Burton Kent

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A couple weeks ago I read Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez.  Amazing book about how he put together an award winning film, El Marachi, for just $7,000.  People in the film business thought his trailer (advertisement for his movie) must have cost him more than he paid to have the whole film made.  (BTW, the trailer kept him motivated to keep editing his movie.)

 It’s an amazing story about how he challenged assumptions to make his movie quickly and on the cheap.   People complicate things - Robert made it simple.  He couldn’t afford for it to be complex.   In fact, his equipment was horrible - the camera was LOUD so he had to shoot the scene first, then later dub the audios.  Since the audios tended to drop out of synch, he would have to cut away to a different shot to avoid the rubber lip problem common to dubbed videos.

 There’s at least one lesson to be learned here.

 I saw El Marachi long ago, and his movie Desperado (with Antonio Banderas) has the best, most fun gunfight scene ever.  I’m looking forward to seeing what else he’s done.