The Notepod #2 – “Rebel Without a Crew”

May 30, 2020

Here’s the second episode of The Notepod. This is another book notes episode. Each episode might be about a book. I’m still figuring it out but wanted to get started with consistency.

Which sort of relates to the book this episode is about, “Rebel Without a Crew” by Robert Rodriguez.

Here are some links to things mentioned in the show

• Tim Ferriss Show – The “Wizard” of Hollywood, Robert Rodriguez (#98) — If you’re not going to get the book, at least check this podcast episode out. Really cool to hear about him talking about putting the book together and continuing on with his diary and journaling all the way to now. (He uses the stock Apple Notes app for quick capture.)

Correction to something I said in the audio. I mentioned he journals with Apple Notes and possibly a hardbound journal. He’s always done his journaling in Word on his Apple laptop and uses Notes for todos. No physical journal. As he explains when Tim asks him if he journals longhand:

No, I do them all in the computer. I have a little alarm that goes off at midnight, because around midnight is usually a good time and I’ll write something down. Because I found that even when I just wrote some items down, I could go back and fill them in later because I would remember, and it always would shock me. What kept it going is when I would go back and review the journals, and how many life changing things happened within a weekend. Or things that you thought were spread out over two years were actually Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and that Monday. So many occurrences happened in chunks hat could blow you away; things that kind of define you.

Really good point. Of all the days in a year, how many of them could you swap with each other without noticing? So many days can be nearly identical. It’s always interesting to review some pivotal period of your life and see that what you thought was a few weeks was really just a couple important days. (Or the opposite where a change over time could really be pinpointed to a single day.)

• El Mariachi trailer — I mentioned a quote from the book where he talks about starting postproduction by putting the trailer together.

• Ten Minute Film School: The Making of “El Mariachi” — Really really cool that this is available online. Robert Rodriguez gives director’s commentary on some scenes in the movie, explaining framing and equipment choices. Similar topics to what his diary entries cover in the book, but in this video it’s from the perspective after it’s all put together.