''Rebel Without a Crew'' (subtitle: ''Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player'') is a 1995 non-fiction book by

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. Rodriguez directed the 1992 ac ...

. Presented in a diary format, ''Rebel'' details Rodriguez's beginnings as a young filmmaker, his stint at a medical testing facility to raise money for a feature film, the making of that film (''

El Mariachi ''El Mariachi'' is a 1992 Spanish language American independent neo-Western film and the first part of the saga that came to be known as Robert Rodriguez's '' Mexico Trilogy''. It marked the feature-length debut of Rodriguez as writer and direc ...

'') for $7,000, and his subsequent experiences in Hollywood selling the film and going to

film festival A film festival is an organized, extended presentation of films in one or more cinemas or screening venues, usually in a single city or region. Increasingly, film festivals show some films outdoors. Films may be of recent date and, depending upo ...

s promoting it. Later editions of the book also feature one of Rodriguez's tutorials on low-budget filmmaking (''Ten Minute Film School'') and the screenplay to ''

''.

Influence

Rodriguez' rags-to-riches story, detailed in ''Rebel'', as well as his vociferous support of low-budget techniques (such as

digital cinematography : Digital cinematography is the process of capturing (recording) a motion picture using digital image sensors rather than through film stock. As digital technology has improved in recent years, this practice has become dominant. Since the mid- ...

) to allow anyone to make a movie cheaply, have made him an icon of modern independent filmmaking.

Film adaptation

The book was loosely adapted in the 2019 film '' Red 11'', which was written and directed by Rodriguez.

References

1995 non-fiction books Books about film Mexico Trilogy Show business memoirs {{Film-book-stub