CREDIT: PLUME
Film-maker Robert Rodriguez shares his filmmaking insight, secrets and more in Rebel WIthout a Crew.

Exploitation ain't dead yet, and it's all thanks to the Tarantino- Rodriguez dream-team. Sure, Quentin Tarantino's origin story as a humble film school dropout who was given a $1 million budget to make one of the most iconic action crime-dramas of all time is a tale repeatedly treaded, but Robert Rodriguez's own easily rivals, if not outright beats, his filmmaking buddy's.

Although we all know and love him for Spy Kids or Machete, it's easy to forget how he truly began his career as an indie darling, producing his first feature-length action film, El Mariachi, on a budget of $7,000 in 1992 of all times. Here to remind us, thankfully, is the journal he kept during the production: Rebel Without a Crew, or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player.

The book is quite autobiographical in nature; it doesn't just throw you into the mix of shooting his no-budget masterpiece, El Mariachi. Rodriguez's humble start began, almost obviously enough, with the creation of home movies. Like Peter Jackson, he orchestrated mini-productions, shooting his films on videotape and fashioning a crude tape-to-tape linear editing system in the vein of professional studio equipment. If you're a film student, you'll probably gain an admiration for just how awful it is to edit with anything less than a Mac and Final Cut. The autobiographical sections of the book really are Rodriguez talking about what made him the filmmaker he is today. It's a great look in the mind of someone carrying the torch for gritty-but-campy action films to this day.

And for the meat of the book: the journal. When Rodriguez said this was a journal, he meant it. Rodriguez isn't stingy about describing how he did it, not just why. Keeping his film within budget required some MacGyvering, from using a wheelchair as a dolly to using desk lamps to dramatically light a scene. It's a tutorial on low-budget filmmaking, with a lot of techniques and methods documented, with the general spirit of balancing budget and compromise, a timeless quality that any indie filmmaker should adopt. Everything about his debut film, El Mariachi, from the conception of the idea (mostly to battle the glut of poor direct-to-video action film on the Spanish home video market in the United States) to the methods by which the money was raised (acting as a lab rat for science, his being locked away in a lab for two months also documented, just among them) are all meticulously documented.

Maybe a little too meticulous. The diary format of the book could definitely use some editing, mostly due to Rodriguez's need to explain certain concepts more than once over the course of the book. It may be a journal, but it could benefit from a paragraph, maybe an entry, being dropped to the cutting-room floor.

In the end, it's a book that's inspirational not out of cheap trigger words, but through a genuinely compelling story of a young talent that got his. The diary format of the book could definitely use some editing, and the occasionally repetitive nature might turn some off, but Rebel Without a Crew still remains a raw book about the journey from dirt to stardom. It's an encouraging read if you want to make movies, and entertaining if you like watching them.

Reading Between The Lines explores books that you may have missed out on that are worth your while. If you have a book to suggest, email Eshaan at e_gupta@fanshaweonline.ca.