. You see that DNA of how I give out, you know ... I want people to know how I did things with Rebel Without a Crew or with these methods that I started with. You see, that's how we kept going. Hollywood spends way too much, and when you can make stuff for less, your profit margin is much better. So when I first started, I didn't have any money, so I still play like I don't have money. So I had Super 8 ... My dad had a Super 8 camera, but I couldn't afford it. I shot two rolls that you had to get the f- you had to buy the film, shoot two minutes. I shot two rolls of that. It's another ... Same amount of money that it cost to buy it, whatever that was, 12 bucks or whatever, to develop it. You get it, there's no sound, most of the shit's out of focus, you know. But then my dad, who sold cookware, had a VCR, one of the first VCRs, home VCRs for the market, that he would play his sales tapes to his salesmen. And it came with a camera attached. Like this cable you got coming out, imagine if that had to go into your VCR for you to even see what it's shooting.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And this is old camera, manual focus, manual iris, and 12-foot cable. And I would start making movies with that instead. Now I have ... For $8, I have a two-hour erasable tape of sound and picture. So I got into digital, basically, really early. I was doing ...
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Which was really frowned upon back then.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And, and continued to be all the way to when I was using it for real in the early 2000s before everyone realized, "Oh, that's the future."
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, that's fascinating, 'cause you were a rebel in that way too, using digital.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah. Well, 'cause of the means, and-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
... the democratizing of that. The elite didn't like that you could just go make a movie like that. But I started practicing, and it's much easier to practice when it doesn't cost any money. Like if you wanna be a rock star, right? If you wanna learn how to play guitar really well, you're not gonna just jump on stage and suddenly be able to play. You have to practice till your fingers bleed. Well, the same with movies. You gotta keep telling stories and cutting them together, and you just can't afford that on film. Nobody can with a two-minute roll costing as much as a two-hour tape. So I was moving all these ... doing all these movies. First I would cut in camera, and that VCR, that old VCR had a really great pause button that they stopped making, that when you hit pause, it stopped right there, and it stopped with a clean cut. It didn't have all this color bars like the later ones had. So I ... That was my ... And it had an audio dub feature, where you could add another second soundtrack to it. So if I have people talking, I could hit audio dub and add sound effects. So I could have two tracks on the same one. So I ... That was my filmmaking kit for a while.... until I needed to start doing real editing, and my dad bought a second VCR for his business 'cause I (laughs) stole his other one. And I found that if I hooked them together, I could play on one and use that pause button on the second, w- and this was the limitation, this is what taught me how to edit in my head, is that if I shot a bunch of footage, I needed to shoot very little footage so I could find it, 'cause sometimes you shoot out of order. So when I cut it, I have to cut in linear order because if you push pause, it's a nice clean cut, but only, it only holds for five minutes. You have five minutes before the machine shuts off.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
So you gotta find your next shot within five minutes and do that. Otherwise, if you have to start the machine over, it would add all these color bars and it would be all screwed up. So I'd have to sit there and not move for, like, all day while I cut, (laughs) knowing what the next shot was. And once I had it cut, I would then add some sound effects to it, remember because I had the audio dub function. But now if I want to add music, I take that tape, which has two tracks now, into the first deck and put it into the VCR again, one generation of loss, but I have a little cassette tape player with the music, and I do a Y-splitter so I can add the music-
- LFLex Fridman
Nice.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
... and then, yeah, right? Just like that.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Brilliant.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
That's, like, being resourceful with what you have. And I made award-winning short films that way, on video. There were some festivals that would allow video. Not many, but they would always win, and they were always funny as, uh ... I stumbled upon Spy Kids that way. Like, I wanted to make these action movies in my backyard, but when you're a teenager, you don't know anybody who can come be your action star. And if you just bring your high school buddies, well, they just look like high school kids. So I used my little brothers and sisters 'cause I'm one of ten, third oldest. (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
They're just sitting around watching cartoons anyway, and I made them the action stars just to, like, learn. And I found those things would be a winning formula. They'd win every festival I'd send 'em to. So Bedhead was my first time using a film camera. It was a wind-up film camera I got in film school. I went to film school for one semester and realized I already knew more than the film students 'cause they, they taught you a whole other outdated way of doing it. So I thought, "I'm just gonna use that film cam- camera to make a, a low-budget movie, a definitive film version that I can send to all film festivals of these action kids," which is a precursor to Spy Kids. Be- Bedhead's a precursor to Spy Kids.
- 32:43 – 44:12
El Mariachi
- RRRobert Rodriguez
have to think about it. I shot Mariachi on film in a, with a borrowed 16-millimeter camera. I didn't know how to use it. I called up a place in Dallas that rented that kind of equipment, and I said, "I have an ARRI 16S here, two motor-looking things."
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RRRobert Rodriguez
"One has a 24-"
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
"... on, and one has a, a bunch of numbers." "Oh, that's a variable-speed motor. That means you can do different speed." "I can shoot slow motion with this?" They go, "Yeah." "Oh, wow." "Do you have a torque motor?" "I don't know, what is that?" He goes, "Is there something on the side of the magazine, like it does a..." "Yeah." Now, you can just look up on YouTube, and it shows you how to use it.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, use it.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I was doing it by phone that way.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And then I went and shot the movie right then.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And I didn't know if any of it was exposing or if the film camera was working until I finished the whole movie. So imagine, you have to go down to Mexico, shoot for two weeks, come back, send it off to a lab. You want to talk about being nervous.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Just hoping (laughs) something exposed. And when I saw it come back on the tape, you know, they transferred it to a tape so that I could edit it deck-to-deck again, I was so relieved. Some things didn't come out, but I, oh, I can cut around that. Just like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, 'cause I'm doing everything. Like right, right here, you're doing everything. Imagine if you forgot to stop down, and it's open all the way, and one shot is blown out. You know, I'd have stuff like that, because I'm moving fast, and I'm doing it all myself.
- LFLex Fridman
W- wait a minute, you shot El Mariachi, the whole thing without knowing if some of the footage is damaged, wrong?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah, without any of it. That's why I only did one take. So my idea was this.
- LFLex Fridman
How gangster is that?
- RRRobert Rodriguez
One-
- LFLex Fridman
Wow.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Well, it, it was a test film.
- LFLex Fridman
Right, right, r-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I thought it was, I thought it was gonna be a test film.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
It's the only movie in history ever made where the filmmaker did not think anyone would see it and expect it and even set it up that way. I mean, why would I make an action movie for the Spanish market called basically The Guitar Player? Promises no action. No one's gonna watch it. But I thought if someone actually picks it up and has the balls to watch this thing, they're gonna be surprised I put a lot of action in. It was just to learn from. I just needed to make it for as little as possible, see how much I could sell it for. If I could double my money, great, I could make another one and just get more practice. It was just, I just was so intrigued by this idea, 'cause you've heard advice about screenwriting. I heard advice back then that I thought was ridiculous. It said, "It's gonna take you a long time to be a good screenwriter, so write three scripts and throw them away. The fourth script will be the good one." I was like, "It's so hard to write a script. Who's gonna write three full scripts knowing they'd throw them away?" Wouldn't it be better if you write three scripts and then shoot each one and be the cameraman, be the sound guy, be everything? 'Cause that way you're learning not just writing, you're learning how to make a movie. So that was my idea. I'm gonna make three of these, hide it on Spanish video, but make money back. That's like my own film school paying me, paying me to learn. So the first one, I thought, "Let me just shoot it one take each." Because my friend Carlos lives in Mexico. If we shoot two takes, most of the cost is to film. I've just doubled my budget. So let me just shoot one take. Some of it's gonna not come out, but I'm not gonna know what. I'm not gonna shoot a safety one. That doubles my b- Let me, let me see. Some things might come out. I expected, like, 70% of it to maybe be okay, but 30% I might have to come reshoot, which was fine. I just drive back there, and then I just reshoot just those shots, right? So I just went, "Let's shoot." We stop. We come back. Then I send it off to develop. 'Cause we're shooting two weeks consecutively. To get film shipped back and forth from Mexico to see if it came out, you just couldn't do it. I just had to, you know, double down on it, do it. One take everything. I remember one time I was telling the actor, "Man, I told you to run through that shot, and you, and you..." He goes, "Oh, let me do it ag-" "No, one take, dude. Just think about next time. Do what I say."
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs) Ah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I didn't think anyone was gonna see it, so you-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And because you don't think anyone's gonna see it, you end up doing something remarkable, which is, "Well, I'm just gonna make something for myself." 'Cause if I was making a movie that was gonna go to Sundance, I wouldn't have made that movie. I would have thought, "Okay, I gotta get serious." But because I made this movie that was just entertaining myself, like Bedhead, it entertained audiences. So that naivete is really important when you're starting out, or at any point in your life. Be naive about what thing's gonna... And just do something for yourself. That taught me a very valuable lesson, 'cause I didn't want anybody to see it. I just thought, "One take, one take." When I got back home...... a bunch of stuff didn't come out, but I'm like, "I'm not going back to Mexico." (laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I'll figure out a way to edit around it and make the movie shorter, and that's just gonna be the movie. And then that's the one that won, won Sundance.
- LFLex Fridman
That was your first feature film. That's the one you made for $7,000. You just mentioned your friend Carlos as the star of the movie.
- 44:12 – 1:06:07
Creativity
- RRRobert Rodriguez
coming to me. So this is my other trick, and this is the main thing you gotta learn about that. If you take anything away, this isn't me doing it. I totally believe that i- 'cause when you start doing this, you go, "Where are these answers coming from? I'm asking the right question, but why... How come the answers just keep coming like this?" I believe, 'cause I do so many different jobs, I've learned this over the years. I remember when it was in 2002, I was like, "How is that I'm the production designer, the composer," which I don't even know how to read or write music and I'm writing orchestral score and I'm doing the editing and I'm doing the cinematography. I haven't been trained for any of these. I never went to school for these specifically. Must be something about creativity. So I went on Amazon, it's 2002. I look up creative books.
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Anything that has the creativity in the title, I just ordered it. And I've got a bunch of books on creativity and I was reading them through... One of them was like really speaking to me. "Yeah, that's, that's it. That's the process. That's the..." And then it says gels and mediums and I'm like, "Oh, this is a book specifically about painting," but it applies to music, editing, cinematography, writing. It's all the same. So I- that's when I realized that creativity is 90% of any of those jobs. The technical part of setting up the cameras, of writing its script in format, or reading or writing music, that's 10% of that. How many musicians, you know, don't read or write music and they're fantastic? It's 'cause 90% of what they do is creative. Now, I believe that that same person, even if they only do music, could literally jump from job to job creatively and do a r- superior job than most technicians.
- LFLex Fridman
And there's also something to say there about the learning the technical aspects of an art. You- you collide with the, uh, uh, with the experts. What- what happens is, I- I've experienced this a lot with like... with- with using cameras and so on. I don't know shit about cameras. And then you roll in and then there's all the experts almost talking down to you-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah.
- LFLex Fridman
... and telling you how things are supposed to be. Everything is wrong. I- I talked to somebody about like soundproofing a room and they said... They gave me prices that are insane, and like the amount of effort is insane, and this- the- the- the geometry-
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Well, yeah. I was telling you something.
- LFLex Fridman
... the dynamics of this room are all wrong. I'm like, "Why can't I just fucking hang up some curtains?" Like, what... It seems like that kills most of the echo. Like, I don't, I don't understand. And they're like, "No, this is all wrong is th- there's corn- the corners are gonna have some-" So and I'm like, "Fuck it. I'm just gonna try. I'm gonna see what it sounds like A and B. Okay, here's audio w- with curtains. Here's the audio without curtains. Seems like this is fine. Let's move on to the next thing."
- RRRobert Rodriguez
(laughs)
- LFLex Fridman
I- I think the... when you say creativity, some of that is being a rebel, like not listening to the experts.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah. When you're going on your creativity, which is... What is that? That's like an... Do you consider yourself a creative person? I think you play guitar.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah. Guitar, piano, yeah, everything.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
You play piano? Good. Do you call... But would you call yourself a creative person?
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah, I think so.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Good. You should.
- LFLex Fridman
I- I think that's a positive way to phrase it, yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I would just suggest to anybody is just own it. Own it and-
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
... just say, uh, like, when I do so many different jobs... It sounds crazy when they would introduce me. "Hey, Robert Rodriguez, he does this," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, "I get tired just hearing that list." But when I think about it, there's really only one thing I do and I live a creative life. And when you live a creative life, that means anything that has to do with creativity, whether it's filming or piano or guitar or sculpting or... You can just, you can do it. You can take it on and do it because it teaches you more about your main job. I've become a better director by doing all those jobs. 'Cause when somebody just does one job, they barely know that job. You have to do more to learn about creativity, and this is the main thing I learned was that I'm writing music, you know, for an orchestra. I'm like, "How did I... I don't even know what I'm doing. Why is that coming out?" I don't feel like I'm doing it. I feel like I picked up the pen. I feel like I had the idea to do the cards, but then when everything just starts coming out so quickly, like that's how fast I wrote that movie.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
I go, "I really feel like something else has taken over." So this is what my belief is and... 'cause I hear it in different realms. Like you ask Keith Richards, "How do you come up with these riffs?" He goes, "I don't. I don't. They're- they're floating around the sky and I pull them out first." You know, you ask, ask, you know, Jimmy Vaughan, "How do you play guitar, the solos?" He goes, "It's like a radio. You know, once you get it tuned just right, you can't even believe what's coming through." So I believe... I call it the creative spirit. There's a spirit assigned to all of us that's creative that doesn't have hands. It needs you to pick up the pen, pull out the cards, and then when you start getting in a flow and you're like, "Whoa, it's writing, it's..." That's that. And if you can have that mindset, you take your ego out of it and go, "All I need to do is be a good conduit for this thing, be a good pipe, and it's gonna come through." So you don't ever have to get hung up on that question you had. "Well, well, what happens when you can't come up..." It wasn't me to begin with.If it's not coming out, it's because I'm blocking it.
- LFLex Fridman
Mm-hmm.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
And if I were to do this and I'm flowing, and if I were to say, "Wow, I just wrote 10 cards. I don't know if I can write more. How did I do that?" You just shut the pipe 'cause your ego got in the way. You just clogged it, 'cause it gets pissed off that you think it's you. It's not you. (laughs) It's like, "Dude, just open up, let me through, pick up the fucking pen." And I learned this in, uh, when I was 19, when I had a daily cartoon strip. I had to draw a comic strip every day to get paid, and I would be like, (sighs) I'd have to draw, like, one drawing, draw another drawing, then it's like, "Okay, these kind of go together." It was a process, you know? And sometimes I just felt like, "I wish I could just envision it, sit back..." I'm gonna try that method. I went home, and I would sit back and just try to get in my sofa, try the sofa method. I'm just gonna try to picture the comic strip, and then as soon as I go and I think it's funny, then I'll just go draw that, right? Done, be done in a half hour. Why, why, why three hours? I'd sit there and sit there and sit there. My deadline would be coming up, got, like, 30 minutes. I'm like, "Oh, shit, gotta go sit and draw it out." And it's like, "Oh, okay, got this drawing. It's kind of... Oh, this kind of goes with that. If I make another drawing, I'll have my strip." That's the only way to do it. If you don't get up, s- creative spirit ain't gonna come visit you if you're doing this.
- LFLex Fridman
Yeah.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
It needs your hands. And it's not gonna (laughs) fucking reward you for sitting there waiting for it. You have to jump in and do it. And people when they say, "Oh, well, I'm not ready," how pissed off is that spirit now? (laughs) It's waiting for you to feel like you're ready. It's not you. Just start doing the action, and it's gonna come through. And the ideas will come and the answers will come because it's not you, and if you can take your ego out of, like... you'll be blessed with this never-ending flow of ideas because don't take ownership for it, and know that you're... if it's not coming out, it's 'cause you're just clogging it, 'cause this thing's got endless ideas.
- LFLex Fridman
And you give that same advice for, for making films, which is, you know, don't plan... i- if you wanna be a filmmaker, don't plan, like, the movie. Don't think about making the movie. Just go in and start.
- RRRobert Rodriguez
Yeah, I would meet a lot of people who introduced themselves as aspiring. "I'm an aspiring filmmaker, and I wonder how... what would you tell an aspiring filmmaker?" I'd say, "Stop aspiring."
- LFLex Fridman
(laughs)
- RRRobert Rodriguez
'Cause if you t- 'cause you call yourself that, you are that, and you're always gonna feel like you're not ready, and you don't... you just jump in before you're ready. You don't feel like you're ready till... I didn't feel like I was ready to do Mariachi till I was probably in my last few days of filming. You became ready as you went. You didn't know how all that stuff... I couldn't have figured all that out in advance. When my kids worked with me on a project that we did similar, by the end, they realized... they did an interview with my son, who, after just two weeks of doing one of those projects, "You're a different person." He's suddenly waxing philosophical about the creative process and going, "I never knew how my dad did Mariachi until we did this project together," and I realized he didn't know either. He didn't know how he was gonna do it. He figured it out day by day. You know, e- every challenge that got thrown at him, he had to figure it out. And that's the, the biggest lesson. Most people never start, and that's the biggest thing. Don't wait till you're ready or that'll be on your tombstone, "Here lies so-and-so. He was never ready." And you don't wanna be that guy. Jump in. Know it's not you. You just gotta be the hands, and that, that, that relieves a lot of pressure from you 'cause then you don't have to ever have to do anything really. You just have to be the hands.
- LFLex Fridman
Can you talk through some of the hats, some of the many hats you wore with El Mariachi? It's, uh, that's an interesting case study, and you've done the same thing over and over in completely different, innovative ways in all the films, but El Mariachi is such a radical leap for you.
Episode duration: 3:29:02
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