If most films were made that cheap with that bad of picture and even worse, sound quality, and using ADR even, it would be rejected by most film festivals. However El Mariachi went big, and boosted off Robert Rodriguez's career? How is that his film was the exemption to the rules? Did the producers just have really good international connections to get it shown in theatrical releases all over the world or what?
How did El Mariachi get so big with such poor quality?
- Thread starter harmonica44
- Start date
Primarily because artistically it's a hunk of crap. It's a gimmick movie that with the right promotion made a good chunk of money. That doesn't make it a "good" movie. That makes it a commercially successful movie. Though plenty of really good movies still don't get into Sundance. Top tier festivals are a total crap shoot to a degree.
Why do some people not like chocolate ice cream? I love chocolate ice cream and most people I know love chocolate ice cream.
You're asking for something that is impossible to answer outside of, some people see a movie and like it, others see it and don't like it. Sundance watched it and didn't think it was for their audience.
The End.
This was 1991, a time when NOT everyone was out making movies with a camcorder and editing on a home computer. Even editing video was an arduous task of linear editing on tape to tape machines, which is waht RR did on 3/4" machines at a public access TV station**. If you wanted to change a cut on the 2nd or 3rd shot, that meant starting over for EVERYTHING after that. It was like writing screenplays with a typewriter (which in 1991 was still the majority for most people).
El Mariachi STARTED the entire "do it yourself" phase of filmmaking of the 1990's that is still influential today, along with Quentin Tarantino, Kevin Smith, Richard Linklater, and Edward Burns, etc. Shooting a feature length movie ON FILM, with processing and telecine, as well as editing it for under $7,000 was groundbreaking. Getting it released in theaters and getting a 3 picture deal with Columbia Pictures was groundbreaking.
As a famous screenwriter once said, if you find a crack into the wall that surrounds Hollywood and get through, that hole seals up and no one else can get in that way. It's true.
** I keep recommending you read the book REBEL WITHOUT A CREW by RR from his journals of when he made and sold the movie El Mariachi. All you keep getting is information from that book. Break down and buy it, then read it before asking more questions. It's getting tired to just keep quoting a book people have repeatedly asked you to read. Get it from the public library for free. Do they have libraries in Canada?
OMG, I so lived through that! Did an off-line edit of my first feature (in 1989) that way (on VHS, no less). The horror...the horror...
You young whippersnappers have NO CLUE how easy you have it with all this newfangled gear!
No movie made for that amount of money had gotten theatrical
release - not "most", none. So it was groundbreaking.
My next question is going to come off as mean - please understand
that it is not.
harmonica, are you completely unaware of personal taste? Not
every good film gets into Sundance - very, very few good films get
into Sundance. The three people programing Sundance the years
"Paranormal Activity" was entered didn't like it enough to program
it. That's it. That's why it was rejected from Sundance - because
three people felt it wasn't right for the festival.
"Paranormal Activity" was 15 years after "El Mariachi" and 8 years
after "Blair Witch". Times had changed, the market had changed,
distributors had changed, festivals had changed. And the times are
still changing, the market is still changing, festivals are changing. There
are movies entered in this years Sundance that will not be programed
that might get distribution. One might even become a big hit.
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Y'know? The longer this thread's up, the more I realize that I haven't read Rebel Without a Crew... or seen the entirety of El Mariachi (It was sleepy to me. ) I also skipped through Monsters (also a sleepy movie) and I haven't seen Puffy Chair, Tiny Furniture, Baghead, Paranormal Activity...
I saw Clerks once!!!!
I saw Clerks once!!!!
OMG, I so lived through that! Did an off-line edit of my first feature (in 1989) that way (on VHS, no less). The horror...the horror...
You young whippersnappers have NO CLUE how easy you have it with all this newfangled gear!
The high school that I attended was still using off-line VHS editing for the first-year students as of 2004. For the advanced students they were using Applied Magic Screenplay boxes. As the "Special Events Coordinator" of the program's public access cable station I was granted access to a old dual processor 400mhz mac running Final Cut that was donated from an outside source. Those were the days...
My very first short film was edited on an SVHS editing deck. There was a mac, with Final Cut installed on it, less than three feet away, but teacher wanted us to learn how to do it the old-fashioned way. Really forces you to plan everything meticulously.
P.S. I do not trust the opinions of people who do not like chocolate ice cream. That's just too weird.
I've seen El Mariachi (and read his book), and seen bits of paranormal activity, but other than that I'm in the same boat with you. If you read Rebel without a Crew you realize (as we have discussed ad nauseum) how "lucky" he was. He walked into the right office, on the right day, with the right movie, at the right time. A shit ton of factors all fell right into place for him. One guy could have had a fight with his wife that morning and we'd have no idea who RR was. It also helped that the movie was pretty good, and that he had an interesting style that struck people as "fresh".
God, that is so true. Prior to El Mariachi, no feature film made for $7,000 had EVER gotten theatrical distribution before.
Well, fundamentally, I just don't believe in luck. The only definition of luck is basically the same as fortune.
Although we've already moved from the topic, my stance is that if you're relying on something intangible to move you along then you'd might as well pack it up to begin with, because you can't control something that doesn't exist in the first place.
I don't subscribe to it, so I'll create my own path and succeed or fail by my own way. Not something that's nonexistent.
If he felt he was lucky, that's fine. But, he could probably trace his decisions back and tell you why he made each and every one in some capacity. I don't call that luck, I call that making decisions.
But, I'm also okay with what anyone else believes! We're all different.
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I own one of those. Still use it often for non-HD gigs when I want to get a job in-and-out quickly with a minimum of rendering. Great little machine.
I don't believe in luck either. But I can't see that most of the
successes we're talking about on this tread didn't have a lot
luck associated with it. Why did "Paranormal Activity" take
off and "The Providence Effect" - released the same day on
the same number of screens - fail? Because the makers of
"The Providence Effect" made wrong decisions?
I have no answer. I'm just thinking that luck has much more
to do with a huge success than I would like. I can do everything
in my power to make the best or most marketable movie I can
and still not see theatrical distribution and millions of dollars in
revenue.
I agree completely that if you're relying on something intangible
to move you along then you'd might as well pack it up. What other
movies did in the past has no bearing at all on what your movie
will do.
successes we're talking about on this tread didn't have a lot
luck associated with it. Why did "Paranormal Activity" take
off and "The Providence Effect" - released the same day on
the same number of screens - fail? Because the makers of
"The Providence Effect" made wrong decisions?
I have no answer. I'm just thinking that luck has much more
to do with a huge success than I would like. I can do everything
in my power to make the best or most marketable movie I can
and still not see theatrical distribution and millions of dollars in
revenue.
I agree completely that if you're relying on something intangible
to move you along then you'd might as well pack it up. What other
movies did in the past has no bearing at all on what your movie
will do.
"luck" is just the factors beyond your control working out in your favor. He "made his luck" in the sense he took the risk to make the film, he went to LA and beat the streets. My point is he could have done all those things, made the exact same movie, talked to the exact same people, with the exact same passion and failed because he wore a blue that reminded the secretary of her ex boyfriend and she threw him out. It's just the way the universe works sometimes. We like to think that hard work and talent are enough, except sometimes it's not.
"Yup. This is pretty much why I just didn't pick up Rebel Without A Crew. Even if there are similarities, it almost doesn't matter because that's not our story. "
And it will never be anybody else's story. That tme and those circumstances are gone forever. It's an inspirational book, that's really the only purpose it serves. It helps reinforce the belief it CAN happen (as do all the other micro budget success stories). The odds are against you, being very talented, even making a very very good film aren't enough, but it's not impossible. It has happened before.
And it will never be anybody else's story. That tme and those circumstances are gone forever. It's an inspirational book, that's really the only purpose it serves. It helps reinforce the belief it CAN happen (as do all the other micro budget success stories). The odds are against you, being very talented, even making a very very good film aren't enough, but it's not impossible. It has happened before.
Odds are against you in any field, though, and talent and good work is never enough. Business sense etc is needed just as much, and of course putting in the hours.
Obviously, the guy had business sense: he planned on hitting a very easy market to penetrate with his feature from what we've all gathered. That's a pretty big note there.
So if I wanted to get a feature I made noticed, it's possibly better to penetrate a very easy market perhaps. I guess that's why some newcomers where I live don't bother to send their movies into Sundance, or Toronto because they didn't make them well enough for that market in the first place.
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"he planned on hitting a very easy market to penetrate with his feature from what we've all gathered. That's a pretty big note there."
Indeed he did, and he was literally a returned phone call (the other guy was slow to return his calls) away from signing the rights to the movie away to the Spanish language direct to video market. If that distributor had gotten the contracts ready in a timely fashion he would have already signed away the rights and what followed would not have happened. He sure was lucky...
Indeed he did, and he was literally a returned phone call (the other guy was slow to return his calls) away from signing the rights to the movie away to the Spanish language direct to video market. If that distributor had gotten the contracts ready in a timely fashion he would have already signed away the rights and what followed would not have happened. He sure was lucky...