Rodrigo Rodriguez is the owner and director of Rio Bravo Pictures. Mr. Rodriguez has over 25 years experience in the television and film industry, the last 15 as a successful Commercial Director.

Rodrigo has directed over 100 commercials and has won over 40 national awards for his work. His work includes the first ever Hispanic Long John Silver’s Campaign, the first Texas Roadhouse commercial, over 30 commercials for the Texas Lottery, as well as work for ESPN, Uniroyal Tires, American Cancer Society, and Rent-A-Center. Rodriguez also has years of experience producing national television shows for The Travel Channel, Entertainment Tonight, MTV, and CNN.

After spending 20 years based in Houston, Rodrigo moved his company headquarters to South Texas in 2004. His focus was to continue doing high-level production work around the country, but have the more relaxed lifestyle that the Rio Grande Valley offered. His balance of national level work while gaining local clientele have established Rio Bravo Pictures as the only professional, high-end production company on the Texas-Mexico border.

After doing film productions in 5 continents and 26 countries, Rodrigo Rodriguez and his company, Rio Bravo Pictures, continue to grow and expand their abilities as a leading bilingual, bicultural, full-service film production company.

Rodrigo is repped nationally by TDN Artists in Los Angeles, California and by Rio Bravo Pictures in South Texas. He also holds a B.A. in Film Production from The University of Texas at Austin.

I am often asked what are my favorite movies of all time. Let me say that the list is always changing. Not because new films come in to replace old ones., but rather my life experience or perspective changes. I may like a film that I saw last week but, it will most likely take a long time to make its way onto my list. Also, the list is in no particular order. Ok, here we go:

8 ½ - I have a life-long love of Italian Cinema, and have seen this about seven times. A true masterpiece by the great Federico Fellini.

Down By Law - Considered the film that started the U.S. independent film era. A great example of Guerilla filmmaking by John Jarmusch.

Apocalypse Now Redux - Seldom has any production set such high and ambitious goals as Francis Ford Coppal did. Make sure it’s the “Redux” version. So much better that the original.

Citizen Kane - Never has filmmaking ever seen such a remarkable first film effort as this. Orson Wells - great Director and Actor.

Pan’s Labyrinth - New film (2007) by master of horror Guillermo del Toro. Spanish languish with subtitles. I wonder if it will stay on this list in 10 years?

Empire of the Sun - Spielberg's epic but largely forgotten WWII film. Stars a very young, 12 year old Batman.

Star Dust Memories - My favorite of many Woody Allen films. See 8 1/2 first.

All About My Mother - Another great Spanish Film by Almodovar.

Life Is Beautiful - Same actor in the previously mentioned “Down By Law”. Italian with subtitles.

The Wizard of Oz - Hey I was kid too!

Some honorable mentions: Nights of Cabiria, All About Eve, Lawrence of Arabia, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Los Olvidados, Cat People (Original), Bladerunner, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and Seven Samurai.

Enrique Leal is a writer, director, and producer at Rio Bravo Pictures. Wearer of many hats (some more stylish than others), Enrique enjoys every aspect of the creative and production process.

Enrique has also written and directed award-winning short films, worked in the Mexican film industry, and has directed various music videos. When not in the office, Enrique travels the world managing the Spanish rock band, ZERI.

Enrique was raised on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border and holds a B.A. in Film from Cornell University with Dual Concentrations in Latin American Studies and Latino Studies.

Goodfellas - The best representation of modern American cinema. The equivalent of Jazz music – this is Scorsese’s true masterpiece.

The Godfather II - The fact that it’s bigger and better than the original makes this possibly the greatest film achievement ever.

Hora de los Hornos - A nine hour long film about the fight against neo-colonialism in Latin America. The first hour was the best one hour of cinema I saw in four years of film school.

Soy Cuba - A Cuban/Russian collaboration. Propaganda film for communism and Castro’s regime. Crazy inventive cinematography. This is filmmaking with a purpose.

Battle of Algiers - Another film about neo-colonialism. If you see this film, you will understand why people go to war.

Rocky - This is the quintessential underdog movie in every aspect. Low budget, unknown actor, and the protagonist LOSES in the end.

After graduating high school in 2003, Steve Wilson bypassed that whole college thing and went straight into working on Hollywood movies. After relocating to Austin, he landed a job at Troublemaker Studios and worked on Robert Rodriguez’s Sin City and Spy Kids 3D as part of the Visual Effects Department.

With more real-world experience than many of his peers his age, Steve has excelled in both post- production and cinematography. He works at Rio Bravo Pictures as a visual effects artist, editor, and cameraman.

Born in Apple Valley, California and raised in deep South Texas, Steve is also an avid photographer and enjoys motor sports.

A true adventurer. Edwin was found in the southernmost eastern section of New Guinea, living among a pack of singing dogs. He was brought to South America shortly after his discovery and instituted in Peru. Edwin, at this point, was studied endlessly, in a small laboratory outside the city limits of Pisac, in order to gain a better understanding of how a human-being could be raised by a pack of ravenous canines. His captivity slowly leaked and soon there were crowds of protesters in this small Incan village. A protestor went as far as to bring his own pack of Singing Dogs.

One evening these dogs began to bellow in the darkness. The cries were heard clearly through the 4' cement walls that surrounded Edwin and reminded him of a time when things were calm. This put him in a state of abasement and drove him to take action against these rapacious humans.

When his caretakers came in to give him an early supper, Edwin began to sing. He had never sung in captivity for he was never comfortable, so the staff had no idea what to expect. EDWIN CAN'T SING. His bottom lip began to quiver as the first "notes" spilled out. In this very instant, the caretakers dropped what they possessed in their hands and covered their ears. It didn't help. Soon they were on the ground curled up in the fetal position desperately attempting to drown out the shrieks. One guard attempted to warble the lyrics of The Verve Pipe, in hopes that the appalling tracks would cancel each other out. Fail.

Edwin made his way down the hall, through the main corridor, and towards the exit leaving behind a trail of succumbing bodies. BAM! The front doors burst open and out come the strange boy gasping for fresh air. In this moment he feels a sense of freedom and appreciates the humid air on his face. The sky is the only ceiling he knew prior to being instituted and the pricks that made it possible were the only people he had ever met. When he saw the ocean of protestors, a sense of submerged fear drowned his thoughts. He kept running. He ran past the crowd and soon, the singing dogs were running alongside him.

At this point of his short life, Edwin disappeared from the face of society. For the next 10 years, he was nothing but a ghost spoken about by the Incan shaman. There are many theories about what happened in this missing decade, but nothing is concrete. What IS certain, is what happened on the morning of June 6th, 2009 in McAllen, TX.

Edwin Mendoza walked across the Rio Grande River with a Nikon strapped to his left arm and a Macbook Pro on his right. He came into McAllen because of a booming Film Industry, and sought out to find work. After a couple of months he found Rio Bravo Pictures, his new home. The people at Rio Bravo were far different from the scientists that he had first met. These people treated him like family, and he was finally happy: sitting at his desk as an editor and gripping on set.

His origins can be traced to the same birthplace of Tom Arnold, which is Ottumwa, Iowa. But unlike the genius comic, Ottumwa County Hospital has no birth record of Javi Yanez. Many historians simply believe that this is because Javi is a descendant of illegal immigrants from a Latin American country.

Little do they know of their flawed speculations; yes, Javi Yanez is the child of aliens, and yes they were illegal, but these particular aliens did not reside in South America, but on the Planet Maxon. Although Javi was raised as a human being, it was quite clear at a young age, that he had an uncanny talent for 3D modeling and animation. In 1993, Javi Yanez began to model 3D characters that he would then use to create video games for current gaming consoles. The problem with these animations, was that the technology for them had not existed yet. This quickly enticed the large video gaming corporations and he was randomly picked up one day on his way home from school. He was brought in to a private lab so they could run some quick tests on him. They were not violent and they treated him to Orange Sherbet everyday after dinner, so Javi was quite complacent with their every request. He gained something from these experiments that quickly changed his mind...

Javi Yanezʼs planet was destoyed 24 years ago by a Trojan Virus. You see, his planet was so advanced that they found a way to exist without physically existing. The planet created the ultimate simulation platform that allowed people to create avatars to coexist in a 3D environment(origins of the game Sims). The avatars were allowed to consume their natural resources in this 3D space without ever actually tapping into their planets resources. They seemed to have come up with the greatest way to prolong their existence, but they forgot to take the excessive heat displaced from the planet sized server into consideration. After 3,469,037,582 hours of online existence, the planetʼs core temperature rose to well above 456,421,445° celsius. The planet withered and died within the next year, but the parents of Javi Yanez had predicted this tragedy, so instead of spending time in the avatar realm, they raised a real child and built a one way ship to a Planet called Earth. When the planet began to deteriorate, they were attacked by a neighboring planet that had also run into the same overheating problem. The others planted a Trojan Virus in hopes to get every Maxonian offline and move in to reap the benefits of a new server... both sides lost as Maxon had already begun to collapse, but not before JAvi was well on his way to our planet.

After being released through pity (for being the last survivor of his planet) Javi decided to move to a location where technology hadnʼt begun to take over. He chose South Texas, but eventually found work creating the same 3D animations that had destroyed his descendants. He decided to exploit his natural talents, because, as he says, “being the last Maxonian, I have a duty to uphold our traditions.” Many speculate that he is the number one contributor to Global Warming.