Rebel Without a Crew

Rebel Without a Crew (subtitle: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player) is a 1995 non-fiction book by Robert Rodriguez. Presented in a diary format, Rebel details Rodriguez's beginnings as a young filmmaker, his stint at a medical testing facility to raise money for a feature film, the making of that film (El Mariachi) for $7,000, and his subsequent experiences in Hollywood selling the film and going to film festivals promoting it.

Later editions of the book also feature one of Rodriguez's tutorials on low-budget filmmaking (Ten Minute Film School) and the screenplay to El Mariachi.

Rodriguez' rags-to-riches story, detailed in Rebel, as well as his vociferous support of low-budget techniques (such as digital cinematography) to allow anyone to make a movie cheaply, have made him an icon of modern independent filmmaking.

...
Wikipedia