‘Mariachi’ Premiere in Tune With Sound and Vision

The Scene: Thursday’s premiere of “El Mariachi” at the Directors Guild. It was also the opening of Sound and Vision: Hollywood Salutes the Grammies, a six-day film festival hosted by the American Cinematheque. The film fest was the kick-off for a slew of events leading up to Wednesday’s Grammy Awards. “The Grammies are now more than just an award’s show,” said host committee Chairman Irving Azoff. “They’re a whole week.”

Subplot: “El Mariachi” was originally made for the Spanish-language home-video market for $7,000, which as one studio exec remarked, “was the breath-mint budget on ‘Bonfire of the Vanities.’ ”

The subtitled action-film has now been picked up by Columbia. “We have a bad habit of throwing money at our problems,” said the same exec. “If you don’t have money, you throw something else. Like creativity.”

Who Was There: The film’s 24-year-old director, Robert Rodriguez; its star, Carlos Gallardo, Grammy week co-chairs Liz Heller, Roberta Cruger and Joann Klonowski plus 650 guests including Cheech Marin, Stephanie Allain, Peter Bonerz, Huell Howser, Paul Mazursky, El Vez, Barbet Schroeder and comedian Paul Rodriguez, who’s convinced that “this is the Year of the Rodriguez.”

How It’s Done: “I borrowed the camera,” explained director Rodriguez. “I shot 10,000 feet of film. We paid full price, $2,300. We developed it at 13 cents a foot. That was $1,300. Then we transferred the negative directly to video. That was 28 cents a foot. I could’ve got it cheaper in New York--14 cents a foot--but I paid 28 cents, $2,800. The other $600 went for two filming light bulbs. And as for props, the cops in Mexico lent us the guns.”

Dress Mode: Men in worn corduroy pants, tired Keds, blue blazers and T-shirts who look like young filmmakers. Women in Anne Taylor business suits who look like they support them.

Chow: There was a touch of irony to the hors d’oeuvres of taquitos, chimichangas, flautas and empanadas, since Rodriguez polished the script, met a co-star and raised $3,000 while spending a month as a test subject for a cholesterol-lowering drug.

Quoted: “It’s a little movie--a home movie really--that’s getting released by Columbia Pictures,” said Rodriguez. “Doing it has given me a lot of confidence. If nothing else, I know I can go make another movie like this and someone will buy it.”