Robert Rodriguez

Robert Anthony Rodriguez (born June 20, 1968) is an American filmmaker, composer, and visual effects supervisor.

He shoots, edits, produces, and scores many of his films in Mexico and in his home state of Texas.

In late 1990, his entry in a local film contest earned him a spot in the university's film program.

There he made the award-winning 16 mm short Bedhead (1991).

The film chronicles the amusing misadventures of a young girl whose older brother sports an incredibly tangled mess of hair which she detests.

Even at this early stage, Rodriguez's trademark style began to emerge: quick cuts, intense zooms, and fast camera movements deployed with a sense of humor.

Bedhead was recognized for excellence in the Black Maria Film Festival.

Rodriguez directed the 1992 action film El Mariachi, which was a commercial success after grossing $2.6 million ($5.5 million in 2023 dollars) against a budget of $7,000 ($14,937 in 2023 dollars).

The film spawned two sequels known collectively as the Mexico Trilogy: Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.

He went on to shoot the action flick El Mariachi (1992) in Spanish; he shot it for around $7,000 with money raised by his friend Adrian Kano and from payments for his own participation in medical testing studies.

Rodriguez won the Audience Award for this film at the Sundance Film Festival in 1993.

Intended for the Spanish-language low-budget home-video market, the film was "cleaned up" by Columbia Pictures with post-production work costing several hundred thousand dollars before it was distributed in the United States.

Its promotion still advertised it as "the movie made for $7,000".

Rodriguez described his experiences making the film in his book Rebel Without a Crew (1995).

Desperado was a sequel to El Mariachi that starred Antonio Banderas and introduced Salma Hayek to international audiences as her English-language breakthrough role.

Rodriguez went on to collaborate with Quentin Tarantino on the vampire thriller From Dusk till Dawn (also both co-producing its two sequels), and he wrote, directed, and produced the TV series for his own cable network, El Rey.

Rodriguez has also worked with Kevin Williamson, on the sci-fi thriller film The Faculty.

He directed From Dusk till Dawn in 1996 and developed its television adaptation series (2014–2016).

Rodriguez, formerly a member of Writers Guild of America West, left and maintained financial core status in 2001.

That year, Rodriguez enjoyed his first Hollywood hit with Spy Kids, which went on to become a movie franchise.

A third "mariachi" film also appeared in late 2003, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which completed the Mexico Trilogy (also called the Mariachi Trilogy).

He operates a production company called Troublemaker Studios, formerly Los Hooligans Productions.

During production in 2004, Rodriguez insisted Miller be credited as co-director, because he considered the visual style of Miller's comic art to be just as important as his own in the film.

However, the Directors Guild of America would not allow it, citing that only "legitimate teams", e.g., the Wachowskis, could share the director's credit.

Rodriguez co-directed the 2005 neo-noir crime thriller anthology Sin City (adapted from the graphic novel of the same name) and the 2014 sequel, Sin City: A Dame to Kill For.

Rodriguez is also the creator of the Spy Kids franchise, as well as The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl in 3-D, Planet Terror, Machete, We Can Be Heroes, and also directed The Faculty and Alita: Battle Angel.

He is a close friend and frequent collaborator of filmmaker Quentin Tarantino, who founded the production company A Band Apart, of which Rodriguez was a member.

Rodriguez co-directed Sin City (2005), an adaptation of the comic books by Frank Miller; Quentin Tarantino guest-directed a scene.

It was selected by Film/Video Curator Sally Berger for the Black Maria 20th-anniversary retrospective at MoMA in 2006.

The short film Bedhead attracted enough attention to encourage him to seriously attempt a career as a filmmaker.

In December 2013, Rodriguez launched his own cable television channel, El Rey.

Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Mexican parents Rebecca (née Villegas), a nurse, and Cecilio G. Rodríguez, a salesman.

He began his interest in film at age eleven, when his father bought one of the first VCRs, which came with a camera.

While attending St. Anthony High School Seminary in San Antonio, Rodriguez was commissioned to videotape the school's football games.

According to his sister, he was fired soon afterward as he had shot footage in a cinematic style, getting shots of parents' reactions and the ball traveling through the air instead of shooting the whole play.

In high school, he met Carlos Gallardo; they both shot films on video throughout high school and college.

Rodriguez went to the College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, where he also developed a love of cartooning.

Not having grades high enough to be accepted into the school's film program, he created a daily comic strip entitled Los Hooligans. Many of the characters were based on his siblings – in particular, one of his sisters, Maricarmen.

The comic ran for three years in the student newspaper The Daily Texan, while Rodriguez continued to make short films.

Rodriguez shot action and horror short films on video and edited on two VCRs.