 [Larger view] | Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player
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 will inspire you | |
| shows what can happen if you get off your arse and make it happen, and sticks it to all those books that say you need a million plus for a feature.
not a perfect book, but I gave it five stars because anyone into film making should read it. | |
 Not a filmmaking book, but a clever approach | |
| What Rodriguez did was great because he took the crappiest approach and suceeded. Well i still cant believe it but it sure happened. the film wasnt any good but Thanks to Rodriguez, we all now know that hollywood needs to invest in a brain and that anything goes. Well this is why you got to love good old hollywood and the uneducated people that it holds. It would be nice if rodriguez made a good film for a change. | |
| Best, maybe only book you need on filmmaking; Most fun too! | |
| When I started this book I didn't have the motivation to get up and make a movie. I wanted to, but it was all a big intimidating blur. The minute I finished it, 3 days after I started (and I'm not a fast reader) I decided to make a movie, and several months later had actually made a short film, as crewless as Mr. Rodriguez had been, and had an absolute blast doing it. Then it hit me, c'mon, how hard could it be from here to make a full feature? That's exactly what he'd been saying all along. This is the only book you need.
Aw, what do I know, right? Well let me revise myself a little bit. This is the only book you need to read to be PREPARED to actually get up and make a movie, whether it's two or 120 minutes. If you still need tech and history books, all good, all good, but if you want some kind of a degree or certificate that says "Official Filmmaker", forget it, this is the only,well, ANYTHING, you need. If even! Rodriguez would probably say you don't even need to read the book, just go out and make movies. That's what he did. This book is as simple as it sounds. A production diary, edited here and there, highly informational introduction and appendices, and the most lively, vibrant, good natured, humorous, validating, and incredibly UN-intimidating (as said by my brother, he seems incredibly laid back) narrator you could ever wish for. Sometimes you honestly forget you're reading a book about movies and are just listening to a friend recount a few crazy harebrained adventures. The book flies by and I enjoyed every minute of it. I happily list it as one of the best and most entertaining books I've ever read, next to even my very favorite classics in literature! But Rodriguez' adoration of, common sense, and maverick independence regarding film is what takes the cake. He realized that there's a labyrinthian system of bureaucracy, upper crust of snobs, and far too many negative folks controlling the main highway of the business, from the schools to the studios, and he, a film student at the time, decided that the actual flesh and bone mechanics of film are available to anyone and that there was another way to go. He didn't like the idea of being taught how to make movies the way someone else wanted you to make them, he wanted to be himself, and he thought that if you have talent that's all you need, it can't be taught to you. So he got up and made some short films for festivals, then decided "shorts are easy, couldn't be that hard to make a feature". So he went to Mexico and made his indie hit, El Mariachi, all by his lonesome. The actual diary takes place during the making of El Mariachi (and the post production and "getting discovered" frenzy), and is a day to day account of imagination, creativity, ingenuity, a makeshift and anything goes sensibility, and old fashioned elbow grease, told by a fabulous storyteller. Everything afterwards is equally thrilling for anyone interested in filmmaking as it offers a VERY revealing glimpse into the studio system, and ends up being humorous as Rodriguez, an overnight golden boy in Hollywood, was able to deflect it and still float along doing his own thing. (Some great pictures too!) Other than relaying some of the philosophies and wisdom he's picked up along the way, he doesn't tell you what to do. By recounting his own adventures, he aims to inspire the reader to go off and do their own thing. And it works. It's magically inspiring. For anyone out there wanting to make movies for the sake and artistic joy and satisfaction of making movies, which is one of Rodriguez' tenets, this is the book for you. It won't tell you how to become famous or successful or how to work a field mixer, but he tells you to get up, there's another door that is open with no line and no barriers except for the one in your mind, and there are millions of possibilities and routes to take on the other side. |
