Autour is a term that gets thrown around quite often when talking about certain directors. Lots of people object to the term because they feel that it marginalizes all of the other people who work on a movie. Robert is the closest thing to a one-man film crew.
Born on June 20, 1968 in Austin, Texas Robert was the oldest of what would eventually become 10 brothers and sisters. From an early age he was taken to the movies by his parents. His family was one of the first on their block to own a video camcorder. Robert used the camera to shoot his own short films using his large family as actors. He would edit them simply by recording from the camera to the VCR (a process that I can tell you from experience is difficult). He went to The University of Texas at Austin and while their he meat Elizabeth Avellan who he married in 1990. The two of them worked on Robert's short film Bedhead and than on his first feature El Mariachi.
Since than Robert has worked on a wide variety of movies, but he has always kept to his philosophy of small crews, low budgets, and getting as much of the budget onto the screen as possible. His films are always fast and exciting and always look as good as most other movies that were made for twice as much money. He lives in Austin, Texas with Elizabeth and their 3 sons Rocket, Racer, and Rebel (no I'm not kidding).
Almost as interesting as the list of projects that Robert has made is the list that he turned down. He was going to direct The Mask of Zorro but when Elizabeth got pregnant he dropped the project to spend time with his family. He also turned down Wild Wild West and X-Men because he didn't want to put up with all of the red tape and other assorted crap that comes with making a $100 million picture for a big studio.
Bedhead (1991)
Writer, Director, Editor, Cinematographer
El Mariachi (1992)
Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, Cinematographer, Camera Operator, Still Photographer, Sound Editor, Music Editor
Roadracers (1994)
Writer, Director, Editor
Desperado (1995)
Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, Stedicam Operator, Sound Editor
Four Rooms (1995)
Writer, Director, Editor
From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)
Director, Executive Producer, Editor, Stedicam Operator, Re-recording Mixer
The Faculty (1998)
Director, Editor, Camera Operator, Re-recording Mixer
From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999)
Executive Producer
From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hangman's Daughter (2000)
Story, Executive Producer
Spy Kids (2001)
Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, Visual Effects Supervisor
Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2001)
Writer, Director, Editor
Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams (2002)
Writer, Director, Producer, Editor
ZZ Top - She's Just Killing Me
Off of the From Dusk Till Dawn Soundtrack. The video starred Salma Hayek & George Clooney
Off of the Spy Kids soundtrack.
Other Work
The Robert Rodriguez Nethome
The best RR fansite out there
The Premier Robert Rodriguez Site!
Not quite what the title says, it has some good stuff but is almost never updated.