IFH 717: From $7K Film Red 11 to Making SPY KIDS: ARMAGEDDON for Netflix with Racer Max & Rebel Rodriguez

Racer Max 0:08
This project fell apart because of COVID twice, each time shrinking the budget as it went, because we this film was pre sold. So all the budget that you have is all the budget you got. And twice we almost got it started once in California and once in Canada, but both times it fell through. And so we finally found a way to bring it over to little home called Austin and pulled out Well believe it or not pulled out a lot of our rental love and tricks on this on.

Alex Ferrari 0:38
This episode is brought to you by the best selling book Rise of the Filmtrepreneur how to turn your independent film into a money making business. Learn more at filmbizbook.com I'd like to welcome to the show Racer Max and Rebel Rodriguez. How're you guys doing?

Racer Max 0:55
Right doing great. Thanks for this really excited.

Alex Ferrari 0:58
Thank you so much for coming on the show guys. I am I was telling you before obviously a lot of people who ever watched the show knows I'm a huge fan of your dad. And but I'm also a fan of what you guys have been doing with him and seeing you grow Literally. Literally seeing you grow as as filmmakers, as actors, as composers, as producers as writers. It has been it's been fascinating to see your guys's journey as well. So I have to ask you, my first question is because everybody listening is gonna want to know, what is it like growing up on movie sets? Like I mean, first movie set I walked onto was when I was in college, and that's not really a movie set. I mean, you were walking around with movie stars, you know who you were like, oh, that's just that person? What was it like for you to kind of growing up in this kind of environment? I kind of protected environment as well. Because, you know, Elizabeth, your mom has been on the show as well. And I know how protected she's been with, you know, to protect you from the less the less nice people in the industry?

Racer Max 2:00
For sure. For sure. Yeah, she was definitely the the moderator and Guardian at Mama Bear. That made it all allowed us to have just a wonderful experience growing up. To be honest, it's a lot like growing up normally, as if your parents do any other kind of job. But you don't realize to later that you're in an industry that's so different and wild and crazy. To you know, as us as kids, you're just running around playing hide and seek. And you run past some crazy costume people as you're hiding under the producer's desk or the accountants desk, and they're helping you hide while they're trying to manage an entire crazy army show that that's going on. It's, it's pretty much that. And, and with the cat, you know, you you meet these famous, he recognizes and are famous as you when you grew up. But when you're a kid, that's just oh, that's just uncle Bruce. Oh, there's uncle moneyshow You can just call him uncle Benny. So you just kind of get a normal childhood, especially with someone like our mothers who was very protective of us and helped ensure that it was just a wonderful experience. So yeah, that's what it was like growing up.

Alex Ferrari 3:15
So when you guys were talking to secondary level, what when? What was it like when you discovered? Oh, oh, this isn't normal. Like, oh, oh, that Uncle bunnies you just won an Oscar. Why when you had that realization, what was that like? For both of you like when I hit because I'm assuming that hit at a certain point when you got older?

Rebel Rodriguez 3:42
Yeah, yep. Definitely. Yeah, it was definitely all the props. So you know, you kind of see as you're running past them as a kid. People like remarking on them like, oh, wow, that's this and that. And as we started to see some of the movies or dad made, I mean, obviously, we didn't see him for a long time other than like Spy Kids and Sharkboy and Lavagirl and stuff, for good reason. When you hear people like remark on it, and it's like, oh, it's like a thing people really, this is like a huge thing for them. Kind of like how for us Spy Kids vehicles are like a big thing. And so, you know, the the, the electric chair from Sin City, we never quite knew what it was. But it was like, you know, that's kind of Yeah. Yeah, like, there's like, Great wax figure of Bruce Willis there as hard again, and it always freaked us out as kids and like, He's just staring at you. But now, you know, you see the posters. Adults are like, Dude, it's just so iconic and cool. And, you know, it was just as impressionable as a kid even if you didn't fully understand what it was but

Alex Ferrari 4:38
I mean that sincerely when you walk when you watch the city for the first time when that first came out, people don't get it. There's nothing in film history that have ever been shot like that ever.

Racer Max 4:47
Yeah, nothing like that ever.

Alex Ferrari 4:49
Ever. Like that was it was insane man is insane. So alright, so let me ask you this. So then when you guys first, so you're growing up with Uncle Bruce uncle? don't need to do all these kind of guys. At a certain point, you're able to watch some of your dad's early work. So what was it like watching mariachi for the very first time,

Racer Max 5:11
Man it was really, really impressive. And what's funny is we held that off for so long, it wasn't till we were, you know, getting in a little late teens, kind of at the end of high school. And from then on out, you're out of school, and you got to figure out what it is that you want to do. And we had an inkling that we wanted to create and be in the creative space, whether that was filmmaking or anything else. But watching that, for the first time, it was just mind blowing to see how much you could step out and accomplish. And to see that it's our dad who we've known our whole lives, and we love him. He's super, he's funny, great father. But to see like, wow, how smart and how little he had then, yet how smart he was, and just how perseverant he was that with absolutely nothing, you can go and create something incredible that sets off a not only a lifetime career, but at the same time an entire wave that inspires so many people across the world for decades. And yeah, yeah, definitely. It was really just an impressive moment and really inspiring of like, Oh, we're at his age, we too can go off and do something like this. And we too can conquer and accomplish just like he did. So that's really what it was the first time

Rebel Rodriguez 6:27
Yeah, it's, it was cool. It's, uh, you know, we grew up with a lot of the wisdom that he kind of injected in the way he worked and also in like, his books, like, you know, Rebel Without a crew. So we'd always kind of heard you know, when you're making something, work with what you have, not with what you need, and all that kind of stuff. But then when we watched it, it was cool to see like everything he's kind of told us through the years that we thought was just like dad wisdom, was like, you know, how we kind of did it and it was incredible to see it in action and see the results you get from it. It was really, really inspiring and cool.

Alex Ferrari 6:56
Did you did you either. Have you ever just go? The old man just doesn't know what he's talking about? Like he I know better? I mean, look what I mean. I did I mean, every every son does that to their data. That's the old way of doing it. Dad, you don't really? We weren't 19 We know life.

Racer Max 7:17
Yeah, you know, it's kind of more sobering when you think about for a second are like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna say that. But then you walk past poster after poster after poster, like, maybe you know what else he taught me to be humble and look at other people's point of view. So I think I'm going to channel that a little. So there have been few, very few moments.

Alex Ferrari 7:38
Many thoughts. Very few many.

Racer Max 7:41
Exactly. That's the way to put it. About you rebels. Same thing.

Rebel Rodriguez 7:45
Yeah, pretty much, pretty much. I mean, it was also another thing as we grew up, right. It's like the era of the Gameboy Advance, and like the DS, and like all the video game kind of stuff. So we're always like, man, but our video games are different. This is our kind of stuff we're into and all that and but spike is still always kind of captured out in a way to where we were like, I mean, we never thought it weird that movies could so well capture what kids were into in that era. Until you see some of the things it's like, right? It just really didn't have that. Right? I don't think but you still have that feeling of like, I don't know, we have this in our thing. And you don't even realize all of its inspired by Well guess who you know? And many other filmmakers. That's like, yeah,

Alex Ferrari 8:20
Yeah, you know, it's fascinating, because when when mariachi came out, I was only probably about five or six years younger than your dad. So I was in high school. I was working at a video store. And that's behind me. That's the video store poster that I can't all these years. mariachi it says Ahmadi Archie poster I have to by the way, I still do for my story. Because he was the only he was the only Latino filmmaker that I could even do there were no Latino. I mean, there were but there was no real out there Latino filmmakers like he was. And in my in my intro people, can you explain to people from your point of view? You know, from my point of view, mariachi is that movie that you said it started it launched an independent film revolution. People still talk about it, like a myth. Like there was this once there was this dude who made a $7,000 movie and then he became a then he got into Hollywood. Like it's a it's a mythical story that they tell in the corners of film schools around the world, to this to this to this day. And I always tell people, because it's this is something I have a this is one of the things I brought the show up I started the show up was because I wanted to tell people how to avoid pitfalls in the industry. And, you know, Robert, and your mom both fell into a lot of those pitfalls along the way. And they were kind of thrust into a world that this you know, Robert wasn't even thinking this is gonna go to the Latino Mexican Film Video market. It was not supposed to be the thing. But a lot of people were like, oh, you know, I'm gonna make a $7,000 movie. I'm like, That's great. It's 2023 It's a little different. Now the markets a little different the world a little different than it was before. And I've been trying to say that again and again, like this is not 1991 anymore. It's not 1999 anymore. It's not what 2009 anymore. It's 2023. From your point of view, how do you think the legacy of mariachi has kind of continued? And do you guys agree with me? That a lot of filmmakers listening to like, Oh, I'm gonna go make go make it? You know, but understand, Roberts path was no, people tried to redo that path, like Quinn's path, or Kevin Smith's path, or Richard Linklater spat, it's insane. So from your point of view, what do you guys think?

Racer Max 10:42
So, first off, absolutely agree and love that about you and your work that you've kind of taken that ethos, and have always updated it for people now of like, how to take that drive that that movie, that Smith inspires people to go create, and helping them adapt it to the current day's current era. And to avoid, as he said, avoid pitfalls, that now we have the knowledge and foresight to be able to avoid. So I've always really liked that about, about your work. Oh, appreciate it. But yeah, what? So agree on that, first off, but then, totally, but what I've always saw from it, is that he got a very specific path, through what you know, it's so many things that happened and came together all at the same time, for that passion and drive and what he went through to equate to what it led to. But I always see that the thing that inspires people the most is kind of the timeless aspects of it, the idea of perseverance and creativity under restriction, intense restriction, and the attitude that put that drive and passion into whatever it is that you love. And you can create something that will turn heads that will get attention that people were will like and want to follow you for. And that can inspire people you've never met. So that's why I always love when people outside of the film industry that read the book, or repaired the myth, and went off to go do things that have nothing to do with film, but just whether it's business or even an accountant or an accounting before as well, like so many different fields that were inspired by that idea. So that's what's really cool to me is that there's something you can adapt to it the modern times, but yet there's this timeless aspects almost have that met.

Rebel Rodriguez 12:32
Yeah. So there's that time almost timeless aspect of that. What it really captured was that it doesn't take a budget of that huge size to create great quality work and great quality story. And especially if you write and you work with what you have, and work with limitations you do have rather than trying to do something that's going to be outside of your scope or possibility at the moment financially, you can create something that turns heads and is really like, you know, Blockbuster remarkable level work with very little and that will that you know, can do a lot. And usually quality like that doesn't go unnoticed for very long. It starts to it starts to make the rounds may make waves and stuff. So there it's really important part of it.

Alex Ferrari 13:16
Now, rebel, you did a little movie years ago when you were five. called Shark, The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. And, I mean, I know how you were cast, but how did you even like want to do it? Were you even thinking of acting at that point? You know, you know what, how did that even because one thing is to jump around the set and play around and like, Oh, Uncle Buddha's and all that stuff. But to be in front of the camera, be there even for the small part that you played? I saw that I was like, Man, that kid's got some coordinates. I mean, he's up there with the with the with the things on the scales on the site.

Rebel Rodriguez 13:55
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting. So you have to look back a bit to spike. It's one spike. It's two. I was the this is where it really started was spike. It's one I was the baby on the front of the magazine. Kylie Jenner is reading. And when she's in the airport, two spies who fell in love story. That's me on there. That's where it started. Spike gets to win like the Magnum men attack at the banquet, the OSS banquet in there fighting the bad guys. One of the kids takes down one of the guys and that's my oldest brother rocket. The next one comes along and grabs him too. That's racer. So next one down the line. And then I come running out. I kicked the guy in the side and that's me. And I don't know our dad's always been a filmmaker, even outside of film. He loves taking home videos of us and stuff we have like whole archives. Do he just loved filming us too? He thought it was just so interesting, you know, kind of brings back the bedhead kind of days that that short? Yeah. We've always just kind of been used to the idea that there's a camera like right here sometimes for whatever reason, and so it didn't feel like that big of a transit. Should it just be like, well, it's just the other camera here at the place. And there's a bunch of people looking at you while you do something, and they tell everyone Quiet on set, which you've heard a lot if you're running around there. And yeah, it was pretty natural. It was just I liked the story he made. And I was like, I want to be in it too, you know, because that's how kids are. You brothers got it you want it to. So they're obviously, obviously coming, that they would put me up on wires and stuff to simulate the swimming parts and things and spray me with water and all that once I learned how hard it was. And I was freezing up there. And I was doing my own stunts. I was actually even a funny moment where they've got me up there on the wires, and I'm there yelling. Well, how come I have to do my own stunts? I mean, it's like, yeah, so very quickly learned is not not quite as easy as it seems. But I mean, it was very natural to us, considering we just always kind of had a camera in front of us all the time. So it's like, oh, well, you know, they just throw you into the movie. And that's how it goes. And it's like,

Alex Ferrari 15:58
So you're telling me that that film industry is not glamorous? Is that? It's, don't you guys all just eat lobster at lunch all day. That's not the way it works.

Racer Max 16:09
It was surprising to a five and seven year old but it wasn't glamorous. quickly found.

Alex Ferrari 16:15
Yeah. And so it sounds like your parents were pretty much programming you since birth to like, subtly hypnotically.

Rebel Rodriguez 16:25
I mean, a little bit to some extent, but it's like that wasn't even the attention either. Right?

Alex Ferrari 16:30
No subtle. They're very smart. Both of them. Suddenly, it was very subtle.

Racer Max 16:38
They, they never wanted to pressure us into doing anything, which was pretty cool. But so if there was hypnotism, it was very subtle. It was very subtle is very

Rebel Rodriguez 16:48
More than anything, they were excited to show us what they do. And I think that's really special. You know,

Alex Ferrari 16:52
Of course, of course, like any parent would be wanting to show like, hey, look what I do. I just happen to make cool movies, you know, and have cool things happening around you. That's awesome. Now, I wanted to talk to you both about red 11. Because when I heard about red 11, and for people who don't know, please explain to her what red 11 is. But when I heard about red 11, I was so excited. I was like, Oh, the goat is going back. He's gonna go back to do it. Do another $7,000 movie. And he's bringing in the boys with him. So. So Ted, can you tell people what red 11 was

Racer Max 17:25
Absolutely Red 11 is one of our favorite projects. So this myth, we keep talking about a mariachi made for $7,000. In the 90s. For the 25th 25th anniversary of that movie, Robert wanted to go back and make a film for $7,000. Again, no crew, or one other crew member, no money, try to do it all in one location and shoot it all in 14 days, just like he did on the original of mariachi. And so he thought, Oh, my one crew member I'm going to bring my son under this because I had just started working with him apprenticing under him at the time for Alita Battle Angel. And so is that you want to come on and be my one other crew member. So we can do this whole thing together. And while we're making it, let's make an entire documentary about how to make a film with no money. And it was super for such a blast of an experience we quickly brought on rebel to both star in it so that he could be there on set to help us out because the only crew members we had were the cast when they weren't on camera, they were behind camera moving lights, moving props, closing doors for sounds just like being being a

Rebel Rodriguez 18:33
Little light, just like

Racer Max 18:35
Real, real bare bones, film production. And so we cast rubble and put them in a row, I wrote them into almost every scene so that you could always be there to help us. And then our rebel went on to do the score for it as well. And that's the premise of red 11, I'll tell you is to this day, it's still my favorite film project we ever did. Because it's so creative. When you have nothing all you have is your mind. And you have to be creative every single day. Because everything's falling apart even when you've limited so much. Every single day things are falling apart, you have to come up with creative solutions laughing now that laughing about it with your dad and your brother in the cast. But you've quickly become friends with because we're all on the same trench together. It's really, really a sublime experience. And the most the coolest part about it was you know, you see your parents as these figures that have like lived so much life and you don't feel like you could ever be put in this forced in the same situation together and see how each other act but I thought he would be my my dad would be my mentor on this and that oh, he's he knows exactly how to do all this. He's paved the way before. But it was really humbling and inspiring to see him look at me and go, I don't know how we're gonna do it either. Let's figure it out here. You and I we're gonna sit here we're gonna figure it out. We're gonna move this through that. So to really see him put into the same pressure put in the same experience that was mind blowing. And this is one of my favorites.

Rebel Rodriguez 19:56
He doesn't have all the answers all the time he finds them and that's what he's for. really, really good at, though he knows how to find answers on a dime on that and create some really great stuff out of it. So, I mean, it was just cool to finally see it as like, how does he work? When he's put into this pressure? It's like, oh, it's just like all of us too. But he's just that, but he's learned that much more about how to do it and stuff. So it's, it's a skill people can develop and learn. So

Alex Ferrari 20:17
Yeah, it's like a call a call. I told my daughters, I have old man strength. And that's the thing, by the way, old man strength is a thing. I had a trainer who was lifting, I'm lifting more than he is, how are you doing that you're out of shape. I'm like, I have old man strength now. In the same tone, Robert has not all man strength. But you know, he's got experience. He's got a wealth of you know, you just pick up these things. And you know, when you're on set, you just been there before. So even though I might not know how to do it right now. Oh, yeah. This over here, over here, move that over there. It's, it's pretty remarkable. It's pretty remarkable to see

Rebel Rodriguez 20:55
It's cool. How it fundamentally starts, you all start out in the same spot. We don't know how we're gonna do it. And then it's just like, that's what you're developing is the learning of how you're going to do it. So

Alex Ferrari 21:03
Did you go? Did you guys just run a gun? I mean, you had some plan, obviously got a script, but you kind of show up on the day and just go, alright, let's set up the scene or divert. There's a lot of storyboards, things like that.

Racer Max 21:16
Man, it was pretty run and gun because it's funny, the one we kind of restricted it a little, even a little more than mariachi because now we had all the money to make a movie with a budget, but we've cut up the money. Now we, all the crew, and people, we know who could do it, but we cut out the crew. And then it's like, well, I guess all we have left this time, but 14 days. But Robert didn't even have that at this point. Because we were busy, made doing visual effects for Lita Battle Angel and writing other projects. So we would just, we would just pick days that we could get a few hours in and tally it up to 14 to 14 days. And so over the course of a month, month and a half, we just squeezed in some hours, they're squeezing some hours here. So that leads to very much you're texting a cast like an hour before you get there. Hey, we're gonna film the day, we got like four hours, let's go knock out the scene while we can. So people just show up and like, oh, gosh, we don't know how we're gonna do this. But let's figure it out right now, because we've only got what time is it? All right, let's keep going. We got it.

Alex Ferrari 22:13
So what's the side hustle? It was a side hustle.

Racer Max 22:16
Side Hustle film. Yep. Side Hustle phrasing.

Rebel Rodriguez 22:19
I mean, really, I wasn't on the writing side of it. But whole scenes were rewritten because you get on set go, well, we don't have this, this, this and that. Okay, well, let's just change it up to make it work with this. And it was just like, nonstop. I mean, writing, writing it right there, as everyone's showing up. So then you can do the scene right away. I mean, it's really,

Alex Ferrari 22:36
It's remarkable. And that's such a lesson for filmmakers listening, because so many filmmakers, you know, they think they study like Hitchcock or Scorsese, or, you know, Kubrick and, you know, they like, oh, everything has to be exactly the way I have it in my mind, because I'm a genius. And you know, we're all geniuses. I mean, all of us, obviously, are geniuses, filmmaking geniuses. And soon Hollywood will see our genius. And that's how we think because we're all nuts. We're all absolutely insane. The filmmaker we're all in? Absolutely. So I've seen on set when I visited other other filmmakers sets that they just break down if something's not exactly the way they planned it. And that's and I'm like, That guy's not going to make it he. Because filmmaking isn't that filmmaking is even even the biggest guys, we've had an opportunity to talk to many of them, some of the famous famous scenes in the history. I've talked to these, I've talked to some of these filmmakers, and they're just like, yeah, it's on the day.

Rebel Rodriguez 23:33
Everything's planned out, half of it falls apart, which is pretty much how it goes, you plan at all. So that way, as much of what was planned will stay there as possible, the rest is gonna fall apart, and you got to figure it out from there. But it's, yeah, you kind of accept it. And you got to learn to roll with the punches as much as you do figure things out ahead of time. So

Alex Ferrari 23:49
And Racer when you started writing rebel, 11, with, with your dad, you guys, kind of, I think the first time I'd ever heard I'm sure it happened somewhere else in cinema history. But when mariachi was written, he was just riding around the things he had already, which was such a revolutionary idea, as opposed to like, I need to buy I need to have a Porsche in this scene. I need to like do have a Porsche? No, it's gonna cost you for what you have a Volkswagen. Just use the Volkswagen. He wrote around the elements literally like a dog, a turtle and a Mexican town and a couple guns and that's what I had. And that's how I made my movie. Can you explain the power of that in the red 11 experience of just writing around things that you know you have access to? Because it does free you a lot and lessens the stress a bit on a stressful situation already?

Racer Max 24:40
Yep, absolutely. Yeah, we wanted to implement the exact same writing process for read 11 And so we said let's only take what we got and go from there. So we filmed the entire film, all of it on our Treblinka studios, our studios here in Austin, which is to airport to a airport hangars, and then a bunch of hallways and offices. And we thought we'll write a story that works for this location. And that's all we're going to use. And so location, we just use all that we had. Now, what Roberts got kind of in his back pocket now was a little more than a turtle and bus. Now, we have the whole storage that because we're kind of Hoarders, we keep all of our props, and anything we've ever used in a movie before. So we have all the guns, all the gadgets, all the things locked up somewhere. So we pulled from there as all our props, but still, we only wrote around what we could get out of that storage room out about Walker, a lot of people get more than that from Goodwill nowadays, but so are out of their dad's closet really. So we came at it from the same approach. And it is really freeing because it unlocks creativity in a way you can't imagine, suddenly, when you have just the one thing you're going to use in a scene in one room you're going to have to use, you come up with five or six more ideas than you would have just kind of thinking what you would want going what you have versus what you want. It's really powerful. I have anybody I talked to now a day. And they want to make a whole feature film, they've done shorts and whatnot. And they've done it in a traditional setting, I tell them, Okay, write a feature and just go off of what you've got, just trust me, it's powerful. The, what you want is the rep of doing the entire film from beginning to end. You don't want to have to add more pressure of having to get things to land to be there on time, or people or places or objects like that's really free. And to this pretty much on every project, you'll find yourself using that same method going forward.

Rebel Rodriguez 26:40
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's really what it does is when you're just there thinking about I could make anything, what am I going to make? I mean, there's like a trillion different options, there's an infinite amount of options, really, it's just, you'll end up with something that's got too many elements too much. There's too much that by just using what you have it streamlines at all in an instant. And it's like you've got three things. Okay. Well, now I gotta write a whole story about these three things. And it's just, it really does probably one of the most important things is really streamlining what kind of an idea you have. And from there a lot generates because you go well, I only have this isn't that how do you make a story with this, this and that. So

Alex Ferrari 27:13
And I'll tell you

Racer Max 27:18
The process just gets a little funny on read 11 Part of why it's so special because you go okay, this scene only has to have a syringe, this office, and the jackhammer that George Clooney used industrial Bob how we're gonna do it. So it's a little unique. And that makes sense. It's

Alex Ferrari 27:33
Like a crazy mad libs, like filmmaking? Well, I'll tell you, I mean, I got inspired going down the road of mariachi and red 11. By last feature, I shot exactly the same way. I said, You know what I'm going to I'm going to shoot an entire movie at Sundance, while the movie while the festival is going on. And still the still the entire movie. have three actors I had never met before. Meet me there. I had an apartment on Main Street, and had cameraman, myself and the sound guy and we just stole the whole thing and three days and shot an entire movie in three days. And we sold it and it made money and and oh yeah, it was so much because I knew it's Sundance. And I'm like, and it's like it was kind of like the Mexican town because you could get 1000 locations in a couple blocks. So tick, tick, tick, tick, tick. Everyone's like, how did you how did you did you get permission? I'm like, No. I shot in Sundance headquarters. I went into Sundance headquarters and shot. People are in my scene. Like, can you move? I'm shooting Can you please? Like, my TV is like, Dude, we don't have permission to be like, I'm sorry. I'm the director, the director and he's like, You're ruining my shot. Can you please move sir?

Racer Max 28:51
That is amazing. Okay, I'm right now to watch that later. But yeah

Alex Ferrari 28:59
It was it was so much fun to do. But you know, and I've shot other things and you know, bigger budgets and stuff. But that was so much fun. It was an experimental, just like I don't care what happens with this three grand. Let's just go and have some fun. And the actors I told the actors I sold the actors I go you know, I don't know what's going on. I truly when I was on the trip back to LA at the time, I didn't know if I had a movie that I get enough coverage. I don't know. The dailies you were just like moving Go, go, go. Go go go. So then I tell them like look, at least you're gonna have an insane story to tell somebody in 20 years that that one time you went to Sundance you shot a movie like that's gonna make you have so I'll give you stories because I can't pay you a whole lot. So I'll give you stories and it worked.

Racer Max 29:46
That is amazing. That's incredible. Oh my gosh.

Alex Ferrari 29:50
Oh, that's

Racer Max 29:53
That is the best extrapolation of El Mariachi filmmaking ever heard.

Alex Ferrari 30:01
So, I'm reading love and what was the biggest challenge for you guys? You know, just because there's challenges every day, every second every day. But what was the time that you were just like? How can I get out of this?

Racer Max 30:17
Yeah, oh, man, I felt like there is. Man, I felt like each day I had an existential threat like that, oh, man, like, oh, we might not be able to finish this project ever. Really. I felt like every day had something like that. It's weird. I can't really pinpoint one problem, but rather that the very first time that we had our plan, we had our script. And we got to set. And it was a scene with gosh, we want to say like 20 actors in it. And so much had to ride on what we had written. But then none of it could because the set was off and then a part of the studio broke down so we could use it, as some of the Cast Main cast couldn't be there. And we thought, oh, my gosh, and I was just thinking, How the heck are we going to fix this? Again, running into that moment of having to be creative. The biggest problem was right after my dad tells me, Oh, well, we're guess we're just gonna figure it out. Like what ran through my mind beyond that, after that, that was definitely the biggest problem. But then realizing that every single problem after that, no matter what it was, whether it was the hangar we were in was not soundproof. So it decided to Texas rainstorm on our foot finale scene that included a lot of dialogue all over that hangar, so none of the dialogues usable. Whether it was that or missing cast members, or just completely losing an entire vehicle that we had set up. None of that. Like, none of that is bigger. All of that is just an extension of the same problem of we're gonna figure it out. We're gonna get everybody in a room and it's the quietest room and we're gonna rerecord all the lines we just did, hoping that they match up to what we just filmed over there in the rainy hangar. And it does like magic. So that's so that's funny that that was what I would say is the biggest problem is the recurring one that didn't learn to go with the flow. And by the end of the production, your life, the most of those, and you're like, those were the most fun, really, when we were all put in the same corner, and had to punch our way out that those are the most fun.

Rebel Rodriguez 32:19
Those are the stories as you said, those become the stories. Don't forget that stuff on it.

Alex Ferrari 32:24
That's, that's remarkable. I mean, and one thing I noticed about read 11 Is that you guys used a lot of practical effects, because you just didn't have the budget to do anything else. Really. So can you talk a little bit about the power of practical effects just just the phone, the telekinetic phone on the little another little table? Which is such an easy prac I mean when cuz I saw the behind the scenes by the way everyone listening have to watch Rebel Without a crew the show but also the behind the scenes of red 11 Because it is a film school and then some but the the phone moving with the magnet like it's so when you when you show it to you is super simple. If not, you're just like using wires is it was such a beautiful way. Can you talk about the power of practical effects, where so many filmmakers just want to lean on computer effects? Where practical effects I mean, look at Nolan, he's doing okay. You know, he's doing okay with the practical effect.

Racer Max 33:22
Absolutely, yeah, that that the red 11 was really app coming right off of Alita Battle Angel where it's most visual effects we've ever used. So we didn't have entire characters that didn't exist until we put them in digitally later. Coming off of that it was a shell shock. We got the bends definitely under 11. But it's so much more fun and so much more immediately gratifying on camera when you get a practical effect working. And you see it you go oh my gosh, I can't believe we're getting away with this. Look how look how dumb this looks when you look two feet this way. But in the lens, it looks incredible. Look at that. I'm totally fooled. practical effects I've really come to appreciate and go that's the magic, most timeless aspects of filmmaking, you know, when we when we see the predator and we see oh my gosh, look how much that suit and that face and that creature still holds up this day, where it still feels just as real just as like slimy and tactile as it did when it released in what 8487 Whatever it was. Like that. To me practical effects are the most timeless aspects of film and I want to incorporate a lot more into live action filmmaking and see a lot more of it because it's, as I say, that's the real movie magic right there. But the most I was added the most important thing of a practical effects is that you can write is that you can make it mean a lot more than what it is the simple $2 trick it is because you can write a story around it. You can make it meaningful through the story. You can bring it back multiple times you can make the same trick means something and just then bus stick with the audience. So that's really what I see the power practical effects. How about you?

Rebel Rodriguez 35:07
Yeah, again, if you're because what you have, that phone trick is actually a very important story moment. It's like that's literally dragging a phone on a string or with a magnet is an important story thing. And it's like, that's how you have to approach writing and approach creating as well, because you just get, you get a lot more mileage out of what little you have. And it's really, really cool.

Alex Ferrari 35:26
I mean, I, when I, when I saw, I think it was Once Upon a Time in Mexico was the introduction of the guacamole gun. For me. I remember the first time if you guys have not heard about the guacamole, and I have an entire tutorial on it on YouTube, of how I built my rockabilly gun back in the day, because my friend and I were making our first short film, and we're like, we need to blow this girl's head off. Like how are we going to blow this girl's head off? And we built a we we just cobbled together, Eric, Eric, what is air compressor guy and the PVC pipe we did multiple, like, at first it was like someone was peeing on you is not enough pressure. And then like we got to put like, what's brain matter? Like it was so much fun. But that that's a practical, we use a ton of practical effects. I'm one of those first films I made, because it was cheap. And we had a lot of visual effects too. But the practical effects sell so much easier. And it's done. No rendering.

Racer Max 36:23
Absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 36:24
No crashes. No nothing. But the guacamole gun, man, that's

Rebel Rodriguez 36:31
The way it looks when you film it is how it's gonna look in the final movie. It's like, Yes, you got it. You got it. There's no. And let's hope we have enough money to make it look good. It's like, well, if it looks great here, you're gonna be fine, honestly.

Alex Ferrari 36:42
And I'm a big proponent of combining practical and visual. Because if you have a base of practical like in that that headshot that we did in that movie, I had my VFX guy just throw a couple more splatters out off of it, but if it would have been just the VFX you wouldn't have sold it just we didn't have the technology for Oh, wow. Really make blood hits that really song. So those are fire if you do fire, like fire still is rough. Visually.

Racer Max 37:14
It's still difficult. It's it's hard to fake. Make out the human eye.

Alex Ferrari 37:18
Well, I mean, if you remember the rock, remember the movie The Rock? There was an explosion of the the car McCarthy? Yeah, yeah, there. Yeah, the car that blows up. You can see the visual effect flame that they kind of wrapped around that as a little bit while the bottom was all real. And I'm like man that's only trained eyes. cinephiles will notice that for sure, for sure.

Rebel Rodriguez 37:46
But it has a subtle effect to even the people who don't catch it's a subconscious effect of like, this isn't entirely real. And it loses gravity as a result.

Alex Ferrari 37:55
Oh, no, my wife. I mean, she was not in the film industry whatsoever. And when she's you know, I've been together for nearly 20 years now. Well, watching movies like that green screen composite was really bad. And I'm like, really? It's just like, yeah, just the compositing wasn't really good. I mean, didn't they had this a Marvel movie? Did that the money to clean that up a little bit? I'm like, wow, wow. Yeah, audiences, but

Racer Max 38:23
So many kids, really kids are CG was bad. I don't want to get bad CG. But wow, that's something

Alex Ferrari 38:31
Because now as opposed to when mariachi came out, there was no information. There was just no information. Trust me, I looked other than the Raiders of the Lost Ark stunt spectacular VHS behind the scenes of behind the scenes of Star Wars. There really wasn't a lot of behind the scenes, it was still kind of a mystery. And that's when all these DVDs that Robert put out with really practical, you know, stuff was you started that was the beginning I think of that kind of behind the scenes access and then and the YouTubes now everybody, you know, could do anything. But back then for people that listen who don't understand or have a certain age, they don't they don't understand how difficult it was back then to to even begin to do what what they did on mariachi or or Desperado or from dusk till dawn or any of the films that he did during that era. But it was a Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that's

Racer Max 39:28
That's amazing. I forgot to think about that point. But yeah, in for it was almost CG and all that was movie magic back then. Because nobody knew how it worked. But now it was.

Alex Ferrari 39:38
There was a show called Magic. There was a show called Magic. And you would watch it was a 30 minute like behind the scenes of Terminator two. Those kinds of things, and you were just like, that's great. I don't have James Cameron money. So it's nice, but that's why when when you Desperado and from Dessel Don's documentary and behind the scenes on mariachi, it was the first time you like I think I can build a welcome Oh, I can I can. I think I can. I can do that. So it was this inspirational way of looking at filmmaking it's so with with red 11 Rebel, what was it like composing with me because, again, that's another thing that your dad did. He's like, You know what? I'm gonna start writing music for the hell of it. Like, I remember that I'm like, Wow, dude, calm down. Yeah Robert calm the hell down. What's wrong? Steadicam craft service? I'm instance like, Come on dude.

Rebel Rodriguez 40:37
He would just be like, Yeah, you know, I think I want to try that. Yeah, I want the music to be like this, I'll just do it and it's like, wow, okay. I mean, it's, you forget how revolutionary that is like, right? No direct who was director was writing and editing, then what director was writing, editing and doing music and then also doing cinematography and then all that stuff. It's really

Alex Ferrari 40:55
Hard for carpenters, the only one that I know of that didn't use it for his own movies. But he still didn't do everything else.

Rebel Rodriguez 41:02
Crazy. Exactly. So it's really special. But the thing he always that's always been the way he's like, wanted to teach us is if okay, if you want to get into movies and stuff, I'm just gonna throw you in under something you don't know how to do all entirely. And you're gonna learn while you're doing it pretty much. So racer was only on the crew mate. He had to do all the sound he had never done sound before. And so

Alex Ferrari 41:25
I got the feeling brother. Even though I could afford it, like, you know what, screw it. I'm gonna do it. And I'm like, I'm never doing sound. Again,

Rebel Rodriguez 41:35
Again. You learn real quick, though, in life.

Alex Ferrari 41:39
What a good sound what a good sound guy is and why he's valuable. She's valuable. Because my next, my next film, I had a sound guy. Everything sounds good. Thank you. Thank you.

Racer Max 41:50
I know it's getting a budget next time. Absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 41:53
Oh my god.

Rebel Rodriguez 41:56
Yeah, so it was. I mean, I was writing a little bit of music at home. I was always been playing piano since I was a kid. And I stopped High School stopped taking piano lessons. And I was like, I want to do something with music. And somehow, all those years, I never quite dawned on me. Oh, right. My dad makes movies. I could write music for movies, right? They have stories, and you can write some music. I mean, like, took me that long, by the way. But I was like, you know, that would be cool. So I've been writing a little bit throughout the year before. And I wrote like 15 minutes of music for a VR short, Robert and racer did called the limit. That was like my first scoring project. And then from there, he was like, Well, now you just write a whole feature, you know, just just a little extra, you just got to write longer and more stuff. And I was like, okay, and I was on my laptop on logic. Just logic. Yeah, they can stop. Yeah, it was after writing after writing on GarageBand for most of the time, and I started just like with nothing, just a little keyboard. And I was like, alright, well, we got to figure this out. And it was probably one of the most stressful experiences ever. But it was really, really fun and special to start looking at the movie and go, right I guess this is when you would do a character theme and stuff like here, you can play a theme for a character and build that up across and you start getting understanding if if your tools are really small. You start learning the thinking and the methodology behind it a little bit more so and appreciate like when something time's up well and all that. So it taught me a sense of pacing, at least I kind of learned when I would wrote a scene I was like, that's in pace, that I wasn't paced well to the scene, it felt weird. And then when it actually did work or not, but

Alex Ferrari 43:27
Can we just say can we say something publicly here that your father's insane. Let's just throw that out there. As a general statement, the insanity of trying to make mariachi it's insane at a time that nobody was made. And that insanity has kept going throughout his career. He has been insane. In the most beautiful, wonderful way. Insane to like, Hey, Rob, you've never done it. Come over here. Figure it out. Like that's pretty much on like, you know, small budget films first, but then, you know, then you're like, thrown into the deep end of the water with some bigger budgets.

Rebel Rodriguez 44:04
He's like, you want to learn? Yeah, yeah, he's like, you're gonna learn how to swim. I'm gonna throw you out into the ocean. And once you're like coughing up along the water, I'll fish it back out. That's how you're gonna learn. It's like

Alex Ferrari 44:14
Shark point. Get out

Rebel Rodriguez 44:16
Do your own stunts. Get out there. I mean, it's pretty much always been that and when sharks. Yeah,

Alex Ferrari 44:22
Exactly. But we all have to, but we all have to be kind of insane. To even be in this business. This is insane. We're like, this is corny. We're all carnies. And this is the circus. I mean, at a carnival. We're all carnies. We all smell of cabbage. And that's

Racer Max 44:41
Absolutely true.

Rebel Rodriguez 44:42
It's true. It's true. And I think one of the most important lessons it's taught us every time it's happened, you've had to do it where you're like, I have no clue what I'm doing. You just feel like and in this one, even though the budget was small, I had seen all the work we had done, and I was like, I'm gonna score all that work and if it sucks, I I'd like, you know, dropped the ball right after everyone else put in all this effort. So it is a lot, but the most important thing it taught me is you're really not ever going to be ready, it's like you have, you're not always, you're never going to be fully comfortable, I can do this and then dive into it, you're always going to have that I don't know, if I can do this, I, I'm almost there. But I don't know, that's when you got to start is, you'll become ready as you're doing it, and you learn a lot more actually doing it. You know, when you actually have to, when the boat asked to actually hold water, you'll learn a lot more of what actually works, what doesn't work. So you do have to be read, you know, put yourself out there and actually be willing to fail sometimes, you know, don't write Don't Make Your First Movie feature when you you know, you can do it. It's like you're not going to feel like you know, you're ready at all, you know, maybe you've done some shorts, maybe done some of this. You just got to dive in there and do it basically. So

Alex Ferrari 45:49
Would you agree that the one of the biggest the biggest skill sets, any filmmaker at any level, any crew personality, is the ability to understand and accept failure, as far as part of the process? And not to like that, let that derail you, you just have to kind of keep going because that is a skill set that most people don't have let alone filmmakers don't have that ability to fail. And it seems like you know, what your your father and your mother have taught you throughout your career is failures. Okay, you know, hey, everyone has everyone goes up and down and exact. Sometimes you have a good movie, sometimes you have a I liked the movie, but the audience didn't like the movie didn't do well in the box office didn't do this or that. Or oh my god, how the hell did that happen? Like all of it, but but failures are the big deals. Can you talk a little bit about that? From your experience?

Rebel Rodriguez 46:38
Yes. Yeah. No, that is totally it. I mean, he says you learn so much more from your failures and your successes. And I mean, he's shown it all throughout his career, you know, for rooms, was didn't do all that great. But right, what he saw was, hey, it's actually pretty funny to have these two little kids here who like, get into all this trouble. They barely even tie their own shoes, their shoes, and they're like doing all this stuff about like their spies or something. That's where that came from, you know, from his failure, came Spy Kids, which ended up being a humongous thing. So he's always been excited to just jump in and trip and fail, because he knows you'll, you know, when you stumble, when you go down that path that no one's ever gone, where you you're not comfortable with, you'll stumble, but you also stumble upon new things. you'll stumble upon great new ideas for stuff. And yeah, it's I don't think you're ever going to fully appreciate that you have more to learn unless you've seen you have things to work on, basically. So it's almost like you're guaranteed it's not like I was, it's not like it was a home run, making the red 11 score, I had things that I was like, that really didn't work out. This wasn't that but instantly from there, I was like, that's what I need to get better at. That's what you know, this is really important. I never would have probably realized that unless I actually scored a movie. And seen this works. This doesn't work that all that so it's really Yeah, it teaches you to accept failure pretty quick.

Racer Max 47:56
Yeah, absolutely agree. It's one of the most important skill sets that anyone can have. And I can point a lot to what makes you averse to failure. Because we felt that you know, whether you're the son of anybody important, or whether you're just comparing yourself to somebody that you're not like any of the other great filmmakers, because we watch all these great movies, you want to be like them, but the most important you're and you're gonna see only your failures, and you're not going to look at any of theirs. And you're gonna write what are what you what they consider their failure, you consider their greatest work because so you know, you're blind to other people's failures. And, you know, you can compare yourself to like, Ah, man, I'm the he made the mariachi and he did all of that by himself. And like, I haven't done anything. I haven't made a film all by myself like that, too. And it's like this is and he's made such a big splash, but like, I haven't made anything like that. But, you know, comparing to others makes you so averse to failure, because that's one of the biggest drivers or drivers of why you don't want to fail. But you just got to fail. You just got to go at it and fail and compare yourself only with yourself really go as revel just said, you know, okay, wasn't a score wasn't a slam dunk, but I know where I can do better next time. So I'm going to try it. I know I'm gonna make that better for myself and for the audience next time. That's what I want to do. So

Alex Ferrari 49:17
And when you're saying that the first thing that came into my mind is as filmmakers of my generation, first thing you think of is when you hit 23 You go, Orson Welles made Citizen Kane at 23 I haven't done crap. And you're like, but it's okay. It's okay. Then it hit 27 Like Spielberg made Jaws at 27 Okay, so then you keep moving is like, couldn't make reservoir like at like, 30 or something like that. And you keep pushing you keep pushing Terminator. 30. And then now, Ridley Scott didn't make his first film till 40 Like trying to make yourself feel better. You're like, oh, by the way, that's gonna be my first feature at 40 Why couldn't I go That's a whole other story of why I didn't do it before, but I did a lot of other directing and other things like that. But you start going like, okay, but if you do compare yourself to these, quote unquote gods and that's another thing that a lot of filmmakers do they put these filmmakers up on pedestals. I mean, look, I have a Stanley Kubrick autographed book behind me that I got Hitchcock right next to it. You know, I mean, although I have, I have books from all my favorite filmmakers behind me, you know, you do put them up on a pedestal. But one of the great honors and privileges of my life of doing the show is I get to talk to some of these sometimes these guys, these guys. And then I start to realize I realized a long time ago, when I did this first year, I was I was like, they all have the same issues. They all have, they don't have enough money. They don't have enough time. They they all I always tell people you can no matter who you are in this business, you're gonna get punched in the face. Every Spielberg still gets punched in the face. Not as much as he used to. You know, Robert, I'm sure still gets punched in the face sideswiped like, Oh, I didn't see that coming, you know, from the business or something like that. The difference is that now that as you get older, you start to learn how to duck a little bit. You know, sometimes it just grazes you. And sometimes you're not even there when the punch is thrown because you've been around a little bit longer. But no, but no matter who you are, you're gonna go through it is the great equalizer filmmaking. No matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, you can have a look at Cameron. Jesus, look at you look what James is doing. You know, I mean, he's all the money in the world is the only filmmaker who does that, by the way is people like, what do you think gonna make only James Cameron? No, absolutely not given they're not giving that to Spielberg to Nolan to Fincher to to Robert to note, no one else is getting half a billion dollars to like, make a movie in a few years. It's just It's insane. Right? It's, it's insane. But, but no matter how much money you have, there's every day there's a problem, because it's part of the the artistic process. So So you brought up four rooms, by the way, my favorite four rooms, obviously is Robert because it was the most fun. And that was that was the moment that you started to see the shift into the family stuff. Because before then it was stuff that you guys could watch. And that's why kids came out. And I want to impress on people. What Spy Kids means to so many people around the world Spy Kids is one of those franchises in the first film. There never been anything like that. Again, Robert, nothing made like that with Latino, Latino people. And I always say this, because I'm Latino. I'm of Cuban descent. And I've never seen myself portrayed in a movie like that before. But anytime I do, it was always like, Hi, I'm Latino. Let me eat my taco. And I'm like, again, like it was so on the nose, where it was never mentioned inspire kids. It was just, there's just people having an adventure. And I think that was another one of those points that inspired other filmmakers to bring in other cultures. And not point out like there's the black guy. There's the Asian guy. There's, it's like, no, let's just it's a story. And it opened up a Spy Kids was one of the first times I saw that in the Latino culture. And, you know, when I when my kids were old enough, I showed them Spy Kids, and they just like gobbled up the first four. Like they were just like, because it's like, it's great. I will always watch a movie or story that gives kids power. It's a give anytime there's kids in power making adults look like idiots. Done. It's a hit

Racer Max 53:49
Very right. make kids feel powerful. make kids feel cool.

Alex Ferrari 53:54
Right. Exactly. And we are heroes. And then you did that with a we are heroes as well. What was your experience when you guys first saw Spy Kids? And because you were on it, you were shooting? Tell me what your experience was making it? Because I know you were how old were you guys were spiking.

Racer Max 54:10
So I like for me,

Rebel Rodriguez 54:12
But yeah.

Racer Max 54:13
You ever was to when it first came out? So okay, it was four when the first one came out. And that was imagine you you're from like zero to four years old. You don't you kind of know that your parents do something. They do work this thing called job. They've got one. But you don't know what it is. You see Dad go off to this office that's attached to the house and he goes off and he disappears all day. And he's doing something and no matter how many times he comes home to tell you that he's making a movie you don't you don't like get it. You don't really understand. Until you're sitting in a you're sitting in a car service. Writing to this movie theater. We're now there's instead of a quiet Tuesday afternoon there's 1000s of kids and families gathered outside of this theater. And you're like oh there's a there's a Carpet. There's like wait, why are we walking down this? Why are we dressed so nice to go to this movie theater? And then you sit in the theater you watch this mind blowing movie called spike. It's one. And end credits come on, and both your mom and dad's names come out at the end. And you're like, what? Okay, wait, I don't know. Like, wait all these other crew people who I've met and I know their names to. This is crazy. Wait, you all make movies that you made this? Yeah. That's people who

Alex Ferrari 55:30
Like racing?

Racer Max 55:34
You made me pancakes yesterday morning. Like what?

Rebel Rodriguez 55:38
Exactly. It really takes him showing you the props afterwards. going, Look, here he is.

Racer Max 55:43
Here's the jetpack.

Rebel Rodriguez 55:44
Here's the buddy pack. Here's the thumb thumb. We made these. They're on the move. It's like it takes that much for you to finally go. Ah, okay, I get it. Yeah, it's like, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 55:54
Oh, my kids. My kids still don't understand what I do. They're like, like, you're on YouTube. But you also make movies and they're like, Can we watch your movies? Now? You're not old enough for the movies I've made. Okay, so but you're on YouTube, get followers. People follow you. Subscribe. You like Yeah. And then I got I got recognized a couple times in public, which is crazy with them. And they're just like, what, what? Why? It's the thumb. It's like showing you the jetpack. And like somebody else's. It's, it's remarkable. The, the, the vaporization of it, the veil that we have as kids to what our parents did. And and you just stuck it you need to be hit over the head for you to go, oh, they make movies.

Rebel Rodriguez 56:46
Because movies and here we are making home movies. And we're like, well, he just kind of like

Alex Ferrari 56:56
Of course everyone makes movies, like,

Racer Max 56:59
Hit over the head with it. For sure. That's good. Yeah, it's an you know, when you see it like that. And then you're a part of the next all the next ones. You know, it makes a lasting impact on YouTube. You know, we joke that our family is the biggest fans, the biggest geeks of Spy Kids ever. Yeah, we got the most over all the props and vehicles and actors and anything. That's amazing. Yeah. So it's it's not just the impact that I'm not it's like not a stretch at all to see how much it's impacted people you know, across the world and how much they remember it and love it and have such fond memories of it.

Alex Ferrari 57:35
And for people listening when spike is one came out. It was a massive hit like it was. It was a massive hit. Like the biggest hit your parents ever had is crazy. Yeah, it was McDonald's toys. I remember McDonald's toys. It was a it was a thing with McDonald's. I was like, this was huge. It was it was it was huge. Hey, maybe we should do some more this kid stuff.

Rebel Rodriguez 58:05
Pretty cool. In the kitchen. There's still a little Routh. I'm, there's a little Ralph toy about this big just sitting up on one of the ledges. And he really one day and I got a picture. I was like, man, it took that long for him to finally fall down. I got a picture of him. I put him right back up

Racer Max 58:21
Back on your bed.

Rebel Rodriguez 58:23
And I was a kid just staring at him up there. Like when can I play with him? They knew we'd lose him as a kid. But so he just stayed up there. It's like, no, no, he's spying. He's just It's crazy how pervasive it was everywhere. I mean, it just and it was just such so impactful to so yeah, and nothing like that. I mean, it's just

Alex Ferrari 58:42
No nothing like that. And you know, what was really fascinating to me, too, is that with Spy Kids, your parents didn't fall into the same trap that so many Hollywood filmmakers get into was when they have a big hit the studio's show up and like, here's more money, take a lot more money, and just double the budget and just do whatever you want. And they said no, we're gonna do the exact same budget. And it'll be fine. And it's that's such a smart move. It's such a brilliant move, because you get intoxicated with money being thrown at success and success. And they said, no, no, no, we're good. Give us the same, we'll make another one. And it was so brilliant. Because if that's not as big of a hit, it's okay. But if they would have taken 100,000 100 They could have easily got $100 million budget for the next episode comfortably and it would not have been a good business move. So that's another lesson you know, for all of us who will eventually have the Spy Kids kind of fame. Number Don't take the 100 million when they offer to you boy

Racer Max 59:55
That's really good observation I'd never thought of I'd never thought about that now wants to event Should it today, but I? Oh, God, I really agree with you. Yeah, that's, I mean, I'm just another side of their genius, you know, the how smart they were and how thoughtful about filmmaking and how much they can make, how much what they can accomplish. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:14
And it's and it is a lesson that can be, you know, we were joking about the 100 million dollars, but, but when you're anywhere, if you have some success anywhere, don't get intoxicated by it. Understand that. This is a moment, it will pass. And you're gonna be right down at the bottom again, real quick, real quick, how many filmmakers? How many wonderful filmmakers have we seen who rose rose rose, got a little too intoxicated, went a little crazy, bombed. And they get thrown into director jail, and you don't see them again. And sometimes you don't see them again, ever again. And it's such a shame. Where you know, that happens. And again, it happens in any interview successes in any field anywhere you go. Don't get intoxicated by it, because the one thing that people and that's one thing I think your parents never really fell into was the you're the greatest. Oh my god, you're this You're that here's more money. Here's it they just really grounded really really grounded the entire the entire time they've been making movies. It has been you could see it in the in the filmography you know, SimCity huge, monumental filmmakers that are legendary were like how to do this, you know, and yet Cool. Cool, very, very high level headed throughout the rest of you know, moving forward, it's pretty admirable to see film a filmmaker and and like your parents, both filmmakers, stay grounded during this whole process and then keeping you guys grounded. I mean, you guys are an example of this. groundedness because you guys could have eat I mean, I've I've met some Hollywood, quote unquote, Hollywood kids. And it's, it's, it's I'm sure you have to it's, it's a it's a brutal business, guys. It's a brutal business that can eat up somebody and tear them apart and destroy them. Like that. Would you agree?

Racer Max 1:02:13
I agree. Absolutely. Yeah, I row is appreciated. That groundedness they applied, you know, to their careers that they applied to raising us and even raising us in the same industry and bringing, and now teaching us and training us in the same industry. So yeah, but I absolutely agree. That's a really cool observation. Thank you for that about them.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:35
No, absolutely. Absolutely. So now there's this fifth and stuff, because you guys can't stop making Spy Kids. I mean, it's just like, just back to the horse. We go. No, I'm joking.

Racer Max 1:02:49
We had other people tell us these are like Bond movies like this is such a universal tale.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:55
While just new cash will bring Daniel Craig in will bring Pierce Brosnan. It'll be great. It'll be great. No, these these could arguably keep I mean, you guys can be you know, you know, when when Robert and Elizabeth are both, you know, completely retired from making stuff you guys like working to keep going and you could be the petroleum like, can spike it just keep the Brooklyn family just keeps going. And we have to bring in some new Spy Kids. It can easily keep going. I mean, it's it by the way is a Spy Kids Armageddon, the beginning of a new trilogy, that you guys are trying to make.

Racer Max 1:03:31
That is that's the that's the ideas we we got new kids that we really love new family, new parents that we really love. And we just love seeing them together and their energy in the first thing everybody sees when they like any of the crew or the producers, anybody got to see them on set. They're like, Oh, my gosh, I want to see so much more. They have so much fun and so much energy. So that was the idea. We just made it a little standalone reboot on its own. That was its kind of division going in. But seeing it on camera, you go oh my gosh, I want to keep watching this. I want to see more. Just like with Spike, it's one everybody wants to see those kids somewhere. So

Alex Ferrari 1:04:05
Right and now they're like my age those kids. I mean, having kids of their own

Racer Max 1:04:09
Yeah. kids of their own.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:13
And then you see one of them in my chat and you're like wow, okay. Okay. All right. All right. Yeah, go. It's fascinating. But so, so tell us a little bit about Spy Kids. Armageddon. I know. There was no Netflix finally got the rights to help you. You know, make the sequels and they love what you guys did with. We are heroes or we are yours. We are champions. We can be heroes. Yeah, we can be heroes. We are we can be heroes, which by the way loved as well. It's such a beautiful story. Beautiful film. My kids like watched it a ton of times. You know, it's great. Yeah. And the little behind the scenes that they made with you guys on YouTube and stuff like that was so much fun to watch what you guys were doing. And then my kids were like, I want a pen and an iPad. I'm like God, Jesus Christ. Great, thanks. Thanks, Robert. Thanks, Robert. Elizabeth. I appreciate that. Thanks. So tell me a little bit how this this story came about how you guys came at this new this new installment?

Racer Max 1:05:18
Yeah, it's it's perfect that you mentioned we can be heroes because we had just just finished making that. And we loved it. We had such a great time getting to do kids kids film again. And getting it right. That was fun getting to make it was fun. And so, Robert, and I were just joking around, like, how could you imagine what if we do another Spy Kids? I can be really fun, right? Yeah, let's do something like that. And Robert does what he does best. We he starts talking to people about it immediately. And it was Skydance that was really interested. And they said we would love to do Spy Kids. And Robert and I were laughing from the studio that brings you Mission Impossible comes schmuck. That's okay. We laughed at the idea. And we did a writing process that we've been doing since I was seven. And we did Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Together is we jump in the pool, and have a little notepad next to the pool. And just swim around and talk ideas, laugh about things, make jokes talk about it. And pretty much in that. In that pool session, we came to one of the major ideas, the story of the film, including the idea that then that, in that making up for in the behind the scenes with we come here as mentioned the idea of give kids technology like don't hold them back to what whatever you did when you were growing up or growing up or anything like that, give them the best, so that they can go further than you and they will go up leaps and bounds. So try not to hold them to any restrictions you had. See what's available now see what can help them and give that to them. So we loved that. And we were just we were just talking about it in the making of and we thought that would have made the whole story about that was Spy Kids and rebel hoarded a great Lego for a rebel the the idea that you weren't a great lady idea that giving kids technology and wow, that was a huge part of this one.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:07:11
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was interesting, it kind of all came together because we'd love this. You know, it's technology's kind of gotten a bad rap. To some extent, you know, of like, it's all bad books are better. And so we're like, how about we have a movie where it's the opposite. And the book, the book can be just as bad as the technology can be just as good. And vice versa. You know, it's less about the tool and more about the teaching, what are they learning? You know, what are you learning? What values are you kind of learning from that. But that kind of came together with an idea of like, you know, it'd be really cool to have a To Do A Spy Kids, where is there any way we could make the whole world change to where suddenly kids have like a unique advantage over adults in some way? Like, just conceptually, is there any way to do that? And we're like, you know, what, if like, the only way to access technology in the world was through like video games, since kids have gotten so adept at this and technology in general, that they completely outpaced their parents and stuff and that their own things. It's like the hot time of their lives. And if that's like the inciting event, now, suddenly, the kids are super spies, and everyone else is struggling. So it's like now they're really like the only people that can like save the world. So that's, that was like where the concept really started.

Racer Max 1:08:18
But so kind of the core idea came to that, yeah, let's have a bad guy who's a villain who's video game designer. And he infects the whole world with a video game virus and nobody gets to their vices, except the kids can because they're smart. And they're savvy with technology and games. So they go leaps ahead of the parents. And within the course a few days become super spies and are now having to go save the world take on all the responsibility of that. And so a lot of the core ideas really came to that writing session. And we have from there took off we just started writing, creating it over the course of 2020 2021. And yeah, that was the birth of the new ones like is Armageddon.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:55
I feel that it's going to do well sir. I feel that the kids are gonna really like my girls are like excited to see it. It's, it's, it's so admirable to see how you guys have continued that that franchise and I hope because even when I saw the trailer, I haven't seen the movie yet, because we haven't had access to it yet. But soon, soon, we're seeing hopefully next week. But, but even the trailer kind of that's why I asked Is this a trilogy? Like I saw it, I saw where this was going, I was like, Oh, this is not they're making another trilogy out of this. This is solid, solid.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:09:35
Yeah, it's really it's really special. That was kind of the intention of like, you know, you know, I get the feeling of like, Spike hits five, you know, usually when something gets to the fifth, it's like, I don't know what's going on anymore. But we really were like, We really only wanted to do it if there was really a story we could tell that's different from the old ones, but has the same values and stuff. So that's where we kind of saw the opportunity of like, right, there's almost a modern take on this now that it's been 20 years since the The first one where now we have a very significant gap between what that one was about what this one is about. But they're both still about family and about still about empowerment of kids. And this generation would really love that sort of thing, you know, in this new form factor. And it's really cool now, especially that we learned from we can be heroes is, streaming services is really great for kids, they can watch the movie as much as they want, not as much as they can convince their parents to go to the movie and drive them there. So they get to watch it that much more. So we can be heroes is really impactful. And beloved, because kids could just watch it at the pace, they like watching things, watch it all the way through, gets to the end credits, you just replay it, and you do it again. And you do that a few times a day,

Alex Ferrari 1:10:39
Where you guys might be you guys might be a little young to remember this. But that's exactly what they did. In the video store days with Disney movies, I would rent out a Disney movie and the kids would just on loop, watch the VHS, again, rewind again, they did it with five kids, because both kids was on VHS as well. And they would just loop again and again and again. But now it's instant on their phone, on the car. They could just watch. I mean, I think my girls have seen we can be heroes a few times at least two or three times. And I was like, I'll walk into limits. Great. Are you Why didn't you just see this like last week? Yeah, they have the ability to do that, like I can watch a movie again. And again, mine doesn't do that anymore. Lethal Weapon like five times in a row, I can really do that anymore.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:11:28
Just like different the way they enjoy their entertainment. And it just it was always kind of difficult to make to make that work. But you know, now it's easier than ever for them kind of, I mean, they don't really have much problem watching it on a phone or an iPad, they just want to see it and like be able to watch experience it over and over again, see the jokes again. And, you know, so it's cool to put something in front of them that like really empowers them and shows them you know, they can go on a really cool, awesome adventure, they can do really incredible things. And if they work together with their family as well, you know, you can do, you can move mountains. And it's it's always been about that sort of thing, too. It's really special. So

Alex Ferrari 1:12:00
And we can be heroes, if I'm not mistaken was like number one on Netflix for a while. Right? Was like everybody was like, what's going on? Like, what is Stranger Things like what's going on? I heard that I'm like, good, man. That's awesome. It wasn't and I know the budgets because I know, Robert spent $400 million dollars and make that sounds like good that, you know, a film like that gets that kind of attention worldwide. Worldwide.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:12:34
It's really it's really something.

Racer Max 1:12:37
It's really interesting.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:40
And I believe that this one will probably do, I hope similar business, if you will. So they can make the next two or three, and then your kids will start making them.

Racer Max 1:12:52
That's yeah, that's the hope for us. You know, right now we're still waiting for the launch. And we're like, Oh, I hope I just want to make a second and a third and beyond this. So

Rebel Rodriguez 1:12:59
Yeah, exactly. So just as much as we can be heroes and all that kind of stuff, because it's really hard.

Racer Max 1:13:05
If not, we really had a great time making it but really brought the family together in a really fun way. And what are excited for people to watch it.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:14
And what was the biggest challenge of making that film? Because it makes you guys fun? Yeah, cuz you guys got a little different. You got you got some shrapnel. Now you got a little bit of shrapnel on you, you know, you've taken a couple hits along the way. How did this big a little bit bigger budget slightly bigger budget a

Racer Max 1:13:31
Little bigger than red 11

Alex Ferrari 1:13:34
So from a production standpoint and a composing standpoint, how did this like biggest challenges? Yeah.

Racer Max 1:13:39
This one, definitely the biggest challenge was dealing with a legacy, you know, of the originals are so beloved, that and we're just love them so much to that. crafting something that has to capture what came before that. That was all you know, you put on your gloves to deal with that every single day. Just okay, and now we're gonna carefully adjust this and that and make sure this is feels up to snuff. So like reference of the originals was so key and so important. And like, in hindsight, there's still little elements that I watch now in the movie and go, Gosh, I wish I made that more like this or more like that, because like, Oh, I missed, totally missed that whole side of fun that the originals had that, that I only incorporate a little bit. So like that definitely is the biggest challenge. But we're and that haunts you throughout writing throughout production or editing, even through visual effects. It's like no, this has the right shape. They're composing. Compose. Yep. All throughout all of that challenge Honsou throughout all of it, but at the end, I'm really happy with where it how it came together. And how I watched it and I see kids smile sitting next to me and go okay, you know, you can beat yourself up about like, Oh, I wish I did this, this and that. But it really it captures something that's Just like the originals, and that makes us smile as kids that makes us smile now is big kids. Well,

Alex Ferrari 1:15:05
I never I never thought about that. But you're absolutely right. You guys are the the number one fans of this franchise. I mean, and the pressure that that puts on you guys as creators. It's kind of like my parents started this train. I better not do really. Now not at the beginning of the process, you can't do this.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:15:29
Especially, you know, many times this type of stuff hasn't worked out, you're like, the odds are stacked against you for sure. It's definitely

Alex Ferrari 1:15:37
Any sequel, any sequel, the second, third or fifth? Yeah, always. You're always. Occasionally you get the Terminator two. Occasionally, you get aliens. Yeah. Okay. And by the way, I actually liked by kids too, more than I liked by kids, one on my personal I love my kids. But Spy Kids too. I really remember liking it more. I just liked it more than the first one. So

Racer Max 1:16:03
My favorite to write it's like

Alex Ferrari 1:16:05
Occasionally. But man, I can't imagine that kind of pressure. Because from your parents legacy from the films legacy, and also your own love of being part of it. Since you were so young. Must have been How the hell do you make this movie? I'm like, I'm stressed out and I didn't make it.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:16:22
Yeah, definitely the stress and the weight. And like the pressure of all that is what counterbalances a lot is the love and the passion we've had for the series. And it's like, you know, we're like some of the biggest fan. So it's like, we were there the whole time going, it's got to have this, it's got to have that it's got to have this, you know, we need the vehicles, we need a little robot assistant, because you can't go without that. I mean, that's all I wanted as a kid was thinking robotics is I wanted Ralph so badly. And needs this. And it's I mean,

Alex Ferrari 1:16:48
I still need Ralph, Sir. I still think

Rebel Rodriguez 1:16:54
We all told me I could buy one, I'd probably be looking towards that. Yeah, I would 100% Ralph is a necessity. But yeah, it's definitely just as much as it was a huge deal. And there was a lot to a lot to get done here. There was the passion for it was really what drove us. And it was, you know, it's what made it probably one of my favorite projects we've done was that, we get to do all that again, and you know, be able to add a new twist to it and add new flavors to it. And we have enough under our belt that we're like, we know how we can approach that in the writing and this and that, you know, we kind of put all our heads together and can try to do something new, but still have that same feeling as the originals. So it's really beautiful. I think it came at exactly the right time when I didn't feel I was ready for it. But I had the passion to like, if I could do it, this is how I do it. And so yeah,

Alex Ferrari 1:17:45
So now moving on real quick. You guys also worked on another little film called hypnotic. Recently you produced and you compose that, again, slightly bigger than read a lovin maker. Yeah, yeah. Hi, Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben was that was a star. So I mean, you guys, you guys are taking on bigger and bigger projects now. You know, it's it's so admirable to see how you guys are taking on this kind of pressure. Because you could. I mean, you guys could easily be all honest. in OBS aside, you guys could Coast comfortably for the rest of your life. But no joke, you can do this. But you guys are challenging yourself and pushing yourselves as creators as filmmakers. And I think that is a legacy of your parents who are pushing you and throwing you into the deep end. Because when I saw like, because I'm like, Oh, they did here. And then when I looked at him, like some of it they did hypnotic too. Like that's, that's a big that's that's a big that's a big boy movie. You know, serious movie, big boy movie, big girl movie. You know? So when you approach that, like, how did you guys I mean, it's it's a it's a bigger deal, guys. It's not like it's not legacy. It's not something else that you're like, Okay, we're we're now in the deep end with Uncle Ben

Racer Max 1:19:11
Absolutely, it's yeah, as you were saying that. We I as you were saying you guys are taking on the challenge the little voice in my head is going Oh, but I love the challenge. And it's like in this moment in this chair, I realized oh gosh, my parents gave me a bit of their insanity Yeah, this is that insanity that

Alex Ferrari 1:19:28
That got programming programming I talked to you about earlier. There he settled

Racer Max 1:19:37
They flipped it around the pressure and challenge that nobody wants they've made us like private and desire it and go after it as a day job

Rebel Rodriguez 1:19:44
Makes you more excited. But it's that's really us kind of thinking that you know, I mean you become unbreakable in that regard. The more challenge you get the more excited you are about it. It's like that's the passion can completely outgun the amount of pressure you have and really that's what generates the ideas if you're not passionate for If you just feel like you're gonna get steamrolled, nothing's gonna come to you at all. But if you're, if you're if you got that rocky kind of mentality to it, where it's like, there's no way you just gotta go the distance and give it everything you've got, you start coming up with stuff, the passion kind of drives it. And that's where you start to get the inspiration impetus to kind of start making something and,

Racer Max 1:20:19
And talk about a challenge that makes you feel unbreakable. With hypnotic. It's like, Yeah, this is a serious thriller. We have major great actor attached to this. And also

Alex Ferrari 1:20:28
And also an Oscar winner, and a great director in his own right, a fantastic director. Absolutely

Racer Max 1:20:34
Fantastic director. Yeah, exactly, exactly. On top of that, it was 2020, it was 2020 2021. We made this during a little something called the pandemic, the

Wow, this project fell apart because of COVID. Twice, each time shrinking the budget as it went, because we this film was pretty sold. So all the budget that you have is all the budget you got. And twice we almost got it started once in California and once in Canada, but both times it fell through. And so we finally found a way to bring it over to little home called Boston and pulled out Well believe it or not pulled out a lot of our rent 11 tricks on this on. A good amount of the movie is shot in the exact same office studio as a good we're like how much how can we use more of our own studio for this film, and just the fact

Rebel Rodriguez 1:21:35
That it's a ruler, and it's got psychological aspects to it. It's literally we kept calling it it's like the spiritual successor of like read 11 like read 11 had a Desperado. It was weird like mariachi had a just really strange how that happened. markable so much of the same kind of DNA that made that was kind of had to put this out of necessity, but it made them so it feel almost like they're linked spiritually a little bit.

Racer Max 1:22:02
So it was it took all sides to do it. You know, we're like, Okay, well, this is just a normal office, but rebel with your incredible music that you've just learned how to compose. We're going to make this feel great and psychological and epic and moving dramatic, even though he's just walking through our same boring gray hall that we have in our studio.

Alex Ferrari 1:22:23
No pressure at all boys.

Racer Max 1:22:24
No pressure at all. Yeah, yeah, it was fun. It was really fun to you know, move on to something like that. That's, as you said, big, big boy, big girl movie. And then tackle it with all the same toolset that we've learned up to this point and gain new ones along the way.

Alex Ferrari 1:22:41
So I have to ask you guys, this question, what is the biggest if you can if you can bring it down to one thing? What is the biggest lesson you've learned from your dad?

Racer Max 1:22:51
Biggest lesson I've learned from my dad filmmaking, filmmaking or life?

Alex Ferrari 1:22:54
It's up to you.

Racer Max 1:22:55
That's kind of the thing with him. It's almost like the kung fu masters. You don't realize he's teaching. He's teaching how to throw a punch. But he's also teaching you how to pay your mortgage or how to how to have a successful relationship or anything like that. I always tell him this one is my favorite. And is he taught me one day I think I was upset about something when I was five or six. And he grabbed visuals are good for parents who grabbed a cup of water filled about halfway. And for less than we've all heard, but you know, just sticks with you. He spilled about halfway and he said, Look at this cup of water. You can look at it. You can either see it as half full or half empty. But is it tea right now. And I said it's half empty. Like there's only half water there. And he said, You just use a negative mindset. To me, I see a lot of potential a little water that's in there. That's half full. I've got so much water to work with. I've got half full cup of water. That's incredible. And he said that is positive thinking with that. I can conquer anything with think with believing I've got so much greatness in this little half full cup of water. I've got so much I can do. And he taught me that I didn't tell him till probably like, a decade later. 17 that that was the most important thing you ever taught me and he went, I remember teaching you that really good. I said,

I'm pretty good. I'm pretty good. Well teach me what did it what did you got from it? But

That absolutely. You know, it's it's filmmaking, it's life. It's everything. That kind of thinking. Pressure and challenges. Don't turn into opportunity unless you can look at it in a positive way. So like, oh, everything I couldn't have learned anything I've learned either from them or from these projects that they've blessed us by putting us on challenging us with unless I have that. So

Rebel Rodriguez 1:24:38
No, I definitely. It's probably one of the most foundational lessons that everything else builds on. It's like if you have that a lot of things can fall into place. It's yeah. Yeah, pretty much that one's Yeah, that's the one that's really it's continued to mean more the more I grew up, it's like wow, this was that was really it and I think the only the other one is his main one that you know, no matter how prepared you think you are, you're always going to everything's gonna fall apart. He said, as much as knowing is half the battle, the other half the battle is not knowing. And so it's just this kind of this eternal, you're never going to have the whole battle basically, it's just always gotta meet, meet it the rest of the way. But, but um, yeah, definitely between those two. That's kind of been what's always driven us because it's really powerful. It allows you to turn a monumental amount of pressure and problems into a monumental amount of potential. And for creativity potential and passion is what makes it grow. So you just beautiful when you got nothing, at least got your mind and like a piece of paper and some ideas. So that takes no budget, but that's what the movie The best movies are made out of. It's all throughout it is fabric. So so if

Alex Ferrari 1:25:51
I may be able to quote Dumb and Dumber, so you're saying there's a chance that's great. And on the other side of that coin of your growth is your mother. And the lessons that she taught me She's a remarkable producer. And holds the entire, the entire place for you know, when when your parents work together and work together early in their in their careers. She held the space for him, for him to be insane. Absolutely. Without question, right. So and inspire kids. And this one as well as she held the space. So everyone could be insane. What lesson if you can hold on to one, what is the lesson that your mother has taught you? From not only in the filmmaking side, but on the life side as well? Because, you know, I you know, I adore your mom, she's, she's, she's amazing. But as a producer, I even respect her so much. Because what she does, she doesn't get a lot of limelight for now and and producers, producers raise producers. Who What about Uncle Ben and Robert?

Rebel Rodriguez 1:27:12
What you know about them is usually because there were a huge problem. That's when

Alex Ferrari 1:27:17
You're like, oh, that producer. Okay. All right. We're we're in the Hollywood Hills. But so, so yep. So that that ability to hold space to protect your creators to hold a set to build a set? What advice to What lesson did you learn from her on that aspect and also in life in general? Yeah, it hurts.

Racer Max 1:27:40
This hurts the same thing filmmaking in life, you kind of learn one rule that applies to everything. And with her it was that you adore her. Everybody who's worked with her loves her. It's everybody, everybody, everybody, and so many, so much that on this new spike, it's we got to work together again, and so I was producing and she was producing. And I watched how much she's a mother, on set, and in production and in post, and seeing how much as much as we talked about the myth of a guy one did it all by himself, no money, none of this all by himself, but you got it. There are so many people in the background that led to something like that. And it's so important to remember that all of them are family too. They're just as much stewards of this creation, as you the lone Maverick, are. And they deserve all the love and all the respect and all the kindness you can give them to where they feel safe, and that they can explore and they can be creative and be insane. So that same foundation that allows them to grow and flourish. That's what she taught me. I see so many, like I studied the secrets of so many other films and TV shows that I love and I do some digging, do some digging and find people saying oh my gosh, the production was lovely because like there was this one person who took care of all of us and I go up they had an Elizabeth havea and I read another was had an Elizabeth Aviana up they had an Elizabeth Ibn I believe that so that would definitely be the biggest thing.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:29:08
Yeah, she always kind of mentioned that offense. Because she's you know, sprays five kids and all in quick succession while also making movies and she always says it took a village to raise to raise kids. I mean, it takes a whole team. But you hear her always say that it takes a village I always catch her saying it on set too. And it's like it's true. It takes a village to make a movie too. And it takes everyone being there. It's a whole team and it's all of us working together well and having a space where we can all be creative and bring our best to it that really is what makes it you know, that's kind of what she does. She sets the space for the magic to happen and yeah, that's

Alex Ferrari 1:29:42
The insanity Oh, don't get it twisted. Your mom's crazy to there they all think oh god different flavors. But there's there's an insanity to all of this love. Absolutely.

Racer Max 1:30:02
Absolutely.

Alex Ferrari 1:30:05
Now guys, I'm gonna I'm gonna ask you a few questions ask all of my guests. Please. What advice would you give a filmmaker or screenwriter starting in the business today and trying to break into the business today? Don't say make a mariachi, I'll hit you. Someone asked that to Quinton like ComiCon or something like that, you know what he said, Make Reservoir Dogs. That's the only way I know how to do it. And I'm like, Man, that easy, man, like just write Reservoir Dogs than fiction. I mean, that's it.

Racer Max 1:30:43
That's it's linear, simple, super simple. For me, it definitely be you go. There's the apps, if you haven't, if you want to make films, and you haven't made a feature yet, absolutely make a feature. And absolutely make a feature. And most importantly, put restrictions on it. Put time restrictions, put deadlines, put physical restrictions of what you can use what you got, I'm not telling you to go make mariachi I promise don't hit me, Alex. We talked about the importance of creativity and flourishing that and harnessing that. The dual side of that is you got to have your pants on fire a little bit, you got to have you got to channel insanity, you got to be a little bit crazy, so that it gets done. Because I I say you're not a filmmaker, until someone is sitting somewhere can be a couch that your house can be in a theater, if you're that lucky, or a screening room of some kind, if you make it that far, but you're not a filmmaker until the end credits are rolling. And people around, you have watched a full film you've made in that moment, you're a filmmaker. That's and doesn't matter if it's good or bad, whether they're running out of the theaters, to go grab pitchforks and come chase after you. Or if they're laughing, laughing their butts out harder than the left ever, it doesn't matter. The What matters is that you do that whole rep. Once you It's like doing half a push up and expecting that you've done one, it's now you can't filmmaking, it takes a long time to do a single push up. And you got to get all the way to that to that moment for it to fully count. So that's what I would suggest.

Alex Ferrari 1:32:22
Beautifully said sir, I will not be hitting you. Now it's your turn, you're still on the block. Go ahead.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:32:30
Adding to that, yeah, so that's the first thing we've learned. I've never learned more in my life than I have when there was a deadline, when you've got the pressure, that's when I don't know, I think it turns into kind of fight or flight. That's when you feel like, okay, we got to move, it's something has to be done by now. Even if you made up the deadline, it's something has to be done now. But my own one is, I think the most important thing too, is if you're, you know, you want to get into the business, you have these ideas, you know, because if again, like you said, we're all geniuses, we have this incredible thing in our head. Just start make something, don't care what it is start. Don't go and wait till you've got you know, Terminator till you got avatar, you've written the whole thing. And you can create this monstrosity, make something it doesn't have to be very big, but make at least start doing it and do a whole rep even if it's a little one. Do one show people now you officially made a movie. So it's most people never even start. They're like I want to do it. But I need blank, I have this, I haven't done this, I don't have that, you know, it's, you don't need anything, just start. And you will pick up the pieces that you need along the way. And at least then you've started doing it which most people don't even get there. So just by showing up the first day, you've started the process. Now you'll get momentum, if you're standing around waiting for inspiration or momentum, it's not gonna happen. So you gotta

Alex Ferrari 1:33:50
I feel that I feel like there's like a spirit of Robert in the room. And he's like, channeled through you to at the moment because it sounds so it sounds so beautiful. And both you guys said it's absolutely right. And where were you guys like 15 years ago for me because I wish I would have heard this 15 years ago, all I did was throw obstacles in front of myself. Right? And that's what a lot of filmmakers do. They're like, Oh, I can't do it until I have this camera. I can't do it until this person's there. I can't do it until I have this location. And it's excuses because you're either scared or have some trauma like I did, which is a whole nother story or other stuff like that. That stops you from going forward until you finally get to the place where like, Screw it. I'm gonna go to Sundance and make a movie

Rebel Rodriguez 1:34:38
You had the time of your life doing it and as oh my god I'm sure Nick came up. I'm sure you could feel the vibrancy in it as a result if it you know with what you came out with, it's just gonna it's got this energy to it because you were excited you drove this just the fact they said screw it. We're gonna make a movie. There you go. You started you're doing something now even if it's with your phone, you're going around and doing something at least and it's a difference.

Alex Ferrari 1:34:59
It's very harmful, it's really a powerful idea to just get going and get started. But I think the one thing that's missing from this this little bit is the attachment to what happens to it. The attachment to oh, I have to make this that was the biggest thing like a mariachi was the best. And the worst thing that ever happened to a whole generation of filmmakers, as as was clerks, as was slackers. All those, that generation is like, Oh, when I make my first film, it has to be Reservoir Dogs, right? It has to be mariachi, it's got to be clerks. And that pressure, you're just destroying yourself before you even get off the you can't walk with that kind of weight on you. You know, exactly. And you learned early on that you don't have to do that. Because you you know, I mean, I imagine that as filmmakers, the pressure that was on you guys, we talked a little bit about on Spike, it's too but you've got two very large shadows. They ain't but you're like, Screw it. I'm doing me and I'm going to do what I'm gonna do. They did what they did. I'm going to do what I'm gonna do. And it took me to just say, I'm 40 I gotta, I mean, what am I gonna wake up tomorrow? I'm gonna be 60 I'm going to start doing with this BS. I gotta make something. And I've been directing for 20 years, but I hadn't made the feature. Yeah, that was and that was the thing. So then once, I mean, once you make the one good, bad and different matter, you're like, Okay, I proved to myself, I can make one. Great. And now I can move forward. It doesn't have to be Reservoir Dogs, because no one's gonna make a Reservoir Dogs. Brothers McMullen in the Boys in the Hood. No one's gonna make those movies again, ever, ever. So once you get that out of your head, then it frees you to be the creative, the creative forces that you are now. So

Racer Max 1:36:50
Yeah, that is the missing key. The triumvirate right there. Absolutely agree.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:54
If there was if there was a worst day you've ever been on a production? What was that day? And how did you overcome it?

Racer Max 1:37:03
Oh, that's a good one. Let's see I gave him the raining raining on our climax story. Gosh, what's another? I know that was one of those wagons.

Alex Ferrari 1:37:19
I assume rebel when you're when you're composing. I mean, a hard drive might have crashed here and there. Or you are you get blocked from it's

Rebel Rodriguez 1:37:27
It's almost seems mental. It's almost always mental. It's and it almost happens on every single one of them. I'm gonna say and that's another thing I'll point out in a second. But yeah, it's it was heroes. This was the first time it really hit us. We can be heroes, I wrote that entire score. It was like a blessing and a curse. I wrote the huge battle sequence for the parents fight the aliens and all that I wrote. That was one of the first things I wrote for that. That was like, after he almost a year of learning orchestral music. I'd never written for an orchestra. So I've spending a year writing pretty much garbage. And hit that. And I was like, that's great. And Robert was like, Well, the good news is, that's really great music. That's incredible. You know, I could never write at that level. The bad news is, I can't help you on this anymore. You got to do the whole movie yourself.

Alex Ferrari 1:38:14
Because you have to pass the Master, I can't help you anymore. Good luck.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:38:19
It's not gonna sound the same. Exactly. You know, it's just sweat. Get in the way. And it was four months of me. I composed for four months on that one. And it's 90. It's like a 590 minutes of music. All

Alex Ferrari 1:38:37
Music

Rebel Rodriguez 1:38:39
From the music. Yeah. And I was halfway through, it's like two and a half months, I think was actually more than halfway, two and a half months in. And I had written 1/3 of it going as fast as I could go. And that's when it dawns on you. I don't think I'm Omega dude. And it's all mental. You're just up all night, just sitting there going, Dude, it's done for I'm gonna sink this whole movie.

Alex Ferrari 1:39:02
Oh, you start going down the rabbit hole, you start circling the drain.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:39:08
The whole movie has been made everyone's done their things. High fives you saw everyone was so excited when set was over did it's amazing edit. It's all coming together. You're the last guy there. I mean, you're just like, they're all like, Alright, make the last leap. You know, you're right there. And it's like, I don't think I'm gonna make it. And I don't know if something clicks there, where you go into overdrive. It's one of the scariest kinds of things because the way I say it is, the more ideas you create, the more impetus you're gonna get on the project, because you're kind of figuring it out like the puzzle piece of what's the style of it. What's this? What's that? Just keep making don't stop. It doesn't matter if it's good or bad. Don't judge it just keep making stuff, because you're going to have more room to work with. And so you start a movie, at least a score and it's halfway through and you haven't made half you've made like a third maybe even less. It almost like multiplies until by the end You're writing like, 10 times faster than you worked the beginning because you've just figured out more of the movie. So it always feels like you're down to the wire, pretty much. That was the first time I've ever experienced it. And there's always that moment where it dawns on you, it's like Rocky, where he's like, I can't do this, you know, I'm just gonna go the distance I it's, and it's one of if it could either break you or it can make you definitely it's one of those moments where you either quit and say, I can't do it, man, you're gonna have to hire someone else, or you just drive through and you know, it's fairly make it by the skin of your teeth. It's, you know, what's

Alex Ferrari 1:40:28
Fascinating is that I've done I don't know, 1000 episodes at this point. I've had composers on before, but I've never had a composer at your level that's able to do these large movies, or have have the opportunity to these large movies. And this really race pressure, because you're the last leg of the race. Yeah. And if you remember, yeah, if you fumble the damn baton. It's all over no matter how fast the other guys, we're, you're done. That pressure is something I've never really thought about for a composer, because a lot of the composers I've talked to like, you know, Oscar winners are big guys who have done this 1000 times. But you're just like, I've never talked them about like the beginning aspects of their career. Just like I was on a $70 million movie and I and I had no one around me to help like, I don't know, alone by sweating. I didn't really remark here.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:41:25
I'm here today. I survived somehow. i It's a blur. But yeah, it happens. And it's gonna happen. Every single movie, that's all. I come back, you think, Oh, you're on top of the world. That's it? No, it's like Rocky, he comes back. He can't do it again. You got to start from that from scratch again. You're like, I don't think I can do this one. Because this isn't that oh, this. This one's hypnotic. It's, um, it's got you know, and I feel like, we don't have an orchestra. They carried away. I mean, they do amazing work. You write this stuff, you give it to them, they make it sound incredible. It's all on me. What comes out of my computer, is what's gonna be on the movie. And it's like, I don't know if I can do this again. And it's like, you just you get in your head and it's over. So it's Yeah, every single time I've had it. It's just

Alex Ferrari 1:42:06
That's beautiful. Because it's like, like, you know, am I gonna have to go down to the button that a dungeon with Apollo and train again? Like, am I? Because I just can't obviously Mr. T is too much for me. I don't think I'm gonna make it. I think I've been broken. And now I have to come back. So it's so your Mr. T was like, spin off.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:42:30
A glass of water better be powerful, man. Because only thing you got oh my gosh.

Alex Ferrari 1:42:35
That's remarkable. Well, that's, that's great, man. Thank you for that story. That's I've just never really thought about that aspect of all right. I've been in post most of my life. So I've always been at the end. And I always figure it out. And I always, you know, posted and I've been post supervisor VFX, all that kind of stuff. So I always just figure it out along the way. But mines is technical in that sense. Maybe the creative with editing and stuff, but I'm not alone. A lot of times I have either producer. You're out there and an island by yourself. And there's just a phone call. Oh. Yeah. That's amazing. That's amazing. It's

Racer Max 1:43:14
Pretty incredible.

Alex Ferrari 1:43:15
So Rachel, how about you, my friend?

Racer Max 1:43:18
I'll just tack on to what he said. Because it's excellent. We're just really been fortunate. We haven't had really anything bad. You know, we've had things explode. We've had sure everything that could be considered bad, but it's like it's ever been really that bad. Because you just do it rebels had their

Rebel Rodriguez 1:43:34
Movie set standards happens all the time.

Racer Max 1:43:38
Whether it's Oh God, the wind is kicking up so high on our hypnotic finale that none of the actors can see Cassandra's blowing in their eyes. So we got to close out this finale as quick as we can. Let's make it emotional somehow. Because we're at a dry river basin and COVID We can't go anywhere else. Or it's like, oh, gosh, it's 105 degrees outside and our little actor star is just not having this seat. He is having a horrible time. And he's got to deliver some lines right now unless we can cut them cleverly. Right. Now watch this, I'll do a little drawing. I'll show you how we can fix this. So as Robin said, you start getting your head over, the most important thing you can do is get out of your head quickly. Start making it tangible start making tangible solutions, no matter what it is, whether it's the boats linking, the vehicles gone, actor can't make it. You have to rewrite the entire scene. Just start drawing, start writing, start talking to everybody that's there to help you and figure it out. Get out of your head quickly.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:35
Beautiful, beautiful advice, guys. Now, if you had a chance to go back in time, and talk to little rebel and little racer, what advice would you give them have a time machine. Dude, seriously, can I borrow a lot. There's a lot of stuff I need to work on.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:44:59
Yeah. Yeah. Actually, yeah on on Spy Kids, I had this one actually, we were we were in London and recording for the we're there for the orchestra group recorded live because the whole thing is live recorded. And it was up there that I wrote it down. I was telling Theresa, we're always just talk ideas about this kind of stuff. And I told them, I think I finally have something I would have like, gone back a few years and wish I told myself, like, really, really like, Man, I wish I did this five years ago, man, but it's a, it's an interesting kind of trap you rot you fall into because you're doing what you love. It's not what you really expect is. I loved making music. I mean, it was like everything to me, I was just out of school, and I've got all the time, you know, all the time, you could possibly think of got a part time job or whatever, you've got so much time as opposed to when I was in school, and it's like you're squeezing out whatever little bit you got, that isn't school time. And I think the worst thing you can do is be so passionate about it, that you put all of your time into it, and are willing to put in an unbelievable amount of hours into it constantly. And do every little last little touch and try to make the most perfect thing you can make. Because it's not at all how reality works. Honestly, it's, it's almost like you need and it's like it was always weird, I make things and I would just get so into the details and almost lost in the details to where you're not really doing the broad strokes well, and all that kind of stuff. Because that's so much time. It's like, oh, well, I can sit here and do this all day. And you know, mess with every little note I write and all that kind of stuff. It's it's actually counterintuitive. It teaches you all the wrong ways to do things in a weird way I'd watch my dad work. And Robert just has kind of this thing of like, well, I've only got this many hours, let's just hit it and let's do it. And he just dives right in. And he, I mean, he's making broad strokes pretty much but you see how he's not afraid to make mistakes, he's not afraid to make something that it doesn't seem like it's perfect to him. And it's almost like when he's mostly focusing on those broader strokes, he gets a big he gets a better result from it. It's almost like a bolt. I call that line confidence when you're an artist and you draw if you're just trying to make every like line really perfect actually end up kind of screwed scribbly if you've seen a great artists, they're just like, like nothing. I mean, it's just like they're just throwing them out there. And you watch Robert, he does the same thing. I went up and got to work with we got to work with John W on this again, who did the music first bite gets to he did you know it's like it's one all that kind of stuff. And he kind of helped birth the spike it sound but I watched him compose I like never gotten to see like a professional composer, actually in the midst of writing. And he's just like, all this stuff. I had like put all this time and attention to detail to Oh, I do this because I've all this time. He's just like glancing over like, and what he's focusing on is so different than what I was focusing on. Because he doesn't have time he doesn't put a lot of time into he's like, Well, in one hour, I gotta get the scene done. Swish wash, you know, does all that then versus me, I've got eight I could put all the time in the world, I wanted this and you focus on all the wrong things that teaches you to not look at the right things. If you give yourself a little time, this kind of goes into the deadline thing. You actually focus on what's the most important thing that will make the most impact. And that's where you start to make some real progress. So it was once I've started to do that I really started after I watched him write like that as like, oh, that's how you write. All my music was. I mean literally like leaps and bounds improved. So I mean, the

Alex Ferrari 1:48:22
The old guys have a couple of tricks. I'm gonna say baby.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:48:30
It's weird. It's like so counterintuitive, because you're like, I'm so passionate about this, how could I just now be so apathetic towards it? And it's like, it's not an apathy so much is it's like, you have to learn to just let it flow. You got to have that confidence in your strokes and just, you know, move with it. And it's almost more important to put more ideas out there rather than barely squeeze out one because you finally thought it was perfect. You know, get out of your head. Throw down too many. It's way better to have too much stuff. I mean, he would just overdo it. It put in too much and go. That was too much. And he backed off. At least now you found out where the ledge was. If you kept tiptoeing forward, blindfolded, you never know what that legends

Alex Ferrari 1:49:05
And take you forever to get there.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:49:06
Exactly. So it's that was really, really important.

Alex Ferrari 1:49:11
Another good answers racer.

Racer Max 1:49:13
First off, I would take the entire recording of this podcast and just play it to a 17 year old racer, you're gonna listen to this, you're gonna memorize every single word that is said here by all three of these people talking right now. Start with that, that's book one. Appreciate that book too. You're gonna you're at a high school now, little 18 year old racer, okay, you're gonna take a whole year off, you're gonna take gap year, what you're going to do is you're gonna make a feature, you have one year to do it. I don't care how you do it. But it's got to be done in one year and I dare you to make it good. It can't be you can't make it you can't be good. And go over time. You have to try to strive for some level of greatness. And you have to but you have to finish it. It has to be done by the end of this and and put some of your time into it. As Rachel said, Don't put all 16 hours of your day into it. Give yourself a workday, eight hours, six hours, whatever you manage to then go take time for family, for friends, all that stuff, because that's important too. You got to take care of all the other sides of your life because now you're dealing with adult things too. And make that happen. That'll teach you more than anything by and of course, most important thing, make it with what you got. Because without one year, no money. You don't have time for you don't have, there's nothing you can get for that. So once you've got

Alex Ferrari 1:50:35
And now and finally, the last question, and arguably the most difficult one, I've asked this entire conversation. Oh, each of you three of your favorite films of all time.

Racer Max 1:50:45
Oh, I always keep my list ready.

Alex Ferrari 1:50:50
By the way, everyone who's just listened to this, Rubble just grabbed this feels like okay, let me just pull up my list. Actually. That's great. Go ahead, guys.

Racer Max 1:51:01
I keep my top five on hand. So I've got Excalibur 1981 John, my top of the top favorite. Has everything. You see the new spike as you might see some influence. Fair enough. I absolutely love it. Number two, The Incredibles picks classic Pixar. Talk about VHS as you would watch on infinite repeat that that was the first time where I watched a movie all the way to the end. Went through the end credits because they're incredible. The music and everything Michael Giacchino just killing it. And I watched it all and I just hit reset. And I went, I think this is one of my favorite movies. This is the only one I've ever done this on. And then number three is old boy. Absolutely love, love the style from the early 2000s. It's got a style that all my favorite like video games, and like TV shows had at the time, that like this is y2k, dark futurism absolutely love it. So So those are my top three,

Alex Ferrari 1:51:55
The great top three and a half to just tell you a geek story real quick. I was at Sundance at midnight screening of old boy in the US premiere of a while, while the director was there he from Japan. And I met him and he was like, half asleep because the poor guy just flown over. And I remember seeing Oldboy at Sundance at the at the main theater there the Egyptian. And I'm like, What did I just watch? Like he was like, what insanity is this? I was it was it was one of those moments I'll never forget. No,

Racer Max 1:52:36
Nno, no, it's great. I had

Alex Ferrari 1:52:37
A midnight screening at Sundance with the director just flying in from Japan. Like he. He hadn't gotten there yet. When the movie started, he was there at the end for q&a. And then I met him outside outside. Everyone was gone already. I'm like so how are you? He's the end. This interpreter was there and it was like

Racer Max 1:52:55
Aamazing. Oh my god. That's amazing. I had

Alex Ferrari 1:52:59
A little geek story. Stories along the way, but that's

Racer Max 1:53:04
One of the benefits I get a lot of cool stories. That's for sure.

Alex Ferrari 1:53:10
Rebel, how about you? How's your tough time?

Rebel Rodriguez 1:53:13
All of his three are also my favorites, but I pulled out some extra other ones as well. We love those. But definitely one of my top favorite favorite animated at the moment right now cross the spider verse that was in I absolutely loved it. That was so radical. I mean, it's just it's changing the game of animated we love Incredibles, but it's really cool to see something now that's like, shoot. That's like another incredible system. Like it says a

Alex Ferrari 1:53:35
Whole other level. It's when I watched that. I was like, I mean that is going on.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:53:39
It's really impressive. On Mondays that's a classic. I love that one a lot. And now I love it more because I make music more learned. I appreciate it.

Alex Ferrari 1:53:49
I laugh Oh my god.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:53:54
Like the more you learn about music, the more you're just like, it's crazy. They captured like the genius of it so well.

Alex Ferrari 1:54:00
It's such a masterpiece.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:54:03
It's just fantastic. And then tied either jaws. That's a classic always loved on musical mountains. Great. I've always been a big fan of that but playing it on piano since I was like, you know, however young I was our dad intrusive to the jostling me. We didn't know what the movie was. So I just stared the music in the car and it was like you'll see it someday. And it's like, that was it. That's all I knew. And what's up, Doc? I love, love.

Racer Max 1:54:30
Nice, great. Comedy. Great. So great.

Alex Ferrari 1:54:34
So I noticed your dad didn't make the list, but that's fine. That's fine. I'm sure his ego will be fine with that. I wouldn't be like SimCity guy seriously did seriously. I drank the Kool Aid. So I'm glad to be of your father's

Racer Max 1:54:55
He's he's got a special list. It's like it almost doesn't count because like

Alex Ferrari 1:55:00
Oh So let me ask you this What is your favorite death?

Racer Max 1:55:03
Your first travel just to make sure I don't pick the same one.

Rebel Rodriguez 1:55:05
No you go for it because I know we're gonna pick the same one. I'll pick it.

Alex Ferrari 1:55:08
Okay top three top three. Top three Robert films in your world.

Racer Max 1:55:13
Number one road racers his second film. Yes, of course. So great. Incredible. I love the rebel spirit of it. So, so good. Then for me next it's Desperado. I just love what he did with mariachi and just like complete spiritual successor that just blew even more heads than the first one. Incredible. And then spike it to honorable mention my favorite my absolute favorite of the Spy Kids. Cuz I love the fantasy and the creatures and the fun and they have the best outfits in that movie. How about you?

Rebel Rodriguez 1:55:45
Road racers. Very big favorite of ours since city though, is another one. Definitely. I loved watching that one. He always puts off showing us his movies. We just wait till he wants to show it to us that when we watched, like midnight, practically we finished was like 2am. And he was like, Hey, let's make the breakfast tacos from the five minute cooking school. We made those 8am and like 3am

Racer Max 1:56:07
Just so we could ask them questions like, Yeah, but that was super

Rebel Rodriguez 1:56:11
Memorable for me. And then definitely MIT Archie as well and Desperado. So those are just,

Alex Ferrari 1:56:17
If I may, if I may throw mine into the ring, go for it. I think Desperado was because I was in film school and Desperado came out. I saw it in the theater. I saw it in the theater. And I saw I had that poster in my my room right in here. Whatever. Yeah, with Uncle Antonia. And that gun that was just amazing. That double barrel. Shotgun. Yeah. I'm gonna say Desperado. Because that was the one that really, that wouldn't really hit me since at without question, do you look at sincerely just like

Racer Max 1:56:52
I don't even know.

Alex Ferrari 1:56:56
And believe it or not, one of the other films that I really loved of his is once upon a time in Mexico. Oh, it's classic. It's excellent. Because once upon a time in Mexico, for me was the film that got me off. To make my first big short film that went on and did it didn't same things for me. And I had Roger Ebert review it and it was a whole. That's great. That's how it all started with once upon a time in Mexico is when I saw the guacamole gun, right? As I saw the welcome all the gun and I saw that and I was like, I think I could do this now. Like it was like there was so much like for sure obstacles that you put in your head. But that was the movie that just kind of pushed me over. So it has a special place in my heart for that was the movie that kind of launched my filmmaking side, not the commercial or music video side that I've been doing. But more the filmmaking filmmaking side was that that was the film that kind of did it for me. So those are my top three.

Racer Max 1:57:49
Wow, that's awesome. That's great. I love those pics. There's just so much to choose from. It's just all great. Oh, no, again, they're their own. That's their own category. You can't even Yeah, but

Alex Ferrari 1:58:00
Boys, I truly appreciate this conversation. Man. It has been such a pleasure and honor talking to both of you. Your your energy is infectious. I want to go make a feature. Now. I don't know why. But I'm gonna go shoot something. I don't know when but I'm gonna figure it out. Just figure it out. Yes, go, No, your energy is infectious. And in this has just been such a pleasure of conversation. And I do believe I agree with your race, or I think that filmmakers will get a whole lot out of this conversation. There's a lot of gems in this. And I hope it helps people around the world kind of maybe demystify a little bit of the myth. And really get into the weeds of how you actually make these films, and actually do this kind of process. The mariachi process, if you will, without the myth is much overhead. And you guys kind of cut through the myth really quickly. Like, we don't know. And, and there's. So it's been an absolute pleasure. So thank you so much. Oh, by the way, where can people watch spike?

Racer Max 1:58:59
It's spike. It'll be on Netflix coming at the end of September. Very soon. Very, very soon. Yeah, very excited. Please, if you're, if you're a fan, if you've grown up, if you have kids, please fill us we'd love for you to see it. And even if you've never heard us by kids, go check them all out there. have excellent, classic classic films.

Alex Ferrari 1:59:18
And do you have do you guys have any parting messages for any young racer or young rebel out there? Who's thinking about getting into this insanity, carnival circus ridiculous business that we're all in any parting messages for them?

Racer Max 1:59:36
Absolutely. I please jump in. Whether you want to do animated live action or shows or whatnot, please jump in because stories and films stories are how one of the methods that humans get truth from the world. And I want to see the truth that you can put into the world and teach all of us about and you're never going to make a mariachi Reservoir Dogs are clerics are any of those. But I don't want to see that from you. I want to see your film. I want to see what you can make. Rebel. That's great. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, shoot me think about that.

Alex Ferrari 2:00:18
Well, while you're thinking about that, I do have to say something. This is kind of the elephant in the room. You guys both have the greatest names ever. I know. I know. Is that your mom? I know it wasn't your mom. Your mom just allowed it but because I'll be honest with you I try already started I started a propaganda campaign with my wife when I was gonna have kids and like if I have a boy he has to be Maximus Ferrari Max Ferrari.

Racer Max 2:00:49
Ferrari has to be

Alex Ferrari 2:00:53
Extra yet I had but luckily I had girls so but it would have been

Racer Max 2:01:02
Maximum world was spared of a backstory

That's true. You can't you can't pass it up. Little bit or not. It's a little little mom's and sanity. Racer Max was chosen because my mom had a crush on Racer X when she swapped Speed Racer

Alex Ferrari 2:01:26
She came up with the name first and our dad came up with

Racer Max 2:01:29
It he they both thought racer would be fun after rocket and and then rebel was gonna be my name too but I was like that's not a rebel. I think this is a racer and came up with the middle name with with the Osama about people

Alex Ferrari 2:01:46
Insane insane all of your nuts anything you want to add Rachel no pressure.

Rebel Rodriguez 2:01:58
Yeah, so I think definitely, if you're gonna dive in, like Rachel said, do so. It's amazing. It's it's creative work is one of the most gratifying kinds of things ever. I mean, it's nothing opens your mind more like creativity. But definitely learn to love the process and all that it is it's all the good all the bad all the crazy days learn to see it Hafele learn to enjoy all of it. Because no matter how big and famous you get, or how much you stay right where you are, it's all gonna be the same the whole time it was just more money so there's more people and there's more problems more of the same thing. So enjoy and love the process for what it is and how gratifying it can be in an exciting that you know, you don't always know what's gonna come your way. So definitely learn to love the process. So

Alex Ferrari 2:02:40
Like P Diddy says more money, more problems. I understand what I got out of that. Guys, again, you guys are amazing. Thank you so much for being on the show and continue this gender, the next generation of Rodriguez insanity. So I appreciate you guys. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.