Robert Rodriguez, On Cartooning
Prior to El Mariachi, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez had a job cartooning while at the University of Texas at Austin which taught him a great deal.
“Cartooning made me realize a lot about the creative process.”
He would have to do a strip a day and sometimes he would feel like he just did not want to “face the blank page” and he would go lay down and stare at the ceiling hoping it would just appear. Rodriguez came to understand that the “only way to do it, was by just drawing. You’d have to draw, and draw, and draw, and then one drawing would be kind of funny or cool.” Eventually finding one, “was kinda neat, this one kinda goes with that.” Rodriguez continues, “Then you draw a couple filler ups, and that’s how it would be created.”
Rodriguez discovered that, “You had to actually move” and applied that to all his work. “You just had to begin. [For] a lot of people that’s the part that keeps them back the most. ‘Well I don’t have an idea, so I can’t start.’ It’s like no, you’ll only get the idea once you start.” Rodriguez exclaims.
“It’s this totally reverse thing. You have to act first before inspiration will hit. You don’t wait for inspiration and then act or you’re never gonna act,” Rodriguez says, “Cause you’re never gonna have the inspiration — not consistently.”
“You can consistently perform and act and get there and sit and draw until it comes out — and it comes out… if you trust it and you get our of your way.”
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