Roberto Rodriguez' 10-Minute Film School

Roberto Rodriguez made his first film, El Mariachi, with a home video camera and a budget of $7,000.

It won the Audience Award at Sundance and Columbia Pictures picked it up and cleaned it up and distributed it.

His next feature film was Desperado, a sequel to El Mariachi starring Antonio Banderas. The film introduced Salma Hayek to American audiences. Rodríguez went on to collaborate with Quentin Tarantino on the vampire thriller, From Dusk till Dawn (he co-produced two sequels), and with Kevin Williamson on the horror film The Faculty.

In 2001, Rodríguez enjoyed his first $100,000,000 (USD) Hollywood hit with Spy Kids, which went on to become a trilogy, with the last film released in a crude form of 3D. A third "mariachi" film also appeared in late 2003, Once Upon a Time in Mexico which completed the Mariachi Trilogy. He operates a production company called Troublemaker Studios, formerly Los Hooligans Productions.

All in all, not a bad career start from a home video camera.

Rodriguez' advice -'pick up a camera and start shooting'

We agree

Wikipedia (from which I lifted the graphs above, also notes):

Rodríguez not only has the usual credits of producing, directing and writing his films, he also frequently serves as editor, director of photography, camera operator, steadicam operator, composer, production designer, visual effects supervisor, and sound editor on his films. This has earned him the nickname of "the one-man film crew." He abbreviates his numerous roles in his film credits; Once Upon A Time In Mexico, for instance, is "shot, chopped, and scored by Robert Rodriguez", and Sin City is "shot and cut by Robert Rodriguez."