1. Robert Rodriguez - El Mariachi (1992) - $7000
Sure, he may have shot to fame alongside video clerk come cult-fav Quentin Tarantino, but where Q's path involved a few script sales and his first movie being backed by Harvey Keitel enabling Q to get a great ensemble of proven actors, RR had to go a slightly different path to help fund the filming and completion of El Marachi. He the writer/director/camera man/cinematographer/gaffer/coffee boy/editor and script supervisor of his first film. To help fund the film, set in the notoriously not-full-of-film-investors country of Mexico, he also sold his body to a Mexican laboratory research firm for medical experiments, making $100 a day. Taking the notion of personal sacrifice one notch higher than asking your parents for your college fund to help production, Rodriguez offered the last thing he had, his health. It was a gambit that paid off because deep down he knew what people ultimately wanted was to see was a puny Mexican guitarist shooting the shit out of a bunch of bad guys. With the success of El Mariachi and its distinct, hyper-jump cut style (which Rodriguez attributed to being able to only budget one take per scene, resulting in numerous cut-aways and fixes in post-production), Rodriguez became the prototype of the Big Dreams, Limited Financing filmmaker of the nineties. Columbia Pictures hired him to remake El Mariachi with more explosions and more guns and more Antonio Banderas. Yet Rodriguez's introduction to the snail-like pace of American filming caused many grievances filed from unions that not only was Rodriguez was filming 'too fast' for their liking but that he often wanted to run the camera himself, a no-no in unionized studio productions. Unlike Tarantino or fellow nineties indie-fav Kevin Smith (who never seemed to really evolve past basic filmmaking 101), Rodriguez has remained an innovator in telling stories on film. He's championed the Mexican film industry and the use of HD film technology. He's created family friendly special effects-riddled romps through the Spy Kids series and brought forth the amazing grown up and stylish HD filming of Sin City. The Director's Guild of America insisted Frank Miller not receive a co-directing credit for Sin City so he resigned from the Guild, which
made him unable to direct the semi-bomb, John Carter (unfortunatly for Paramount). And to keep true to his roots, he had Tarantino guest direct a segment of Sin City as repayment for Rodriguez scoring Kill Bill Vol 2, which he did for $1. Because that is what friends do when they are trying to make a film and save a buck or two. So, get filming and have fun with it. No matter what your age, with some free publicity you never know who's going to watch it.