#465 – Robert Rodriguez: Sin City, Desperado, El Mariachi, Alita, and Filmmaking

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Robert Rodriguez, a legendary filmmaker and creator of Sin City, El Mariachi, Desperado, Spy Kids, Machete, From Dusk Till Dawn, Alita, Battle Angel, The Faculty and many more. Robert inspired a generation of independent filmmakers with his first film, El Mariachi, that he famously made for just $7,000. On that film, and many since, he was not only the director, he was also the writer, producer, cinematographer, editor, visual effects supervisor, sound designer, composer, basically the full stack of filmmaking. He has shown incredible versatility across genres, including action, horror, family films, and sci-fi, with some epic collaborations with Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron, and many other legendary actors and filmmakers. He has often operated at the technological cutting edge, pioneering, using HD filmmaking, digital backlots and 3D tech. And always, through all of that, he's been a champion of independent filmmaking, running his own studio here in Austin, Texas, which in many ways is very far away from Hollywood. He's building a new thing now called Brass Knuckle Films, where he's opening up the filmmaking process so that fans can be a part of it, as he creates his next four action films. I'll probably go hang out at his film studio a bunch, as this is all coming to life. His work has inspired a very large number of people, including me, to be more creative in whatever pursuit you take on in life, and have fun doing it. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We've got Invideo AI for video generation, Brain FM for focus, Nestweed for business, Shopify for e-commerce, and Element for hydration. Choose wisely, my friends. I do try to make these ad reads interesting and personal, often related to stuff I'm reading or thinking about, but if you must skip them, please still check out the sponsors, sign up, buy whatever they're selling. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. Also, if you want to get in touch with me for whatever reason, go to lexfridman.com/contact. And now, on to the full ad reads. Let's go. This episode is brought to you by Invideo AI, a video generating app that allows you to create full length videos using just text prompts. Perhaps obviously, Invideo is the perfect sponsor for this conversation with Robert Rodriguez. He has been, for decades, the guy willing to use cutting-edge technology. Digital HD, VR, 3D, and now we're in a time and a space where it is not quite used by the big filmmakers because they're not really sure how to leverage its power. And so, I think it's really the role of the independent filmmakers to start playing with video generation. Start playing five seconds, ten seconds at a time, and seeing what you can do in a storytelling art form. I do think it's a skill I've used in video a lot. There's some aspect of it. You have to kind of nudge the system into that direction. I mean, it really is like having two directors. And there's things that humans are really good at. There's things that AI is really good at. The dance between the two is where the art form is. Anyway, you could try Invideo AI for free, saving you lots of time and money you'd otherwise spend on editing, animating, and other production costs. Go to invideo.io/lexpod, that's invideo.io/lexpod.
This episode is also brought to you by Brain.fm, a platform that offers music specifically made for focus. I remember thinking that focus or the lack of focus was 100% the consequence of your mind and nothing else. That you should be able to shut off the world and deeply focus on a particular thought or line of thought or on nothingness or on your breath. You know, like you do in meditation, you should be able to do that just with the power of your mind. And in some sense, I still believe that, but I think there's just some things that make it easier. I first discovered that, I don't know how long ago now, but listening to different kinds of noise, white noise, brown noise, and realizing, whoa, something is happening here. The mind is just much more naturally, much quicker, much more efficiently, able to achieve that state of focus where you shut off the rest of the world. And then so brain.fm takes it just to another level. There's just so much variety for any working environment where you want to optimize the kind of audio landscape. Increase your focus and try brain.fm free for 30 days by going to brain.fm slash lex. That's brain.fm slash lex for 30 days free. This episode is also brought to you by NetSuite, an all-in-one cloud business management system. Boy, are we really getting to understand the inner workings of individual businesses and the interaction between those businesses within the supply chain domestically and internationally now with the new evolving trade policy. I'll probably have several conversations with the top leadership on this topic soon. The economy is both an incredibly resilient and a fragile system. Whenever you have these centralized, big, giant hammer type policies, they can have an impact that reverberates not just through the direct consequences of those policies, but just second, third, fourth order effects. Plus, they create the psychological effects within human minds of uncertainty, of fear. And based on that, they make decisions which are often suboptimal for the economy. So you get to see the inner workings of businesses and how they function in response to those, almost like a immune system within each business to see how can we survive? How can we turn a profit still? And all of that comes into play, all the HR, all the inventory, all of that. I'm deeply grateful for the wisdom and the power of the market. We should be careful not to mess with it too much. Download the CFO's Guide to AI Machine Learning at netsuite.com/lex. That's netsuite.com/lex.