Creativity is 90% of every artistic job — the technical part is only 10% — so a truly creative person can jump between disciplines (writing, music, cinematography, editing) and do a superior job to most technicians, because the same creative spirit drives all of them.

(00:00:00) 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. (00:00:16) Robert inspired a generation of independent filmmakers with his first film, El Mariachi, that he famously made for just $7,000. (00:00:26) On that film, in many sense, 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. (00:00:42) He has shown incredible versatility across genres, including action, horror, family films, and sci-fi. (00:00:49) with some epic collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron, and many other legendary actors and filmmakers. (00:00:57) He has often operated at the technological cutting edge, pioneering using HD filmmaking, digital backlots, and 3D tech. (00:01:05) 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. (00:01:18) 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. (00:01:31) I'll probably go hang out at his film studio a bunch as this is all coming to life. (00:01:36) 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. (00:01:48) And now a quick few second mention we sponsor. (00:01:50) Check them out in the description. (00:01:52) It's the best way to support this podcast. (00:01:54) We got InVideo AI for video generation, Brain FM for focus, NetSuite for business, Shopify for e-commerce, and Element for hydration. (00:02:04) Choose wisely, my friends. (00:02:06) I do try to make these ad reads interesting and personal, often related to stuff I'm reading or thinking about, but if you must skip them. (00:02:14) please still check out the sponsors, sign up, buy whatever they're selling. (00:02:19) I enjoy their stuff. (00:02:20) Maybe you will too. (00:02:22) Also, if you want to get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to alexi.com/contact. (00:02:28) And now on to the full ad reads. (00:02:30) Let's go. (00:02:31) This episode is brought to you by InVideo AI, a video generating app that allows you to create full length videos using just text prompts. (00:02:41) Perhaps obviously, Nvidia is the perfect sponsor for this conversation with Robert, Robert Rodriguez. (00:02:48) He has been for decades the guy willing to use cutting-edge technology, digital HD, VR, 3D. (00:02:56) And now we're in a time and a space where it is not quite used by the big filmmakers because they're not really sure how to leverage its power. (00:03:05) And so I think it's really the role of the independent filmmakers (00:03:08) start playing with video generation. (00:03:12) Start playing 5 seconds, 10 seconds at a time, seeing what you can do in a storytelling art form. (00:03:18) I do think it's a skill. (00:03:20) I've used in video A lot. (00:03:21) There's some aspect of it. (00:03:23) You have to kind of nudge the system into that direction. (00:03:26) I mean, it really is like having two directors. (00:03:28) And there's things that humans are really good at, and there's things that AI is really good at, and the dance between the two is where the art form is. (00:03:35) Anyway, you can try Nvideo AI for free, saving you lots of time and money you'd otherwise spend on editing, animating, and other production costs. (00:03:43) Go to nvideo.io/lexpod. (00:03:46) That's nvideo.io/lexpod. (00:03:50) This episode is also brought to you by Brain.fm, a platform that offers music specifically made for focus. (00:03:57) I remember thinking that focus or the lack of focus was 100% the consequence of your mind and nothing else. (00:04:06) That you should be able to shut off the world and deeply focus on a particular thought or line of thought or on nothingness or on your breath, you know, like you do in meditation. (00:04:18) You should be able to do that just with the power of your mind. (00:04:21) And in some sense, I still believe that. (00:04:24) But I think there's just some things that make it easier. (00:04:29) I first discovered that, I don't know how long ago now, but listening to different kinds of noise, white noise, brown noise, and realizing, whoa, something is happening here. (00:04:39) The mind is just much more naturally, much quicker, much more efficiently able to achieve that state of focus where you shut off the rest of the world. (00:04:50) And then so brain.fm takes it just to another level. (00:04:53) There's just so much variety for any working environment where you want to optimize the kind of audio landscape. (00:05:01) Increase your focus and try a brain.fm free for 30 days by going to brain.fm/lex. (00:05:06) That's brain.fm/lex for 30 days free. (00:05:10) This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system. (00:05:17) Boy, are we really getting to understand the inner workings of individual businesses and the interaction between those businesses within the supply chain domestically and internationally now with the new evolving trade policy. (00:05:33) I probably have several conversations with the top leadership on this topic soon. (00:05:38) The economy is both an incredibly resilient and a fragile system. (00:05:42) Whenever you have these (00:05:44) centralized, big, giant hammer type policies, they can have an impact that reverberates not just through the direct consequences of those policies, but just second, 3rd, 4th order effects. (00:06:02) Plus they create the psychological effects within human minds of uncertainty, of fear. (00:06:09) And based on that, they make decisions which are often suboptimal for the economy. (00:06:15) So you get to see the inner workings of businesses and how they function in response to those, almost like an immune system within each business to see how can we survive, how can we turn a profit still. (00:06:27) And all of that comes into play, all the HR, all the inventory, all of that. (00:06:31) I'm deeply grateful for the wisdom and the power of the market. (00:06:36) We should be careful not to mess with it too much. (00:06:40) Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com/lex. (00:06:44) That's netsuite.com/lex. (00:06:48) This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store. (00:06:54) Speaking of capitalism, I've also been reading a large amount of literature on China to understand the culture, the peoples, the mechanism used by the government, all that to help me understand. (00:07:09) and break through some of the propaganda of the Western perspective. (00:07:12) Of course, there's truth to it, the skepticism and the caution that the West has. (00:07:18) But I think there's a lot of interest at play here and a lot of warmongers that want to wage war instead of make peace. (00:07:26) I do think that the economy and economic relationships and trading and buying and selling, all of that, (00:07:33) is a fundamentally peaceful action that protects us from escalating military conflict and otherwise. (00:07:40) I continue to hope we're past all that military conflict. (00:07:43) But anyway, the thing I love about America is the companies, the huge number of entrepreneurs building stuff, creating stuff, dreaming, buying and selling from each other. (00:07:55) I don't know. (00:07:56) That just fills me with hope that individuals can dream (00:08:00) and have the power to bring that dream to a reality. (00:08:04) Anyway, sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/lex. (00:08:09) That's all lowercase. (00:08:10) Go to shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. (00:08:15) This episode is brought to you by Element, my daily zero sugar and delicious electrolyte mix that I'm drinking now as I'm traveling in the middle of nowhere. (00:08:24) Barely know where I am, barely know who I am, barely know what time it is. (00:08:29) I've been feeling lost and out of balance for many reasons. (00:08:33) Hoping there'll be a side of some sort. (00:08:37) Some sort of little miracle that'll help me find my way. (00:08:42) This conversation with Robert was an inspiring one. (00:08:47) He really did everything he's done against all odds. (00:08:51) Fearless and bold. (00:08:54) When shit goes wrong, he just figures it out. (00:08:57) There's something about him. (00:08:59) being around in the energy of urgency, of creative excitement to just take on the problems of the day. (00:09:10) You know, it's not like excitement to create. (00:09:14) It's excitement to take on the problems that will for sure come when you try to create. (00:09:19) It's a different angle is a more honest one. (00:09:21) It's a more inspiring one, more energizing one. (00:09:26) Yeah. (00:09:27) Anyway, while we're talking about Element, watermelon salt, get a sample pack for free with any purchase. (00:09:34) Try it, drinkelement.com slash flex. (00:09:38) This is the Lex Friedman Podcast. (00:09:40) To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. (00:09:43) And now, dear friends, here's Robert Rodriguez. (00:10:05) Has there been a time when there was like one take and you only have one take to get it right? (00:10:10) 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 gotta just work with what you got, you know, you gotta work with your results. (00:10:20) You get nervous or no? (00:10:22) In that moment? (00:10:23) Oh yeah, you're nervous going like, just I hope it goes off 'cause then. (00:10:27) to fix it, I'll have to go do a bunch of other steps, which we don't have time for. (00:10:30) But a lot of times, I've just learned that if something happens, it's just meant to be that way. (00:10:36) And I got used to doing things in one take and just living with it, didn't bother me. (00:10:40) One movie, it was even a low-budget movie, they had rigged a car to implode because I was going to throw a guy at it. (00:10:47) So we needed the car to implode and then we're going to throw them and marry it together, right? (00:10:51) And the stunt and the car guy goes, (00:10:55) Yeah, we're going to have three cars rigged. (00:10:57) Three cars? (00:10:57) Why you in case one doesn't work and then we have a second, we have third. (00:11:01) We don't have all night to go shoot take after take. (00:11:03) We're doing just carry one car. (00:11:05) And if it doesn't work, we'll figure it out. (00:11:07) Because you don't have time to do it again sometimes. (00:11:09) It's such a long setup. (00:11:11) So I'll go, no, I'm good with just going. (00:11:13) In A Grindhouse movie, they only had one take, so that'll make it more authentic. (00:11:18) When it all goes to shit, when it fails, you just, what's the next thought? (00:11:22) So I'll tell you, two things happen, I'm just still done. (00:11:24) First was, okay, how those explosions when somebody walks away in slow motion from an explosion that's become kind of, you know that started with Desperado? (00:11:33) Desperado is the first. (00:11:34) If you look at all the montages, Desperado is the first. (00:11:36) That's right. (00:11:36) That is the meme. (00:11:37) Because it was an accident. (00:11:38) It was just supposed to be, it was just two grenades, not a nuclear bomb. (00:11:42) It throws them over the side and I just wanted like some body parts or, you know, something to fly up some shrapnel. (00:11:46) It literally says shrapnel. (00:11:47) And my fix guy was so ragged, running so ragged. (00:11:50) We get to there and I go, do you have any (00:11:52) Body parts and stuff we can throw up or something you can shoot up. (00:11:55) Pat, I didn't realize it's so high to get past that second floor. (00:11:58) He's like, no, I don't. (00:11:59) I can give you a fireball. (00:12:01) I can give you a nice, you know, fireball with propane, but it burns away really quick. (00:12:05) Like how fast? (00:12:07) Like that, but it'll be big and orange. (00:12:08) Okay, we'll shoot it in slow motion so it lasts a little longer because it just goes poof. (00:12:13) So I told the actors, I don't know how big this fireball is going to be, but just walk really fast and just look real determined and then just keep walking. (00:12:20) Don't stop and turn around because you might get your eyebrows singed. (00:12:24) So they take off and boom, it goes, and in slow motion, it looks great, right? (00:12:28) Remember showing a Jim Cameron before it came out and his hand went up like, you've never seen that before, you know. (00:12:34) Six months later, Dust Till Dawn came out. (00:12:36) So I liked how much it looked so much that in Dust Till Dawn, I did it again. (00:12:41) So those movies came out within (00:12:43) six months of each other. (00:12:43) That's why it turned into a thing because people saw it. (00:12:46) And so I thought, how about for the opening of George Clooney and Quentin walking out of the gas station that we have the whole place just blowing up and they just keep talking like it's not happening. (00:12:57) You know, like take it another step further so I'm not just doing the same thing. (00:13:01) Okay, that one is like, okay, you're going to walk out and it's all in one take. (00:13:05) So we're only going to do one take. (00:13:07) We're going to blow the thing up. (00:13:08) We're going to start with just some smaller explosions, and then when they're further away and it's safer, then we'll do the big fireballs. (00:13:14) So we're going, and you're nervous, because if one of them trips up a line, and you know the pressure's on them, it's not just you that's nervous. (00:13:21) You're nervous for them. (00:13:22) They're the ones who got to walk out, do that whole speech, get in the car and drive away. (00:13:27) What if the car doesn't start? (00:13:28) What do you know? (00:13:29) There's a lot of things that could happen. (00:13:30) Well, guess what happens? (00:13:32) The thing you would not expect, they go in, (00:13:37) They come out, they start talking, shoot it, it's perfect, great, we can move on. (00:13:41) And the camera guy comes, I don't know what happened, but just like you had a little snafu here, he goes, we have an autofocus on the Steadicam, you know, we have a focus thing. (00:13:51) It just went like this. (00:13:53) I felt it go. (00:13:55) whack all the way out of focus and whack for a second back, like it just reset itself. (00:13:59) I don't know why it did that, because it's radio controlled. (00:14:02) And we can't tell because we're shooting film. (00:14:04) So we're like, oh, shit, let's watch the dailies. (00:14:06) Sure enough, let's see if we can get, maybe I can scratch the film right there. (00:14:10) No, it goes completely out of focus and back in focus within a second. (00:14:14) Now we got to reshoot it. (00:14:16) So we had to wait till we're back in that location. (00:14:19) We rigged it for two more takes just in case. (00:14:21) So that thing that was supposed to be the one take is 3 takes. (00:14:25) 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. (00:14:36) When the actors come running out of the bar at the end of the movie, and there's an explosion through the door because all the vampires are blowing up, he didn't just (00:14:46) He put like 10 times. (00:14:48) It blew out. (00:14:49) You see it in the movie. (00:14:50) You see this huge fireball going up. (00:14:52) And if you watch closely, you see it already start to catch the whole place on fire. (00:14:56) The whole front of that, which is foam, is catching on fire. (00:15:00) And I cut just before you see that it's on fire. (00:15:03) And that was the first shot at that bar, because we weren't going to start shooting the other stuff till night. (00:15:09) So the first shot is that, and the set's ruined, burned to a crisp. (00:15:16) The neon lights blew up. (00:15:18) So we couldn't even shoot. (00:15:19) Cheech goes, well, I guess I'm not doing my speech tonight. (00:15:24) But right away, this is what happens. (00:15:25) My first AD, Doug Arnikowski comes over to me and I go over to him. (00:15:31) Guys came out with the fire hoses. (00:15:33) The fire hoses weren't even adding water. (00:15:35) It was like the thing was just scorching. (00:15:36) The whole production design team was in tears because they had just spent weeks building this thing and it was up in smoke and charred. (00:15:45) I said, let's just keep shooting. (00:15:46) Let's just keep shooting because it looks really kind of cool like this. (00:15:50) Yeah, they're going to have to come repair it and we'll have to come back, but it's all black and charred. (00:15:54) That's why that whole scene with George Clooney and Cheech and the building's black. (00:15:58) We didn't go over there and touch that up. (00:15:59) That's real flame that burned. (00:16:01) And it ended up looking great. (00:16:03) 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. (00:16:13) So sometimes you got to roll with it and then look to get the blessing you get because of this mistake. (00:16:18) You probably actually got a better take by doing it later with them. (00:16:21) And then you had this incredible look for the end of the movie that looked apocalyptic. (00:16:25) If it had looked just clean, you would have actually seen that it was kind of a foam set. (00:16:29) This made it look better. (00:16:30) So I kind of let the universe push you where you're supposed to go. (00:16:33) I just roll with it. (00:16:34) You got to roll with it because you don't know what the grand plan is. (00:16:36) You have your plan. (00:16:38) Just know it's probably all going to fall apart. (00:16:40) It's just like the movies. (00:16:41) You come up with your plan of what you want to accomplish. (00:16:43) That's like your script. (00:16:45) Then you go scout your location and figure out what your project's going to be. (00:16:48) And you go try to make it as bulletproof as possible. (00:16:51) Then you go to do your project. (00:16:52) And just like with our movies, you watch it all fall apart. (00:16:55) You watch this thing blow up. (00:16:56) You watch this thing not work. (00:16:58) Everything just falls apart in front of your face. (00:17:00) Then that's when you roll up your sleeves. (00:17:03) and creatively figure out a way around it. (00:17:04) You turn chicken shit into chicken salad, and by the end, you have a result that's better than what you sought out. (00:17:10) But that's the process, and that's life, and that's wash, rinse, repeat. (00:17:13) The rest of your life, that's what everything's going to be like. (00:17:16) It's just like a movie, because when you think about it, you're writing a story for a film. (00:17:22) And you're also writing the story of your life at the same time. (00:17:24) Like, how are you going to react to things? (00:17:26) Well, how do you make your character react to things? (00:17:27) You make him kind of superhuman. (00:17:29) Why don't you just make yourself that way? (00:17:30) You're writing your own story. (00:17:32) And you start really seeing, the more you get into storytelling, that life imitates art and art imitates life, but the process is also the same. (00:17:39) So you write the story, the script, and then you have it collide with the chaos of reality. (00:17:45) And in that moment, we said, you see the chicken shit. (00:17:49) You have to do that. (00:17:53) You have to do that. (00:17:54) Wait a minute, okay, stuff changed. (00:17:56) Where's the, not to be cliche about it, but where's the silver lining of this? (00:17:59) Where's the path to actually make something good out of this? (00:18:02) And that's a skill, right? (00:18:03) I call it, and it's one of my favorite stories, I was doing one of these talks. (00:18:07) And they said, come talk about creativity. (00:18:09) I go, I understand, because a lot of people read my book, Rebels Had a Crew, and told me, oh, it made me be a filmmaker. (00:18:13) 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. (00:18:21) And I'm giving all this talk about this kind of positive stuff, and this one woman goes, you're real positive. (00:18:26) But what do I tell myself when I just wasted a year and a half of my life doing something that didn't work? (00:18:30) I was like, (00:18:32) That's a real negative way to ask that. (00:18:33) Can you just rephrase the question a little more positively before I even attempt to answer it? (00:18:36) Because already her point of view is exactly what you're saying. (00:18:39) She's not looking at all. (00:18:41) She's just concentrating on what didn't follow her plan and not seeing the gift of everything else that's there. (00:18:48) So she goes, very reluctant, it's so perfect. (00:18:51) I wish we had filmed it. (00:18:53) She goes, I learned a good lesson the hard way. (00:18:56) And I said, that still sucks. (00:18:58) I say, when you follow your instinct, like if you follow your own instinct to go start a business or go make this movie, it wasn't someone saying, go over there and you'll make $1,000,000, it was your instinct and you fail. (00:19:09) Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. (00:19:12) 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. (00:19:22) But if you're not looking for it, you don't find it. (00:19:24) I'm going to tell you one, and I tell them the four room story. (00:19:27) I said, I made a movie called Four Rooms. (00:19:30) I didn't make any money, right? (00:19:33) When Quentin asked me, hey, would you want to make a movie with me and two other filmmakers? (00:19:37) It's an anthology. (00:19:38) It's on New Year's Eve. (00:19:40) It's in a hotel. (00:19:40) You have to use the bellhop. (00:19:41) We're not going to know what each other's making. (00:19:43) And we make it and we put it together. (00:19:45) My hand went up right away, just instinctually saying, that sounds, yeah, I'll do that. (00:19:49) I'll go make that with you. (00:19:50) Now, should I ask the audience? (00:19:52) I like to throw it to the audience and her. (00:19:55) Should I have not raised my hand that quick? (00:19:57) Shouldn't I have done a little studying first? (00:19:59) Or should I just go blind instinct? (00:20:01) Or should you do instinct with some studying? (00:20:05) Okay, well, I could have gone and studied, and I would have found that anthologies never work. (00:20:09) Like even when it's Coppola, Scorsese, Woody Allen, they bomb, because people can't quite rip their hands. (00:20:14) What is it, Twilight Zone? (00:20:15) I don't want to go see that. (00:20:17) But that's not, I still said, yeah. (00:20:18) I think I should still go by instinct. (00:20:20) So my instinct was to raise my hand. (00:20:22) We're going to make that movie, because I love short films. (00:20:26) I made like Bedhead and short films, and I thought, here's a way. (00:20:28) If this works, I can make short films in anthologies, and I can have the best of both worlds. (00:20:32) And by the way, anthologies is when there's multiple. (00:20:35) More than multiple one story. (00:20:36) In one movie. (00:20:37) Yeah, one movie. (00:20:37) So if you did the research, you would know that very few people ever got that to work. (00:20:43) Yeah, the audience can't quite wrap the render, and it feels like the movie's starting three times, you know. (00:20:47) So I make that movie. (00:20:50) It bombs. (00:20:52) 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? (00:20:58) Did I raise my hand because I thought it was going to go be this big financial success? (00:21:01) No, I did it to work with my friends, to do something creative, to try something. (00:21:05) But that's still not good enough. (00:21:06) I need to really sift through the ashes. (00:21:07) And if I look through the ashes of that failure, I find 2 keys to my biggest successes in there. (00:21:14) While I was on the set, they said it has to be New Year's. (00:21:17) So I thought, (00:21:18) I'm just going to do like bed. (00:21:19) I'm going to have two little kids that are running around in this room. (00:21:23) And we have to use the bellhop as a babysitter. (00:21:24) Well, it's New Year's. (00:21:25) Let's dress everybody in tuxedos because it's New Year's. (00:21:27) They're all going to go out, but the parents leave without them. (00:21:29) When I saw Antonio and his wife, I thought, wow, they look like a really cool international spy couple. (00:21:36) What if they were spies? (00:21:37) And these two little kids, one of them keeps falling asleep on the set. (00:21:40) He's so young. (00:21:41) They barely tie their shoes. (00:21:42) They don't know parents are spies. (00:21:43) They have to go save them. (00:21:44) Okay, there's five of those movies now, right? (00:21:46) The other one. (00:21:48) was, I really love making short films. (00:21:51) I really want this anthology thing to work. (00:21:53) What if it's three stories, like a 3X director, not four? (00:21:57) Same director, not four different directors. (00:21:59) I'm going to try it again. (00:22:01) Why on earth would I try it again? (00:22:03) Well, because I'd already done one and figured out how I could do it better, and that's Sin City. (00:22:07) Those are by far two of my biggest successes that came directly from that failure. (00:22:12) So I always say, (00:22:13) Follow your instinct. (00:22:14) If it doesn't work, just go. (00:22:16) Sometimes the only way across the river is to slip on the first two rocks. (00:22:19) So where's the key in the ashes of the failure? (00:22:23) Because if I had an instinct, that means I was on the right track. (00:22:26) I didn't get the result I want. (00:22:27) 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. (00:22:33) By the way, a lot of people that look back to Four Rooms see a lot of creative genius in there. (00:22:37) So you say it flopped. (00:22:39) It flopped financially. (00:22:39) Financially, but you know, there's so many ways (00:22:43) to measure success. (00:22:45) But like I said, like I would say, well, it was successful because even Roger Ruby said, Hey, you furnished my favorite room. (00:22:51) I was like, Hey, I could take that. (00:22:53) But now I think there's something else still there. (00:22:55) I keep sifting and it's like, oh yeah, two big successes came from that. (00:22:58) It's an amazing lesson to have because it makes you feel better about failure. (00:23:03) Think of like The Thing by John Carpenter. (00:23:06) You put that movie out the same weekend as ET. (00:23:08) That thing bombed. (00:23:09) Critics were calling it pornography because of all the (00:23:12) all the weird special effects and audiences didn't go either. (00:23:16) And he thought he made a great movie. (00:23:18) So it makes you question your instincts. (00:23:20) Well, 10 years later, turns out, oh, it's a classic. (00:23:23) So sometimes it takes the audience a while. (00:23:26) So if you have some kind of failure on something, don't let it knock you down. (00:23:31) Just go, Maybe in 10 years they'll think it's great. (00:23:34) I'm just going to commit to making a body of work, a body of work. (00:23:39) Some will succeed, some will over-perform, some will under-perform. (00:23:42) It's not your job. (00:23:43) You just want to be a creative person. (00:23:45) Just create, stop thinking about movie per movie and worrying so much about each one, or project to project if you're a business person. (00:23:53) Just commit to making a body of work like an artist would do. (00:23:57) And you don't know what the masterpieces are going to be or which someone's going to come and say, Oh, that one that bombed, there is some really creative stuff in there. (00:24:05) And it's not for you to decide. (00:24:07) You just go and do it. (00:24:08) And sometimes I think it takes some time to process the failure to make sense of it. (00:24:13) Like, at least for me, don't rush making sense of what didn't work, what lessons do I... (00:24:21) take from it, how do I sift through the ashes, as you said. (00:24:24) Yeah. (00:24:24) Like it takes time. (00:24:25) You have to sleep on it a bunch of night. (00:24:26) Sometimes it's right there. (00:24:27) And then sometimes you come back, revisit it, you know, later. (00:24:32) Because you might not have had some information you have now that makes you look at it a lot differently. (00:24:36) Like when I did, I just did the audiobook for Rebel Without a Crew. (00:24:40) Yeah, thank you for that, by the way. (00:24:41) I hadn't read it since I wrote it. (00:24:44) So I didn't remember a lot of the details. (00:24:45) And you actually, it's voiced by you. (00:24:48) I voiced it. (00:24:48) So I was reading it real time. (00:24:50) Yeah, I highly recommend people because you comment, you add additional comments to it. (00:24:54) It's great. (00:24:54) Most of the time I'm laughing. (00:24:56) I can't believe how crazy that story is. (00:24:58) I forgot a lot of details. (00:24:59) And when you're younger, you know, when you're 21, 22, six months feels like 6 years. (00:25:03) I didn't realize how short that window was until I reread it and how impossible most of that is. (00:25:08) But you see some places where (00:25:10) setup falls in my lap and then pays off immediately in a big way, like magic over and over again. (00:25:15) It's clear I don't know what I'm doing. (00:25:17) It's clear the universe is just pushing you places. (00:25:19) So you can't fight it. (00:25:20) Because I remember I was really disappointed. (00:25:22) And it says in the diary, I'm really bummed that I go home that Christmas not having sold it to the Spanish home video market, which was my goal. (00:25:30) I walked home penniless and I was like, Merry Christmas. (00:25:34) I feel like a freaking failure. (00:25:36) Good thing I didn't sell it then. (00:25:38) And with time, you look back and you go, wow, I got an agent the next month. (00:25:43) He wasn't even going to help me sell it. (00:25:44) He said, oh, if you can get 20,000 for it, take it. (00:25:46) I chased those people down for those contracts, the Spanish market, for months, and they never answered me back. (00:25:55) And then Colombia ended up buying it for like 10 times as much, and we released it and did a sequel and did another sequel. (00:26:02) If you look back in time, good thing I didn't get my way. (00:26:05) My way had this for a vision. (00:26:08) And it needed to do that, which you would never know. (00:26:11) you don't know that going through. (00:26:12) So just if you don't have the answer right away, or even in 10 years, go, maybe it's coming in 20 years. (00:26:17) Don't let anything slow you down. (00:26:19) Just keep plowing forward, committing to making your thing happen. (00:26:23) Don't get shook up. (00:26:25) by something that you might not have an answer for. (00:26:27) Yeah, every aspect of your journey is super inspiring. (00:26:29) We'll talk about it. (00:26:30) Let's go to the beginning. (00:26:31) Sure. (00:26:31) Because there's a few technical things that are fascinating about your beginning. (00:26:35) So you started making films when you were very young with an old Super 8 camera and you were editing on a VCR. (00:26:42) You see, I've met a lot of filmmakers who, you know, they start a certain way, but then they finish another way. (00:26:47) They get to be big filmmakers and all that. (00:26:49) I still do it that way. (00:26:51) Like I still, I like doing things that way. (00:26:54) They have a new company called Brass Knuckle Films where the audience can actually participate by investing in this movie, being investors in these movies that are done the same way. (00:27:02) They're action films like we did with Mariachi, but 10 to 30 million. (00:27:05) It doesn't take a lot of money to start a billion-dollar franchise. (00:27:09) You know, like John Wick only cost 20 million, the first one. (00:27:12) Second one was 40, third one was 80. (00:27:15) The fourth one was 100 because the audience kept growing and growing. (00:27:17) By the way, you say, 20 million, like it's not a lot of money. (00:27:21) We should mention- It's not for an action film. (00:27:22) That's right. (00:27:23) But also, we should say that El Mariachi, the film on which to book Rebel Without a Crew is $7,000 movie. (00:27:31) So let's put it all in context. (00:27:32) But you know, you're going to hire bigger actors. (00:27:34) You can get a big actor like Keanu Reeves for a $20 million movie. (00:27:38) You know, I asked Jim, I said, Jim Cameron, I said, you know, like Terminator costs 5 million. (00:27:43) And he goes, I wish we had that much. (00:27:44) He had less than 5 million for that. (00:27:46) So you can start a billion-dollar franchise using these methods. (00:27:50) And with the audience investing, they get to make money on them. (00:27:54) And what I'm going to say now about how I started, you see that DNA of how I give out, I want people to know how I did things with Rebel Without a Crew or with these methods that I started with. (00:28:05) You see, that's how we kept going. (00:28:06) Hollywood spends way too much, and when you can make stuff for less, your profit margin is much better. (00:28:12) So when I first started, I didn't have any money. (00:28:15) So I still play like I don't have money. (00:28:17) So I had Super 8, my dad had a Super 8 camera, but I couldn't afford it. (00:28:21) I shot 2 rolls that you had to get, you had to buy the film, shoot 2 minutes. (00:28:28) I shot 2 rolls of that. (00:28:29) It's another same amount of money that it costs to buy it, whatever that was, 12 bucks or whatever, to develop it. (00:28:34) You get it, there's no sound. (00:28:37) Most of the shit's out of focus. (00:28:39) 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. (00:28:48) And it came with a camera attached, like this cable you got coming out. (00:28:51) Imagine if that had to go into your VCR for you to even see what it's shooting. (00:28:56) And it's this old camera, manual focus, manual iris. (00:29:00) and 12 foot cable, and I would start making movies with that instead. (00:29:03) Now I have for $8, I have a two hour erasable tape of sound and picture. (00:29:08) So I got into digital basically really early. (00:29:11) I was doing, which was really frowned upon back then, 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. (00:29:21) Yeah, that's fascinating, 'cause you were red bull in that way too, using digital. (00:29:25) Yeah, well, 'cause of the means and the democratizing of that, (00:29:29) The elite didn't like that. (00:29:30) You could just go make a movie like that. (00:29:33) But I started practicing. (00:29:35) And it's much easier to practice when it doesn't cost any money. (00:29:38) Like if you want to be a rock star, right? (00:29:40) If you want to learn how to play guitar really well, you're not going to just jump on stage and suddenly go to play. (00:29:44) You have to practice till your fingers bleed. (00:29:46) Well, the same with movies. (00:29:47) You got to keep telling stories and cutting them together. (00:29:49) And you just can't afford that on film. (00:29:50) Nobody can. (00:29:50) With a two-minute roll, costing as much as a two-hour tape. (00:29:54) So I was doing all these movies. (00:29:56) First, I would cut in camera. (00:29:58) 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. (00:30:05) And it stopped with a clean cut. (00:30:06) It didn't have all this color bars like the later ones had. (00:30:10) So that was my, and it had an audio dub feature where you could add another second soundtrack to it. (00:30:16) So if I have people talking, I could hit audio dub and add sound effects. (00:30:20) So I could have two tracks on the same one. (00:30:22) So that was my filmmaking kit for a while. (00:30:26) until I needed to start doing real editing. (00:30:28) And my dad bought a second VCR for his business because I stole his other one. (00:30:34) And I found that if I hooked them together, I could play on one and use that pause button on the second. (00:30:41) And this was the limitation. (00:30:42) This is what taught me how to edit in my head. (00:30:44) is that if I shot a bunch of footage, I needed to shoot very little footage so I could find it. (00:30:49) Sometimes you shoot out of order. (00:30:50) So when I cut it, I have to cut in linear order, because if you push pause, it's a nice clean cut, but it only holds for 5 minutes. (00:30:57) You have 5 minutes before the machine shuts off. (00:31:00) So you got to find your next shot within 5 minutes. (00:31:03) and do that. (00:31:03) Otherwise, if you have to start the machine over, it added all these color bars and it would be all screwed up. (00:31:09) So I'd have to sit there and not move for like all day while I cut, knowing what the next shot was. (00:31:15) And once I had it cut, I would then add some sound effects to it. (00:31:20) Remember, because I have the audio dub function. (00:31:22) But now if I want to add music, I take that tape, which has two tracks now, into the first deck and (00:31:28) 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 and the, yeah, right? (00:31:38) Just like that. (00:31:39) That's like being resourceful with what you have. (00:31:43) And I made award-winning short films that way on video. (00:31:46) There were some festivals that would allow video, not many, but they would always win. (00:31:50) And they were always funny as, I (00:31:53) I stumbled upon Spy Kids that way. (00:31:56) I wanted to make these action movies in my backyard. (00:31:58) But when you're a teenager, you don't know anybody who can come be your action star. (00:32:02) And if you just bring your high school buddies, well, they just look like high school kids. (00:32:06) So I use my little brothers and sisters because I'm one of 10, their oldest. (00:32:11) They're just sitting around watching cartoons anyway. (00:32:12) And I made them the action stars just to learn. (00:32:16) And I found those things would be a winning formula. (00:32:18) They'd win every festival I'd send them to. (00:32:20) So Bedhead, (00:32:22) was my first time using a film camera. (00:32:24) It was a wind-up film camera I got in film school. (00:32:26) I went to film school for one semester and realized I already knew more than the film students because they taught you a whole other outdated way of doing it. (00:32:34) So I thought, I'm just going to use that film camera to make a low budget. (00:32:39) movie, a definitive film version that I can send to all film festivals of these action kids, which is a precursor to Spy Kids. (00:32:46) Bedhead is a precursor to Spy Kids. (00:32:48) And we should say that Bedhead was an award-winning short film that was probably a big sort of leap for you that... (00:32:54) I would probably open the door to you too, then make Almariachi. (00:32:57) Open up your brain, especially, because those video festivals, I would win like a trip to New York and a director's chair with a video shorts that I would put in festivals. (00:33:06) But I knew the film festival, if I could get into film festivals, I could send that all over the world. (00:33:10) So I made that little short film, sent it, and it was winning all the festivals. (00:33:15) And I thought, wow, I made that with a wind-up camera, film camera, filming just one take each shot. (00:33:24) just no slates because I'm the editor and that cost 800 bucks and it was 8 minutes I bet I can make an 80-minute movie for $8,000 if I'd use the same method so that movie I did (00:33:39) Six months later, I was making mariachi because it opened up my mind that I could try it in a feature. (00:33:44) Can we actually pause on that? (00:33:45) Because I think Bad Head has a really great, really unique story, shot in a really unique way. (00:33:50) I think what I'm trying to say is it's very important to write the right script, write the right story. (00:33:58) So let me tell you the trick to that. (00:34:00) And mariachi's the same way. (00:34:02) And this really helped people. (00:34:04) Even Kevin Smith from Clerk said, wow, Robert said, (00:34:08) When mariachi was success, I talked about how I did it. (00:34:10) I said, I looked at everything I had. (00:34:13) What do I have? (00:34:14) We have a pit bull. (00:34:15) We have a turtle. (00:34:16) We've got a bus that Carlos's cousin owns. (00:34:19) His cousin, his brother has a, brother-in-law has a bar, and he owns a ranch. (00:34:23) So the bad guy lives at the ranch. (00:34:25) The fight scene's going to be in the bar. (00:34:27) He's going to hit a bus at one point. (00:34:29) He's going to (00:34:30) The girl's going to have a dog and a turtle's going to cross the road. (00:34:32) It gives you all this production value. (00:34:34) So you write backwards. (00:34:36) So for Bedhead, I even did that with a camera. (00:34:38) So I've been shooting video all this time. (00:34:39) The one thing I wished I could do on video, I never could, was slow motion. (00:34:43) or stop motion even. (00:34:44) So when I got that crappy World War II camera they gave us in film school, I mean, I was so pissed. (00:34:50) Like, this is the camera I've been trying to get my hands. (00:34:52) I could have bought this for 50 bucks at a pawn shop. (00:34:54) Old Bill and Hal wind up. (00:34:55) You couldn't even see through the lens. (00:34:57) You were seeing through an approximation of the lens. (00:35:00) But you could shoot slow motion. (00:35:03) I could do reverse photography if I filmed upside down. (00:35:07) I could do, because if I do a fast push into her, I'll never get the focus in right. (00:35:11) So I started with it in focus, went back, pulled backwards on a chair, and then reversed it, flipped it, and now it looks like it stops on a dime in focus. (00:35:21) The number of times I've seen you shoot backwards is incredible. (00:35:24) Like to achieve a certain feeling, a certain experience, a certain... (00:35:29) certain effect, sometimes shooting in reverse plus the sound effect layer, you can create this reality that's surreal that then results in the story that you wanted. (00:35:42) Like you have to be functioning in some kind of different space-time continuum. (00:35:48) You start putting it together, right? (00:35:50) So I've got this different camera. (00:35:51) Well, what now I go like, I don't want to shoot the same kind of movie. (00:35:54) If I got a camera now that can do that, I can do stop motion. (00:35:57) So that's why there's an animated title sequence. (00:35:59) at the beginning because I go, wow, I'm a cartoonist. (00:36:02) If I set the camera up here, I can slow it down enough. (00:36:05) It's not a frame by frame, but if I get it down like 2 frames a second, I can just tap it and it'll maybe get one frame off. (00:36:13) So I did 300 drawings by hand for that opening title sequence. (00:36:17) Holy shit. (00:36:18) That was you doing it by hand. (00:36:20) Yeah. (00:36:21) So you watch that. (00:36:22) And this is a throwaway title sequence, but I really want this thing to win awards. (00:36:27) Okay, hold on a second. (00:36:27) How long does that take to draw that? (00:36:29) That's a lot of work. (00:36:31) I drew it over, I was a daily cartoonist by then, so I was pretty fast, but still, that's why it's only penciled, it's not inked, but it looks great. (00:36:38) I mean, it's the cameras going around and all kinds of crazy stuff, but it's just all faked by paper. (00:36:44) It took me all night to shoot it. (00:36:46) I remember I walked into the film school the next day, like all sleepy, and I told one of the fellow students, Wow, I was up all night doing this animated title sequence, and he went, (00:36:56) Why are you putting so much work in this? (00:36:57) They're not gonna grade you any differently. (00:36:59) And I was like, Grades? (00:37:01) Get an A walking in here. (00:37:03) I'm trying to get out of this town. (00:37:04) I'm not doing this for fucking grades. (00:37:07) I want people to see what I can do now, and I wanna see what I can do now with this. (00:37:12) So a lot of the story came from the limitations or actually the freedoms of that camera. (00:37:18) I couldn't have done that story on video. (00:37:20) So when I saw, wow, okay, I can do reverse photography, I can do stop motion. (00:37:25) She has to have special powers. (00:37:27) 'Cause if she has special powers, then I can utilize, I can really milk this camera for all I can get. (00:37:32) There's one of my shots I love the most is where she's standing there and the chair, she makes a chair come all the way up to her and it goes all the way up to her face. (00:37:42) Now, if I do that normally, where would I even put the strings for that? (00:37:48) So let's start here with the camera upside down, I have the strings in the back, 'cause you're not gonna be looking at the back. (00:37:54) And as it goes back, you pull it back. (00:37:57) And then when you reverse it, goes, and it looks so good. (00:38:00) You can't spot the strings. (00:38:01) If you look close, you see the strings are in the back, but your eyes are not on. (00:38:04) So I did stuff like that. (00:38:06) And then just her like getting the hose. (00:38:08) And then I just do stop motion for this hose turning on, the faucet. (00:38:11) That's why I gave her special powers so that, and it made the story better. (00:38:15) So sometimes the limitations you have with equipment or location, (00:38:19) You can use it to take chicken shit, turn it into chicken salad. (00:38:23) Take this camera that everyone was like, What's this? (00:38:26) And I go, I can do so much with this. (00:38:29) But I tell you, today, I look at that camera, I can't believe I ever made a movie with that thing. (00:38:33) It's so ridiculously primitive. (00:38:35) I'm just like, How did I even think I could get anything done with this and it even exposed? (00:38:40) And mariachi, the same way, you have to think about it. (00:38:42) I shot mariachi on film with a borrowed 16-millimeter camera. (00:38:46) I didn't know how to use it. (00:38:48) I called up a place in Dallas that rented that kind of equipment and I said, I have an Arri 16S here. (00:38:56) Two motor looking things. (00:38:57) One has a 24 and one has a bunch of numbers. (00:39:01) Oh, that's a variable speed motor. (00:39:03) That means you can do different speed. (00:39:04) I can shoot slow motion with this. (00:39:05) Oh wow. (00:39:06) Do you have a torque motor? (00:39:07) I don't know. (00:39:08) What is that? (00:39:08) He goes, is there something on the side of the magazine? (00:39:10) Like it does a, yeah. (00:39:12) Now you can just look up on YouTube and it shows you how to do it. (00:39:15) I was doing it by phone that way. (00:39:17) And then I went and shot the movie right then. (00:39:19) And I didn't know if any of it was exposing or if the film camera was working until I finished the whole movie. (00:39:26) So imagine you have to go down to Mexico, shoot for two weeks, come back, send it off to a lab. (00:39:31) You want to talk about being nervous. (00:39:34) Just hoping something exposed. (00:39:37) And when I saw it come back and the tape, you know, they transferred it to a tape so I could edit it. (00:39:42) deck to deck again. (00:39:45) I was so relieved. (00:39:45) Some things didn't come out, but I can cut around that. (00:39:48) It's like, oh yeah, because I'm doing everything. (00:39:49) Like right here, you're doing everything. (00:39:50) Imagine if you forgot to stop down and it's open all the way and one shot is blown out. (00:39:54) You know, I'd have stuff like that because I'm moving fast and I'm doing it always. (00:39:57) Wait a minute, you shot, I'm going to actually... (00:40:00) The whole thing without knowing if some of the footage is damaged wrong without any of it. That's why I only did one take. So my idea was this. How gangster is that? Wow. It was a test film. Right, I thought it was. I thought it was going to be a test film. Yeah. It's the only movie in history ever made where the filmmaker did not. (00:40:21) 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 going to watch it. But I thought if someone actually picks it up and has the balls to watch this thing, they're going to 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 can make another one and just get more practice. It was just, (00:40:47) I was so intrigued by this idea because you've heard advice about screenwriting. I heard a advice back then that I thought was ridiculous. It said, it's going to take you a long time to be a good screenwriter, so write 3 scripts and throw them away. The 4th script will be the good one. I was like, it's so hard to write a script. Who's going to write 3 full scripts knowing they throw them away? Wouldn't it be better if you write 3 scripts and then shoot each one and be the cameraman, be the sound guy, be everything? Because that way you're learning not just writing, you're learning how to make a movie. So that (00:41:17) my idea. I'm going to 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 going to not come out, but I'm not going to know what. I'm not going to shoot a safety one. That doubles my... Let me see. Some things might come out. I expected like (00:41:47) 70% of it to maybe be okay, but 30% I might have to come reshoot, which is 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. Because we're shooting 2 weeks consecutively to get film shipped back and forth from Mexico to see if it came out. I just couldn't do it. I just had to double down on it, do it. (00:42:11) 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 go, oh, let me do it. No, one take. Dude, just think about next time. Do what I say. I didn't think anyone was going to see it. So you, and because you don't think anyone's going to see it, you end up doing something remarkable, which is, well, I'm just going to make something for myself. Because if I was making a movie that was going to go to Sundance, I wouldn't have made that movie. I would have thought, okay, I got to get serious. But because I made this movie that was just entertaining myself, like Bed Head, it entertained audiences. So that (00:42:41) Naivete is really important when you're starting out or at any point in your life. Be naive about what thing's going to, and just do something for yourself. That taught me a very valuable lesson because 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. I'll figure out a way to edit around it and make the movie shorter. And that's just going to be the movie. (00:43:05) And then that's the one that won one Sundance. That was your first feature film. That's the one you made for $7,000. You mentioned your friend Carlos as the star of the movie. Everything in one take. And you know, I highly recommend people go back and watch that movie. It's just an incredible movie. It's fun and it's an action film, moves really fast. The story is really interesting. So the script is really interesting. All the actors, you could tell. (00:43:30) They all kind of stepped up and played their own. They weren't actors. That's right. They were just friends of ours, which is why, and because, and this was the magic of not having a crew, they didn't feel like they were making a movie. It's like this, you know, we're just here. Me with my one camera, in fact, the gal, (00:43:51) Carlos said, this one girl, I forgot, she's in town, maybe she would work, because we tried to get a soap star and she backed out. So we got that scaliber, she goes, but I don't know how to act. And I said, here, let's watch, I want to show you some, on Mexican TV, a telenovela was on, and you see someone, hey, you know, all over, over acting. I said, that's acting. I don't want you to do that. I want you to just, (00:44:10) wait, that, the love interest, the woman in that, that's what you're talking about? That's what you're talking about. She's amazing. She's amazing. But because I got a video of her, I said, I want you to just do this one line. Pretend like you're just talking to your boyfriend. Yeah. And I showed her, I showed her the video. That was cool because I couldn't show her the film. (00:44:28) because we'd have to develop it. But I showed her a video test of herself doing it, and she saw herself doing it. She suddenly had the confidence. We went through her closet, this red dress you can wear in that, and everyone just brought their own clothes. She really had like a sexuality, a tension, like a romantic tension that was real. It was in part a great love story that, I mean, as ridiculous as it is to say, and in part like a dramatic love story. Yeah, the idea was that, you know, I thought a guitar player (00:44:57) originally what I wanted to do was like Road Warrior. I said, I want a guy with a guitar case full of weapons going from town to town like Road Warrior. But I don't have enough money for the first one to do that. That'll be the second movie I do. How about we do a Genesis story, how he became that guy. So let's do Mad Max, basically, how he becomes that guy. So maybe he is a guitar player. So you start writing it out. I'm going to show you my writing method. I write on index cards and I carry one of these (00:45:23) a little packet of index cards. I keep one always in my bag. And I smile when I run across it because I go, I've made $1,000,000 with one of these before. You know, it's like this is the key to your next success, cards. Because you know, when you go see a therapist, you're not going to them for the answers. You're going to them for the questions. You've got the answers inside, what you don't have are the questions. A lot of times we ask ourselves very unempowering questions, like, why am I such a loser? You know, I can think of 10 answers right now. But if you could, but if you go, (00:45:53) What three things can I do today that'll not just change my life, but everyone around me? Take steps to that. Take out your cards and start writing them down. You won't come up with three. You'll come up with 15. I'm like, wow. 'Cause you're asking yourself and you'll see him. So when I was doing that movie, I thought, okay, he's a guitar player for real. And he gets mixed up with a guy with a case. So how about he walks into a bar, so I'll write down that, he walks into a bar, bar, trying to get work. (00:46:23) The bartender looks at him, we don't hire Meyer yet, just get the hell out of here. So he leaves. After that whole scene explaining who he is and what his story is, then the shooter comes in with a guitar case full of weapons. He's also dressed in black, and he shoots the place up. Now, if that was a short film, that's how you'd start a short film. But this is a feature movie, so shit, I got to figure out how to tell a feature. I'm going to need a few more cards before that. So I'm going to need... (00:46:49) who's this bad guy? How about he's in jail? I'd read a story, this crazy story about a guy who was in jail in Mexico, and he was running his drug business from the jail as protection. He could walk out any time, but it was to have the cops be his enforcers, basically. So introduce that guy. He's in jail, making phone calls. And someone puts a hit on him. So we have action right away. There's a hit on him. He kills those guys because it's his operation. He's not in jail. All the cops are working for him. (00:47:19) And he tells that guy on the phone, the main bad guy, I'm going to come to town, I'm going to kill all your guys, and I'm going to come kill you. So then he gets in his truck, and you see them bring him a guitar case full of weapons. He passes the mariachi on the way to town, and now it's his story. The baton gets turned to mariachi. Mariachi's doing a voiceover. It's easy to shoot. We can do the voice later. We don't have to do sing sound. (00:47:46) There was even a scene when he walks into town where we saw these coconuts, a guy cutting coconuts. And we go, oh, let's go film over there. So we filmed the guy giving him a coconut with a straw in it. And he walks out and I'm like, shit, man, you forgot to pay the guy. Well, let's shoot that. No, there's one take. (00:48:00) I'll just put in the voiceover that they give away free coconuts in this town. And for years, people in other countries would go, they really give away free coconuts? No, it's because we forgot to show him pain, you know, little happy accents. So now look, you're already building a movie. So it's like now he goes in the bar. Now he's mixed up and the bad guy says, find the guy with the guitar case full of weapons. Then he goes and meets the girl. So you just start, your movie, visually you can start seeing your movie. (00:48:26) And I've used this for business things. I've used this for ideas, for manifesting stuff. It's brilliant. Are you doing this alone, usually? Or are you? It's coming and it comes so fast. It's like free association. Maybe I have the indie. Oh, I know I want his hand shot. He's going to get his hand shot because he's a musician and those ballads are always really tragic. So the girl has to die. The girl has to die because if it's going to be a tragic song for a songbook, each movie should be like a tragedy. That's going to be over here. (00:48:56) now you got the ending, and then your brain starts filling in the rest, because you're asking yourself these prompt questions that you already have answers for, from a past life, from a vision you had that you don't even know are there. This prompts it. It's kind of a puzzle that you're figuring out. What happens if you get stuck? Like, this doesn't make sense. Like, some aspect of the structure doesn't make sense. You just start writing in the ones you do know. Like, okay, I know at some point she's going to betray him. (00:49:25) Or he's gonna think she does. She betrays him. Okay, that's in the middle somewhere. The other ones will come. Yeah, those are all like crossroads to the story. Doesn't that, like how do you know she has to die? Can you change your mind about that? I can, yeah. But for now, I felt like if I really went, the story's telling me now what it is. I didn't know I was gonna make a Genesis story. I wanted to do the Road Warrior guy. But the Road Warrior, he lost his family. (00:49:51) So really, to propel him to become a guy who has a guitar case full of weapons, he has to lose everything. So he needs a ghost. So this is a Genesis story of a character. Well, look, Bruce Wayne lost his parents. You could say, well, does the parents have to die? Well, no, but it's not going to propel him. It's not going to drive him like that thing. So it's just coming to me. So this is my other trick. And this is the main thing you got to learn about. If you take any way, this isn't me doing it. (00:50:18) I totally believe it, because when you start doing this, you go, where are these answers coming from? I'm asking the right question, but how come the answers just keep coming like this? I believe, because I do so many different jobs. I've learned this over the years. America when it was in 2002, I was like, how is it 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. (00:50:48) 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. Anything that has 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 it. That's the process. And then it says gels and mediums. And I'm like, oh, this is a book specifically about painting. (00:51:17) But it applies to music, editing, cinematography, writing, it's all the same. So that's when I realized that creativity is 90% of any of those jobs. The technical part of setting up the cameras, of writing a script in format, or reading or writing music, that's 10% of that. How many musicians don't read or write music and they're fantastic? It's because 90%, what they do is creative. Now, I believe that same person (00:51:45) even if they only do music, could literally jump from job to job creativity and do a superior job than most technicians. And there's also something to say there about the learning the technical aspects of an art. You collide with the experts. (00:52:05) What happens is, I've experienced this a lot with using cameras and so on. I don't know shit about cameras. And you roll in and then there's all the experts almost talking down to you and telling you how things are supposed to be. Everything is wrong. I talked to somebody about like soundproofing a room. (00:52:22) And they said they gave me prices. They're insane. And like the amount of effort is insane. And the dramatic, 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 understand. And they're like, no, this is all wrong. There's the corners are going to have some. And I'm like, fuck it. I'm just going to try. I'm going to see what it sounds like. A&B. Okay, here's audio with curtains. Here's audio without curtains. Seems like this is fine. Move on to the next thing. (00:52:52) I think that when you say creativity, some of that is being a rebel, like not listening to the experts. Yeah, well, 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. Yeah, guitar, piano, yeah, everything. You play piano, but would you call yourself a creative person? Yeah, I think so. Good. You should. I think that's a positive way different. I would just suggest to anybody is just own it, own it and just say, like when I do so many different jobs, (00:53:21) It sounds crazy when they would introduce me, Hey, Robert Reeves, he does this, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 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. 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, you can do it. You can take it on and do it because it teaches you more about your main job. I become a better director by doing all those jobs. Because when somebody just does one job, they barely know that job. You have to do more to learn about creativity. (00:53:50) And this is the main thing I learned was that I'm writing music for an orchestra. I'm like, 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, that's how fast I wrote that movie. I really feel like something else has taken over. So this is what my belief is. (00:54:16) Because I hear it in different realms. You ask Keith Ridge, how do you come up with these riffs? He goes, I don't. They're floating around the sky and I pull them out first. He asks Jimmy Vaughn, how do you play guitar? Those solos. He goes, it's like a radio. 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. (00:54:41) And then when you start getting in the flow and you're like, Whoa, it's riding, 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, 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. And if I were to do this and I'm flowing, and if I were to say, (00:55:09) 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 because your ego got in the way. You just clogged it because it gets pissed off that you think it's you. It's not you. It's like, dude, just open up, let me through, pick up the fucking pen. And I learned this 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, (00:55:34) I'd have to draw one drawing, draw another drawing, then it's like, okay, these kind of go together. It was a process. And sometimes I just felt like, I wish I could just envision it. Sit back. I'm going to 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 going to try to picture the comic strip. And as soon as I got on and I think it's funny, then I'll just go draw that, right? Be done in a half hour. Why waste three hours? (00:55:58) 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. Oh, this kind of goes with that. If I make another drawing, I have my strip. That's the only way to do it. If you don't get up, the creative spirit ain't gonna come visit you if you're doing this. It needs your hands. And it's not gonna 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. (00:56:25) How pissed off is that spirit now? 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 life, you'll be blessed with this never-ending flow of ideas because don't take ownership for it and know that if it's not coming out, it's 'cause you're just clogging it 'cause this thing's got endless ideas. And you give that same advice for making films, which is, (00:56:52) If you want to be a filmmaker, don't plan the movie. Don't think about making the movie. Just go in and start. Yeah, I would meet a lot of people who introduce themselves as aspiring. I'm an aspiring filmmaker, and I wonder, what would you tell an aspiring filmmaker? I'd say, Stop aspiring. Because if you call yourself that, you are that, and you're always going to feel like you're not ready. You just jump in before you're ready. I didn't feel like I was ready to do mariachi until I was probably in my last few days of filming. (00:57:21) You became ready as you went. You didn't know 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 going to do it. He figured it out day by day. Every challenge that got thrown at him, he had to figure it out. (00:57:51) And that's the biggest lesson. Most people never start. And that's the biggest thing. Don't wait till you're ready or they'll be on your tombstone. Here lies so-and-so. He was never ready. And you don't want to be that guy. Jump in. No, it's not you. just got to be the hands. And that relieves a lot of pressure from you, because then you don't have to ever have to do anything, really. You just have to be the hands. Can you talk through some of the hats, some of the many hats you wore with the El Mariachi? That's an interesting case study, and you've done the same thing over and over in (00:58:20) completely different, innovative ways in all the films, but Mariachi is such a radical leap for you. That was crazy. That thing's held together with scotch tape and rubber bands because of the camera I borrowed. You directed, you did cinematography, you did the sound. It's better to just say what I didn't do. I didn't act in front of the camera. Everything else I did, everything else I was the whole crew. It's just like you're doing here, except you've got sound recording. (00:58:50) Right onto the cameras, right? Or do you have it to the system? Separately, but it's synced. I mean, it's all the modern technology. I didn't have sync camera. Yep. So I had a camera that, it was not a sync camera. And the thing was, it was so loud, I would have had to blimp the shit out of it if I didn't have a blimp. And then I would have needed a sound guy. Just to be clear, so people don't understand this, you're shooting basically no sound. Because the camera sounds like this. (00:59:17) It's like, it sounds like all your money is going away, first of all. So I would go like this, action. He'd start running. Yeah. And I'd shoot my edit. Cut. Yep. You know, they're still running. You know, like I'm only using this part. And there's no slates. There's no, there's guys holding up their fingers at the beginning of rolling. This is real seven for just a few frames so I know which real it is. And then that 10 minutes of film is just, (00:59:44) one shot after another. And I use almost every frame of those shots because I was cutting in the camera. Now, after I shoot, like, let's say, you know, tell me your name. Lex. What's your last name? Friedman. Where do you live? Austin, Texas. I would do the whole scene, now we get the sound, bring the mic in close like that. Say it again. Lex, Friedman, Austin, Texas. That'll probably sync. Now, if you were going on and on, there's a place where it'd go out of sync. (01:00:14) I hate rubbery lips, so I would cut away to the dog or to the knife or to the girl, and then I'd cut back when you were back in sync. (01:00:22) And since these were non-actors, they say everything the same way each time. (01:00:26) They would say their line, just like they weren't performing it to where they didn't remember how they performed the thing before. (01:00:30) They were just talking in their own rhythm. (01:00:32) So a lot of the times it's... (01:00:33) Anytime you see anyone on camera talking, (01:00:36) they're in sync with themselves. (01:00:38) And as soon as it cuts away, they're out of sync. (01:00:40) And it created this really fast cutting style that I probably wouldn't have had on such a low budget movie, but it was the only way to keep things in sync. (01:00:46) So when I would shoot two people talking, I would make sure I'd film a couple of shots of like the dog or a stuffed cat or something just so I'd have something to cut away to get them back in sync. (01:00:56) That's so brilliant. (01:00:57) It's just resourceful. (01:00:59) It's just being very resourceful. (01:01:00) You allow it to get maybe a little bit out of sync sometimes? (01:01:03) I didn't allow it, but oh yeah, I would let it if I just didn't have a way to cut away. (01:01:06) Right. (01:01:07) And I would try to sink it as best I could. (01:01:09) But we as the audience, like, do you understand where the threshold is, where we notice something? (01:01:14) Yeah. (01:01:15) It seems like you can get away with a lot. (01:01:16) You can get away with, I just don't, I'm just particular about that. (01:01:20) I just don't like seeing a dub movie where it just feels canned. (01:01:24) It makes you not believe in it anymore. (01:01:26) So I just cut away where the lips are just way off. (01:01:29) I just didn't want any of that. (01:01:31) I just felt like I wanted it to just be believable. (01:01:35) and they could be really believable if they were in sync. (01:01:37) But I didn't shoot two takes of film or even 2 takes of audio, just one take. (01:01:42) We just went to the, and what was cool is that because I just had them go through the whole scene again. (01:01:47) So I would go ahead and record them like grabbing the bottle or any action they did, opening the suitcase. (01:01:52) I'd have all the sound effects too. (01:01:53) I just had to sync it by hand. (01:01:54) That's a lot of work for me, but I got great sound that way. (01:01:58) Because if I had a sync camera, the mic would have been so far, we would have had to go (01:02:04) get new sound effects, but because the camera's off, I could record everything close up. (01:02:09) So there was some blessing to that. (01:02:11) You and Quentin Tarantino had a great conversation about a lot of topics, but one of them is how to bring out the best in the actors. (01:02:17) What in that El Mariachi, how do you bring out the best in these non-actors? (01:02:22) And then maybe what's the thread that connects to your future work too? (01:02:26) What really helped (01:02:28) for those non-actors was that they just look across and it's me filming. (01:02:32) They didn't feel like they're being so natural. (01:02:34) And the guy who played the bad guy, I met him in the research hospital where I was sold my body to science. (01:02:39) He was my bunk mate. (01:02:40) And I said, dude, you look kind of like Rudgar Hauer. (01:02:42) And then it's like, we saw another movie. (01:02:44) Man, you look like James Spader. (01:02:45) Shit, you should be the bad guy in my movie. (01:02:47) And it'd be cool to have you as the bad guy. (01:02:48) He goes, but I don't speak Spanish. (01:02:49) Well, that's okay. (01:02:50) All right. (01:02:51) And I'll teach you phonetically. (01:02:52) And you're going to wear sunglasses. (01:02:54) And if you look close, he's holding the (01:02:56) He's holding the lines here and he's looking at the lines like that and just smiling. (01:03:00) So, can't believe he's getting away with this. (01:03:03) He's smiling and he's got the sunglasses on. (01:03:05) I read that somewhere in the pool. (01:03:06) There's like a scene in the pool. (01:03:07) In the pool, he's like this. (01:03:09) With the sunglasses on, oh man. (01:03:11) But he was doing it phonetically and I tell you what, he was so great, that guy, right? (01:03:16) When we do Desperado, I brought him back. (01:03:18) Didn't even have to do any dialogue. (01:03:20) Watch that movie when he shows up in the opening scene when Desperado (01:03:24) He's playing the guitar and they open with the credits. (01:03:27) To tie it into the first movie, he shows up again. (01:03:30) And all he has to do is light a cigarette and you see this. (01:03:32) Because he's so nervous because now there's a crew behind me. (01:03:37) Now it's real. (01:03:38) Before it was just me and him and it didn't feel like a real movie, so everyone gave a great performance. (01:03:43) So how do you recreate that later on a big movie? (01:03:46) It's just building a rapport, making a safe zone for your actors, (01:03:51) Quentin once told me, sometimes being, we're talking about directing, is yeah, sometimes being a great director is just being a great audience. (01:03:56) Being a great audience for the, because you're taking the place of the audience for the actor. (01:04:00) They try something, and if you're enjoying it, they know that the audience is going to enjoy it, or if you're, makes you cry. (01:04:07) So sometimes you just, you don't have to tell them a lot sometimes. (01:04:10) And if you do have something very specific to tell them, they usually go with it. (01:04:14) But I always just like to see what they do, and a lot of times they just (01:04:18) are in the zone, because again, they're getting that flow too. (01:04:21) You create the right environment, everyone's getting this inspiration that's all tied together that you never could have directed. (01:04:27) It's just like you just create that space where we're all going to be open to it, and it's going to drop in our lap, and I'm going to point it out when it does, because you may not feel like you know how to play this role yet, (01:04:39) But I say not knowing is the other half of the battle and the more important part. (01:04:42) That's the part we're going to discover. (01:04:44) And when it happens, I'm going to point it out and it's going to be like magic and we're just going to go, okay, we're accepting it and we do it. (01:04:49) And it gets people in that kind of head space and then we're all open to it, to where the character's supposed to go, what it's supposed to sound like instead of me being very manipulative to get a certain thing. (01:04:59) I don't know. (01:05:00) It's just whatever feels good. (01:05:01) Yeah, there's such an intimate connection between the actor and the director. (01:05:04) I've seen some of the behind-the-scenes footage with you. (01:05:07) You are just a fan enjoying the scene when it's done well. (01:05:10) But I think there's an aspect, if I were to put myself in the headspace of the actor, they want you as the audience to earn that happiness. (01:05:17) Because when a director approves. (01:05:20) Yeah, well, you're a performer and there's no other, it's not like a live show where you get the approval of the audience and you're like, oh, wow, they like that joke, let me do more. (01:05:28) Really, the director is it. (01:05:29) And a lot of times the director's way behind a monitor somewhere. (01:05:32) That's why I still like to operate the camera, because when I'm operating the camera, it's like this. (01:05:36) We can have 100 people here, we wouldn't know, because they go away. (01:05:39) It's just us. (01:05:40) They just disappear when it's the camera guy is the director. (01:05:44) And we're going, let's do that again. (01:05:45) Let's do that again. (01:05:45) There's a shot in, I'm lighting Sin City myself. (01:05:48) I have my crew setting lights. (01:05:50) And I have this great shot of Clive Owen where he's holding down Benicio's head in the toilet. (01:05:55) You know, Benicio's not there. (01:05:56) It's just a close-up of him at this point. (01:05:58) And I'm practicing my shot. (01:05:59) I'm zooming in slow in his face. (01:06:01) And people are still walking behind him on the green screen setting lights. (01:06:04) And I'm like, I'm rolling. (01:06:04) We're ready to go. (01:06:05) We're getting this. (01:06:06) I can already tell. (01:06:07) We're already in the moment. (01:06:08) What you're doing right now, just keep holding that look. (01:06:10) Now, one jolt like you're like he's starting to fight back, but you don't even flinch. (01:06:14) Cut. (01:06:15) Okay. (01:06:15) Never mind, you guys can stop moving that shit. (01:06:17) We already got. (01:06:17) Holy shit. (01:06:18) It's like that. (01:06:19) Wow. (01:06:19) Yeah, it's like that. (01:06:21) That's a great scene, by the way. (01:06:23) Great, right? (01:06:23) And you could feel it. (01:06:25) If I wait for these guys, this moment will be gone. (01:06:28) And then another one was Mickey Rourke. (01:06:29) You know, he had so much freaking dialogue. (01:06:31) He had just done this whole big dialogue scene. (01:06:33) He had another one that said, let's go ahead and start with a wide shot where the two actors, if I'm the camera, you know, Mickey and Elijah are here. (01:06:42) Let's get a two shot and we'll come around on Mickey close up. (01:06:44) We'll turn Mickey around for the close up. (01:06:47) Let's start with a wide thing, get used to the lines and (01:06:49) most of it's going to be sold in a close-up. (01:06:51) We sit down, Mickey starts delivering the take. (01:06:53) I'm like, hold on, hold on a second. (01:06:55) I brought my camera over, zoom in, just adjust that light real quick because I'm the DP. (01:06:58) Because if I had another director of photography, they'd be like, oh, no, we have to relight and all this stuff. (01:07:02) It's like, no, let's just do this, let's go. (01:07:04) He's doing it right now. (01:07:06) And I go, and that performance is just right then. (01:07:09) And so you can feel that when you're (01:07:12) Also, you're operating and you're the camera guy and you're the DP. (01:07:16) It's like high-tech guerrilla filmmaking. (01:07:18) Yeah, we're on a green screen, but it's like all the crew needs are marching orders. (01:07:23) Just put a light back there, hitting them harder. (01:07:27) This is a 5K, make that a 10K. (01:07:29) It's gotta be stronger. (01:07:29) They don't need to know that I'm gonna make that a lamp post later. (01:07:32) They just need marching orders for the moment. (01:07:34) So I can just kind of tell people, do this, do this, do that. (01:07:36) and then I know what I can accomplish with the actor, and then everything else falls into place later, 'cause I'm gonna put all that in later. (01:07:43) Once you know how to do a lot of jobs like that, you can just move at the speed of thought, which is where the actors love being creatively, 'cause nobody knew what green screen was back then. (01:07:52) They're like, What is this again? (01:07:54) So I explained it as, Well, it's kind of like doing theater, but instead of a black curtain behind you with a prop, it'll be a green curtain, and you might just have a cup or just a steering wheel, (01:08:04) But it's just you and the other actors, just like this. (01:08:07) And everything else will be painted in later. (01:08:09) We're just talking. (01:08:10) We're locked in. (01:08:11) If we stay locked in, we'll look great when there's rain coming down and we're on a ship later. (01:08:16) But it comes down to this, right? (01:08:17) And the more, it was so fun to do those kind of movies. (01:08:20) To this day, you try to be close to the action, connected with the actor. (01:08:24) Because it's like a dance. (01:08:26) You end up. (01:08:27) That's so good to hear. (01:08:28) Remember on Dusk Till Dawn, Michael Parks in the opening scene, he's talking about (01:08:34) two guys that are running around killing people just before he gets shot. (01:08:38) And I just start doing this slow zoom. (01:08:40) I remember it was take eight. (01:08:41) I start doing this slow zoom on him and I'm like, I hope I get all the way up to where it stops zooming when he finishes that speech because there's no set way and I don't know how he's going to say it, but you're just locked almost telepathically. (01:08:55) And as he's delivered, there's no edits. (01:08:56) He's just going, yeah, they killed 4 rangers. (01:09:00) Two hostages. (01:09:02) It's just like, Wow, and you're just so pulled in, and I'm just like, Oh my God, and then it stopped. (01:09:06) It's like I ran out of Zoom right as he finished that speech. (01:09:09) So, how can a director, because there's a lot of great directors that stay in the back, I don't know, in the back of the back of them, you know, they just trust that whatever they get from their crew, they just accept it, just like, you know, you would get a take to things. (01:09:20) There's so much intimate connection. (01:09:21) I like that intimate connection because... (01:09:24) I could not be behind a monitor, even if I had communication with my cameraman. (01:09:28) Okay, now start zooming in. (01:09:29) You're not going to know. (01:09:31) You have to feel it. (01:09:32) You have to be in there. (01:09:32) It's like a dance. (01:09:33) It's like trying to do a dance with a partner and you're across the room. (01:09:36) It's like, no, you got to be there up close, feeling the energy, and it's the creative spirits whispering to you both. (01:09:43) It's not your own idea. (01:09:45) You're capturing a moment that's magic. (01:09:47) And there's true magic that happens on a set, and that's what brings you back. (01:09:50) Because you know, I didn't direct that. (01:09:53) And they didn't act that. (01:09:55) came through us and we just had the cameras rolling and we captured a ghost. (01:09:58) It was like that. (01:09:59) Just like you said, you had the pen in hand and you were there. (01:10:02) It's like that. (01:10:03) It's crazy. (01:10:04) It's crazy. (01:10:05) All right, your friendship with Tarantino is just fascinating. (01:10:07) And just the whole timeline of the history of movies and the two of you collided and met is just a fascinating part of the story. (01:10:14) You first met him in 1992 at the Toronto Film Festival. (01:10:18) Can you just talk about meeting Tarantino? (01:10:20) Yeah, we both had films at the same time with first films, Guys in Black, Action, Violence. (01:10:29) In fact, I had seen his movie already. (01:10:30) My first film festival was a few months before that, the Telluride Film Festival, and Reservoir Dogs was there, but Quentin couldn't be there. (01:10:36) He was at Sundance earlier that year. (01:10:38) And the guy who became my agent, he saw it, he said, hey, you're going to like this guy, Quentin Tarantino. (01:10:42) I told him about you. (01:10:42) You're going to meet him. (01:10:43) He's going to be in Toronto. (01:10:44) Oh, cool, Okay. (01:10:45) And so I went ahead and saw his movie in Telluride. (01:10:47) And I was like, holy shit, this guy's in black again, just like the mariachis dressed in black and action. (01:10:53) I said, oh, we're going to like each other's movie. (01:10:54) He's going to like my movie when he sees it. (01:10:56) So then in Toronto, we met, and we met first, because I knew I was going to be doing a panel discussion with him. (01:11:02) They asked us to do a panel discussion about violence in movies in the 90s, even though it was only 92. (01:11:08) So we're on a panel together, and that's where I met him. (01:11:11) And he's like, hey, Robert, your agent told me about you. (01:11:14) And I was like, yeah, I saw your movie Reservoir Dogs. (01:11:16) And he goes, oh, you got to come to my screening. (01:11:17) And I'm going to come see yours. (01:11:19) So he came to Mariachi, and I videotaped the audience reactions because they were insane, insane reactions to it. (01:11:26) But I have the first screening he saw of Mariachi sitting next to me, laughing. (01:11:32) He's laughing at everything. (01:11:33) He was just the best audience. (01:11:34) I have his recording of the first time he saw Mariachi. (01:11:37) Oh, no, really? (01:11:38) Yeah, because I taped it all the thing. (01:11:39) And he's so loud because he's right next to me. (01:11:41) Well, just like you, but even probably even more than you, he's a fan. (01:11:46) He watches. (01:11:47) He just loves movies. (01:11:48) He loves movies. (01:11:49) In fact, the next time I heard him laugh that way, was it that his own premiere for Kill Bill? (01:11:55) We're watching Kill Bill, and he's laughing like it's somebody else's movie. (01:11:58) He still enjoys the movie. (01:12:00) He loves what all the actors did, and it's like, that's the kind of energy you really love. (01:12:05) But I'll tell you what happened. (01:12:07) I'm not a very shy person, you know, very shy. (01:12:09) I'd have to go talk. (01:12:10) I'm sure you probably feel like you're not an orator or anything, you know, just have to go do it. (01:12:16) I thought, man, I'm going to have to introduce my film and talk about it afterwards. (01:12:19) I'm afraid of that. (01:12:20) What am I going to do? (01:12:20) I don't have to talk in front of more than five people before. (01:12:24) So I went to see this other movie, and it was good. (01:12:27) And I was watching it, and then the director comes up at the end and goes, yeah, well, that was my movie. (01:12:33) And you know, here's the writer. (01:12:35) And he's like, oh, man, I don't like the movie anymore. (01:12:37) This guy's kind of a dick. (01:12:39) So I cannot do that. (01:12:41) I'm going to have to go be (01:12:43) who they imagined made that movie. (01:12:45) So I wrote out my whole intro. (01:12:48) It was like a 20-minute intro because no one had ever heard of anybody making a movie for no money, much less without a crew, much less, you know, the way I did it was just very new. (01:12:59) Nobody knew it was possible. (01:13:01) So my whole intro was like, (01:13:03) You'll see the Columbia logo slapped in front. (01:13:05) It's probably cost more than the whole movie. (01:13:08) And then I go through, this is how I made it with a wheelchair for a dolly, a turtle, you know, I rode around things I had. (01:13:13) I mentioned the turtle, the pit bull, the bus, the ranch, all that stuff, right? (01:13:18) So then when they see the movie, in fact, I think my wife was in the audience, she said, Sundance? (01:13:23) People were laughing so much at your intro, they just wanted to hear a story like this so badly. (01:13:27) I heard someone next to me say, I'm going to vote for his movie. (01:13:29) They hadn't even seen the movie yet. (01:13:31) Just because the story was so good, they wanted that movie to be great. (01:13:34) And when they see the turtle, big cheers. (01:13:38) When they see the pit bull, big cheers. (01:13:40) When they see the school bus, (01:13:42) cheers, but then when they see how we use it and he slams into it and falls in it, they freaking lose their minds because they know how I put it together. (01:13:49) They know that the rubber bands and the popsicle sticks, because I already set it up. (01:13:54) And so that's why that audience, I just taped the reaction. (01:13:57) They're so with it. (01:13:59) The context is so key. (01:14:00) Like you can watch Mariachi and go, hey, yeah, this looks like a $7000 movie. (01:14:05) But if you know the story behind it, suddenly (01:14:08) I was curious. (01:14:08) I hadn't seen it in a long time. (01:14:09) I was watching it for the 20th anniversary. (01:14:11) We did a screening. (01:14:12) And the first few shots come up and I'm like, oh yeah, well, it looks like a $7,000 movie. (01:14:17) And then it keeps going and it's in the, once we're in the jail cell and the shooting's happening and I realize, oh my God, we had these blanks that only fired one shot and it would jam. (01:14:28) So I had to, (01:14:30) Show it going, use the sound effect, cut to the other guy, cut back, have another one go. (01:14:34) I had to have to do these editing tricks to make it look like, and then repeat a few frames so it goes, so it looks like a machine gun. (01:14:40) All this stuff that I'm start sweating as I'm watching it going, I can't believe I made this movie with that freaking camera. (01:14:46) I don't know how I did. (01:14:47) I couldn't even see. (01:14:49) I'm there with this long lens pulling my own focus. (01:14:51) When I finally had to do a real movie, (01:14:54) I was operating the camera in my first real movie with a crew, and I get the camera, and a guy comes over and he focuses for you. (01:15:02) That's your job, you focus? (01:15:03) Shit, I had to do my own focusing on the last movie. (01:15:06) It's so hard, you're trying to focus on a guy while you're filming, and you don't know where you are. (01:15:12) And it's just... (01:15:13) I always couldn't believe how much easier it is when you have a crew. (01:15:15) But it's extremely valuable to know that the pain of that, the spectrum of creativity that's allowed within that, even just the focusing. (01:15:24) Like how focusing fucks up on older cameras, on newer cameras, what are the different artifacts that come up, just to know the battlefield. (01:15:32) In order to be a great general, you have to know how to be a soldier on the battlefield. (01:15:35) Yeah, It's good to know all that stuff, but you know, it's like, at the end of the day, (01:15:39) You could shoot something on a phone, and if you have a great story, no one's going to even notice. (01:15:43) I'll be, oh, we shot that on a phone. (01:15:44) I didn't notice. (01:15:45) So sometimes people get caught up on, what kind of camera should I have? (01:15:48) It's not the camera. (01:15:49) That's just the tool. (01:15:50) That's just the pen. (01:15:51) That's just like, yeah, you can have different paint brushes, but you can go, I'm going to limit my palette. (01:15:57) I'm only going to use a fan brush and a detail brush, and I'm going to make a painting. (01:16:00) Do you think that painting is going to suffer? (01:16:02) No. (01:16:02) It's going to take on an identity that you wouldn't have had if you had all the other tools. (01:16:06) So sometimes the limitations help you because when you can do anything, it can be crippling. (01:16:12) When I knew I could only use those things for mariachi, it's like, all right, well, it's very simple now. (01:16:17) Let me show you how cheapskate I was. (01:16:18) I did not spend on anything. (01:16:20) So when you see him walking around with a guitar case, it's a shitty cardboard one, like I got from home. (01:16:25) I had to get a heavier one to put the guns in. (01:16:29) So we borrowed one, but it had... (01:16:32) this material ripped off the top so you could see the wood. (01:16:35) It's just the wood on top. (01:16:36) So it didn't match the other one because it wasn't all black. (01:16:38) And I was too cheap to paint it black. (01:16:41) I didn't want to spend money on paint. (01:16:42) So you see that cardboard case, he puts it down. (01:16:46) And when he goes to open it, I cut to the other one. (01:16:49) Once the wood is, watch the edits, you'll see it open. (01:16:53) Now it's a completely different case for the guns. (01:16:55) And when he goes to cut it, when he close it, cuts to the other one. (01:16:59) And he goes, oh, that's how I did that whole movie. (01:17:01) Again, it was a practice film. (01:17:02) I don't want to waste any money on it. (01:17:04) I don't know if it's going to be even, I won't be able to make 5 bucks from it. (01:17:07) Yeah, but you're one of the few great directors where both the movie's genius and the process of making it is creative genius. (01:17:17) It's like fun to watch both, to know of both. (01:17:19) You know what I believe. (01:17:20) Right. (01:17:21) It's from somewhere else. (01:17:22) I have to say, that thing is freaking, I didn't get in its way, this basically would help. (01:17:29) And people say that, don't get in your own way. (01:17:32) This is a little bit easier to understand. (01:17:33) It's like, keep the pipe clear. (01:17:35) Don't block it with your ego. (01:17:37) Don't say, you're gonna be shocked, but don't ever say, oh shit, how do I do that? (01:17:41) I don't know if I can do that. (01:17:42) You didn't do it again with, except that it just came through you and try to get back into that head space, especially when you go to make a second film or a third film or follow up a success. (01:17:51) That's when artists get really crippled. (01:17:53) because sometimes they start tiptoeing around as an artist going like, oh shit, now it's my second film. (01:17:57) My first one did really well. (01:17:59) They might not like my second one so much. (01:18:02) That's not the headspace you were in when you made the first one. (01:18:04) You weren't hesitant like that. (01:18:07) So try to keep that very naive. (01:18:09) And that's why I say commit to a body of work, because I know a lot of filmmakers get stuck on their second one and then go further because they get crippled by the success of the first one. (01:18:17) And they start asking, oh shit, how did I do that? (01:18:19) How can I do that again? (01:18:20) And you get deeper and deeper in a hole you can't get out of. (01:18:23) I think you've spoken about that filmmakers, especially early on in their journey, critics and the audience can destroy them. (01:18:30) Meaning like it creates too much of a burden, too much, just wear them down to where they're almost scared to be creative. (01:18:38) Can you just speak to that, how to ignore the critic? (01:18:40) I'll tell you something that my best advice ever got. (01:18:43) Early on, I was so fortunate. (01:18:46) From an unlikely place. (01:18:49) because he's such a, he sounded like Clint Eastwood when he said it. (01:18:52) That's funny when you said that. (01:18:53) I thought that. (01:18:54) But I got, I did Desperado and I had Antonio Bandettes. (01:18:58) I brought Antonio to be in it from Europe. (01:19:02) Big action movie. (01:19:03) And so Spielberg saw it and he said, hey, I want you to do Zorro with Antonio. (01:19:08) So we're working on it for a while. (01:19:10) I was working on the pre-production. (01:19:11) I got to work with Spielberg doing that. (01:19:13) It ended up stalling because there was like 2 studios involved and Amblin was moving or it was some weird thing where (01:19:19) But I got to work with him for about 5 months soon. (01:19:21) And I started getting really nervous because it's like, oh, shit, you start thinking about even movies of his that people would say, oh, you know, Temple of Doom is not as good as Raiders. (01:19:30) Have you seen Temple of Doom? (01:19:31) I've been killed if I can do that movie. (01:19:34) If I can make Zorro as good as that one, the one that people said, it's like people don't know how good they had it with that guy. (01:19:40) But I started thinking, I even said, man, I just rewatched Temple of Doom last night. (01:19:44) I don't know how I'm going to do the Zorro movie. (01:19:46) I've just never done anything like that. (01:19:48) You start getting afraid because you go, the second thing, he said, all right, just, you're going to do fine. (01:19:56) But then I started thinking, this guy at that time,