El Mariachi
Budget – $7,000
Worldwide Gross – $2,041,928
Return – 14,485%
Robert Rodriguez’s directorial debut, El Mariachi, was originally intended to only be released on home video, but Columbia liked the film so much that they snatched up the US distribution rights.
Rodriguez rewrote the book on guerrilla filmmaking here. He gained more than half the money for the film by participating in various medical experiments in Southern America. He shot the entire movie on one camera and instead of a dolly he sat in a wheelchair in order to have smooth moving shots. Furthermore, instead of doing multiple takes and using up film, at some points Rodriguez would have the actors freeze so he could move and film in another location, providing the illusion of multiple cameras.
The gun fights had just as many money saving tactics as the actual filming techniques. Instead of using actual rounds in the machine guns, Rodriguez would have the actors drop shells as they pretended to shoot, allowing them to use the shells multiple times. Some scenes even have water guns as opposed to real guns.
El Mariachi was inducted into the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress in 2011 and it went on to form the first (and best) part of Rodriguez’s Mexico Trilogy.