by Ted Elrick
photos by Rico Torres

Director Robert Rodriguez at the helm.

Groundbreaking Austin-based director Robert Rodriguez seems to be able to do just about everything. On his films he's not only the director, he's also the editor, writer, producer but he's also the camera operator and sound re-recording mixer.

It'd be easy to attribute this all-encompassing control to an all-encompassing ego. But that's far from the truth. This is the way he's always made his films. He did everything on his ultra-low-budget El Mariachi because he was lousy at talking people into working for free. He wrote a book about that experience called Rebel Without a Crew. But he also really loves every aspect of the process, so much so that he can't think of working any other way.

With a budget of $36 million, his latest film Spy Kids is a long way from Mariachi, but not far enough so that he's hung up a few hats. In fact, he's donned another one. He's visual effects supervisor of the 500 effects shots.

Spy Kids features Antonio Banderas and Carla Gugino as super secret agents who retired to get married and raise a family. Unfortunately, their past comes back to break up their suburban life. They're kidnapped, and it's up to their kids, Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega, to rescue them.

The family aspect of the picture may seem a long way from his past films, El Mariachi, Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn and The Faculty, but it's actually closer to the films he began making as a teen. In addition, his wife and the mother of their three children, Elizabeth Avellan, was associate producer of Mariachi, and has since had a producing credit on many of his films including Spy Kids.

Spy Kids is quite a switch for you. Did you want to make it because of your own kids?

Actually, I came up with this before I even had kids. I'm from a family of ten, and everything before El Mariachi was all family comedy stuff. I had a daily cartoon strip that was about my family. The first film that got me my agent, Bedhead, starred my little brothers and sisters, shot in my backyard. It won a lot of festivals. That's what gave me the idea to do a low-budget feature. That's when I went and did Mariachi for the Spanish market. It needed to be action because that's all they wanted. After that became a hit, I got to be known as an action guy, but I always wanted to do a family thing. When I was directing Four Rooms ["The Misbehavers" segment], it was kind of a family comedy although it was more adult because it was going to be an R-rated movie. That's when I came up with the idea for Spy Kids.

Director Robert Rodriguez.

How did that Four Rooms segment inspire Spy Kids?

The segment takes place on New Year's Eve. Antonio [Banderas] and his wife were an international couple. Their kids were dressed in suits because it's New Year's and I thought, "Wow, they look like little James Bonds. That'd be a good angle for a family adventure film, make the parents spies. The kids don't know their parents are spies and then they have to save their parents. That could really be a way to get my comedy, action/adventure, into one movie."

It seems like a sure sell. I wonder why nobody thought of that angle before.

In 1994 when I thought of it, I was so eager to make it because I kept thinking, "Somebody's going to come up with this any day now. You better hurry up and make it." But it took me so long to make because I needed to get more experience with effects. It was going to be a big movie and I didn't want to spend a lot of money on it. So I wanted to learn more about CG and effects. There are 500 effects in the story. I didn't have a visual effects supervisor. I did all that myself because I wanted to learn how to do effects.

You do nearly everything on the film. You write it, edit it, produce...

I operate the camera. I chose all the lenses. I'm the sound mixer. I even did some composing on this film and conducted an orchestra. I've never done that before. I enjoy doing all this because of the learning experience.

You've also been an actor, were the second unit director on Guillermo del Toro's Mimic. Did you learn anything on that?

Only that I hate sitting behind the monitor. I wanted to be the operator, but because we were in Canada I couldn't operate the camera. So I just sat behind the monitor and directed. I forgot to say, "Action" a few times. [laughs] That was a favor to the studio and Guillermo. They needed me to help so that they could make his Christmas date. Just some second unit stuff. I said, "Hey, I'll come shoot some second unit stuff. I'm just writing anyway. I'd love to shoot some action scenes for you."

Rodriguez (right) with Daryl and Alexa in between takes.

Why do you want to wear so many hats?

I just like the personal feel it has. I enjoy the process so much. I started that way. I didn't have crews when I started. I was always so quiet and I was not good at wrangling people to come over and work for free so I thought, "I'll just do it." I found I was so passionate for it that I would work harder than anybody on those jobs. I enjoyed each job. I don't want to just direct. I'd rather have the camera strapped on in Steadicam mode. Everyone works harder when they see that you're leading by example. You're not just telling them where to go. It's also just fun. It's part of the creativity for me to do all those jobs. You've got your personal stamp on the movie, especially a movie like this that could just be a corporate film because it's such a big idea. It could easily have been just a big, cheesy big movie. I wanted it to be all done at home, in my garage, and feel like a big movie, but with a personal touch to it.

What was the budget on this?

About $36 million. The biggest budget for me, but when you watch it, it seems like a $100 million movie. It's got more than 500 effects in it. It's huge. I save a lot of money by doing it all myself and by thinking more like a magician. How can I fool people into thinking they're seeing what they're seeing when I'm not really building anything? It's by suggesting more than actually doing, and by using sleight of hand and all the filmmaking tricks. That's the job for me.

You started out drawing comic strips based on the experiences of your family. I've often felt that a number of filmmakers begin with comic strips.

It's the easiest way to create movies with limited means. Just take a piece of paper and pen. In grade school I would do flip-cartoon action movies on the sides of pages in a paperback dictionary. All day during class I'd do that. Everybody would love them, but I knew that I was going to be a total failure when I grew up because I wasn't listening to anything the teacher was saying. Then my dad bought one of the early video cameras back in the late '70s, the kind where you had to watch the monitor to see what you were filming because everything was manual, and I have ten brothers and sisters so I started making movies.

Then he got a second VCR because I had kind of taken over the other and he needed his for his cookware sales. I took that one too, hooked it up to the other and realized I could edit. So since I was 12 years old I've been making movies edited on video. I won a few contests, but a lot of festivals were biased against video so I had to go make a film. That was Bedhead which was sort of a film version of all those 30 movies I had done on video. That got me a lot of awards and recognition and I went on to do Mariachi. But for years I just practiced at home shooting video. When you've got video you don't need a DP or a crew. It's got built-in sound.

So I'm so used to that way of working that I just carried it on to Mariachi which I shot without a crew.

I did everything. I was the sound guy, the cameraman, the effects guy, the editor, the lighting guy. It was just me and the actors. That was pretty revolutionary. Nobody had really done that. Not even documentary crews go out with one person. They've always got at least a sound guy with them.

Now you can't stop doing everything?

Now I can't stop. Especially when that movie got released by a studio, I thought, "I made that by myself. It's not even a real movie, is it?" I was even brainwashed into thinking that a movie was something that needed a crew and a lot of money. When that went out and won festivals and attention, I thought, "I'm just going to keep doing that. That's what I love to do." I don't feel like I'm working when I make a movie like that. I think I'm just creating stuff.

Also growing up in San Antonio and Austin, did you even think that people who made movies came from towns like that?

No. In fact, back then when I was doing some pretty cool stuff, I remember thinking, "I can't be the only person doing this." Realizing you could add sound, sound effects and music to a home movie and make it feel like a feature. I didn't know where to contact people and it wasn't until I got to film festivals and met other people like Quentin [Tarantino] when I thought, "Ah, here's the lost brothers that I should have known and would have been best friends with in high school." Now the community is much larger. With the internet you can cut something together on video and put it on the internet and hear from people.

Austin is becoming quite a film community.

Yes. Rick [Linklater] and I started out there and we convinced the city to give us some old airport hangars to convert to Austin Studios which has become part of the Austin Film Society. Now all kinds of filmmakers will have access to use the facilities.

Then you're planning to stay in Austin.

Yes. I shot Spy Kids there. I raise my family there. One reason I never thought I'd get into the film business was because I didn't want to leave Texas. I thought, "I don't want to have to go to Los Angeles. I just want to stay here and make little movies or have a cartoon strip and survive. I don't really want to work in the business. I just want to create and make a little money to survive."

As soon as I got in the business, the first thing I wanted to do was stay in Austin and make it happen from there. And you totally can. I supervised my effects for Spy Kids with a company in Canada in my garage at home. I didn't have to go to Canada. I have a computer with a T1 line. We can see each other, video conferencing, I can draw on top of a shot, they can see what I'm drawing. It's as if they're there. They're in a little town outside of Montreal and I'm in a little town outside of Austin. We can just come together that way. It's wonderful. You can create anything. This movie takes place in South America and we did it in the middle of Austin. No one would ever know. You watch it and think you're in South America.

What were the big obstacles in doing this type of film there?

People always say, "We got this problem." I always say, "There's no problems, just challenges." The challenge is realizing the script for the money I want to do it for.

On location with the crew during Spy Kids.

Realizing the budgetary limitations, do you ever find yourself editing the scope of your project as you write?

I try not to. I let myself go as the writer. But usually I think of ways I can do things as I'm writing it. You can usually do anything that you want, and inexpensively. Anything is pretty much possible. The execution of it is the deciding factor in cost. There's expensive, creative ways to do things and there's non-creative, very expensive ways to do the exact same thing and usually in a worse way. That's the challenge, daily, basically realizing the script. At the end of today, I'll see the film and I'll be finished and it's what I saw when I wrote it. It just took this long to get it up on the screen.

How long did it take?

I turned in the script this time two years ago and I've been working on it since then.

Considering your background, do you do your own storyboards?

Yes. I was a cartoonist. If you get somebody else to do your storyboards, they're directing your movie, no matter what you tell them. They're setting the camera, they're telling you what shots to cut together, and in the end you won't follow them. That's why a lot of people ignore storyboards because they know the director's not going to follow them. You rarely do. It's usually just to satisfy the studio to see that you're thinking about shots. When I draw my own, it's like the Bible. I tell them this is exactly what it's going to look like. I'm going to achieve this shot. This is what I'm going for. When I found that people were still programmed to ignore storyboards, I took it a step further and turned them in to animatics. Do you also do your own animatics?

I have somebody else do 3-D animatics based on my storyboards. I put down sound effects and direct it in the animatic version. For instance in the boat- chase sequence, I was able to say, "OK, we need a helicopter shot for this with a formation of chase boats coming behind this boat. All we need to build is the front part of the boat to put the kids in."

[He then demonstrates with a video showing the chase sequence in storyboards, computer animatics, film footage before CGI, and the final CGI sequence. Shot for shot, and in length, they are identical.]

When the studio read this in the script, they thought we'd be out on the lake for three weeks and we shot it in two days. We just knew what the shots were. We weren't covering. We were just getting the shot, committing to this. That's how I do it. Since I'm also the editor, I make the editing decisions while I'm writing and storyboarding. I say this is what it's going to look like edited, so let's just go get the edits.

You see some movies and you know they went out and shot lots of footage and then went and saw what the good stuff is. Me, I cut together the good stuff, then I go shoot it. I always hear stunt guys say, "We shot all this incredible stuff and they didn't use it." I'm never going to do that. I'm not going to waste my time or anybody's money shooting stuff we're not going to use. Let me decide now. Figure out the story you want to tell, put it down on paper so everyone can see, and say, "I've already made the directing and editing decisions, this is what the movie is, let's just get that."

That's how we shot this whole movie with kids, greenscreen, action in 48 days instead of 148 days. It's all up on the screen. It's not wasteful and as a director, I get total freedom. I get final cut because the studio sees I'm not wasting their money. They're getting a huge movie for nothing. It's just so much more enjoyable. A big movie like this can be a real headache if you let it get out of control and be expensive. Then the pressure's on you the whole time and you don't enjoy it. And I don't think the audience ends up enjoying it either. I think this way is a win-win situation. You're creating something out of the love for creating something. I think the audience has a blast because they see the filmmaker really enjoying himself and working in his element. I always feel money is the enemy of creativity in a way because it makes it really easy to wash away the creative problems with a money hose instead of thinking of a creative solution.

It seems like your way is more satisfying.

So much more. I didn't have this team of technicians. It's magic. I always loved magic as a kid. Sleight of hand and doing tricks.

When I was at AFI, I remember Irvin Kershner telling us about a scene in The Empire Strikes Back where C3PO is strapped to Chewbacca's back. The technicians had made C3PO remote controlled so they could get him to move while Chewbacca ran. But it wasn't working, and wasn't working, and finally Kershner said, "I don't have time for this. Just tie a piece of fishing line to 3PO's hand and give the other end to Chewbacca and he can jerk on the line when he runs and make 3PO move."

That's great. This whole movie is like that, everything is fishing line and matchsticks, smoke and mirrors. It's more satisfying. I'm from a big family and we always took pride in being able to make a lot out of nothing. I just always had that attitude. Some people seem bent on having the most expensive movie of all time, that the effects are going to make it great. For me that's the wrong attitude. You're not going to get anything near as good by letting the pocketbook do all the work.

Daryl Sabara and Alexa Vega in a boat-chase scene (courtesy Dimension Films). On a spy mission. Posing with Carla Gugino and Antonio Banderas.

Because they seem so entwined for you, do you make storyboards while you're writing?

I usually wait till the end. It's so clear in my head when I write. I only really draw it to show other people what it is I see in my head. I don't want other people to just read the script because they all picture something different when they read. The job of the director, for me, is to show everybody what I'm seeing so we're all going for the same thing. I've heard people come up and say, "Oh, so that's what you were trying to do? I didn't get it." They're saying that at the premier. I need to be clear while we're filming it. I've worked on other people's scripts before and the film really is very skeletal on the page. No matter how much is in your head when you're writing it, it's not all coming out. Everyone who read the boat chase was thinking, "We're going to be here forever." No, let me show you what it'll look like.

How tough were the kids to find?

I looked for about six months. Actually, the little boy I found the first week, I looked for six months for someone better but never did. The little girl I found about four months down the line. I've worked with kids before, my siblings, my kids in Four Rooms, I know I can trust myself not to get somebody who comes in and dominates the room. There are some kids who come in and they'll always get the job because they've got the brightest personality, they're the loudest, they're the biggest and you think, "Oh, this kid's got personality." They get cast and they're the wrong kid. It's the quieter, more focused, more malleable ones that take the best direction and can do just about anything. They're not annoying. You're not going to get tired of them after the first reel. That was real important. You needed everybody to root for the kids.

How do you rehearse with kids?

We rehearsed quite a bit so that they would know what I had in mind. You read a script and they go, "What did you mean by this?" We had a lot of line readings and went through a lot of the attitude. They were so good. I would have them do it their way first, then I would give them adjustments and tell them, "This is what I had in mind. Try it again." They'd do it again and they'd have it. Everybody was amazed on the set. They'd say, "Wow, you just tell her one thing and she has it."

That's where the casting is so crucial.

Yes. You have to cast the right kid first. And because I grew up with ten kids I relate to kids really easily. I've got three kids of my own and I'm a big damn kid myself. So it's like there's no difference. They're hanging out with their buddy.

You've got a unique style. Where do you think that comes from?

The lack of means usually dictate what the style is going to be. That's what I always liked about it. You were forced to do certain things to get around what you didn't have. It always made the movie more interesting. On Mariachi, for instance, I had to do on-set looping. I had to film silent because I didn't have a sound camera. I would have to film the sequence with the actors doing their lines and a noisy camera. Then I'd put the camera away and have them repeat their lines, record it, then I'd sync it by hand. It wouldn't always sync up, even though they'd speak in their own rhythm, a few words would be out of sync and I'd cut away there because I didn't want rubbery lips and I didn't want to dub them. It created an editing style that was very quick and snappy. Somebody would say two and three words and I'd cut to the reaction of a dog. So even the dialogue scenes are as snappy as the action. I never would have done that had I not been forced to do it. But it created its own editing style and gave that movie its own energy. So it comes out of lack of everything else.

I have the feeling you look back on your work and feel pretty good about them all.

Yes, because they're all learning experiences. I said, "I could have done this better and I'll do it on the next one. I'll take the time to do this or that." You change your style and approach as you go, because each one is meant to be a learning experience, so you want to learn as much as you can. That's what's really exciting. It's now getting to the point where I just can't hardly sleep because I've got so many ideas of what the next stages can be. Everything is changing so fast.

You're starting to shoot the sequel in April, barely after this one premieres.

Yes. We've been working on it.

How do you find time?

I don't know. You don't find any time. You make time. I love to spend so much time with my kids that I've been really amazed at how hard I can work and, yet, still be able to spend so much time with them. I think that's really the balance. I don't really call this work, but let's just call it that because if I say "play" it sounds frivolous. I play with my kids and then go to work making the movie that they're really going to ultimately enjoy. So it all feeds itself. It's really fun.

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