I got to catch a special screening/ Q&A with Robert Rodriguez and Cheech Marin. It was about how he loves involving his kids in the movie-making process. After attending this event, I not only saw how special he is as a filmmaker but a tiny bit of how great he was as a father. His kids were at the event as well. Not even from the praise they gave their dad, it was more about their recollections and stories about what games they’d use to play and cooking eggs with chocolate together, trying out different combinations. It was really inspiring just as a human being listening to that. These days we need parents to get more involved in their children’s lives.
Along with talking about family, Robert Rodriguez spoke about filmmaking. Of all the things he said today, what stood out to me the most was about setting precedent in your role as a filmmaker. He’s widely known as the “Rebel without a crew”; being the director and cinematographer and editor and composer and… you get the drift. He likes to be in control, and I can fully respect and relate ot that.
I’m very much a very hands on filmmaker, not just creatively and conceptually but technically as well. I like shooting my own films, editng them, and so on and so forth. I’ve gotten criticisms from that because everyone says, “Oh you always need a cinematographer and an editor and etc. You can’t be too close to the material.” I think that’s bullshit. You have to be close to the material or what’s the point? The purpose of making a film is not to collaborate. Collaboration is one of the by-products of making a film, but the purpose is to tell a story. As long as you can tell the story, why does it matter how you do it?
Rodriguez said, “Just because you want to be your own director of photography or your own editor, doesn’t mean you don’t want to collaborate. You’re just trying to tell your story your way. Instead of waiting for 500 other people to get on the same page for a shot, I can get the shot in that time.”
That’s exactly the point. I love collaborating, but it has to be with people that I trust and people who know me and what I’m looking for. If they’re not on the same page as I am, I might as well learn something new by doing it myself. If I meet an editor who has the same passion, creativity, and technical prowess as I do as a filmmaker, then I’d love to work with him or her.
It brings me back to the story about Rodriguez and his kids trying out all these cooking combinations. Chocolate and eggs. At first, they had chocolate in the raw eggs. It tasted terrible after it was cooked. Then, they tried adding the chocolate later on. That was the winning combination. It’s not about what ingredients you put together, but how they’re put together.
