AUSTIN – SXSW has always been a festival that caters to filmmakers. Sure, the occasional moviestar makes an appearance (as Seth Rogen is doing tonight), but the talent behind the camera normally takes centerstage.

The reason for that is that part of SXSW’s mission is education. Hence the dozens of daily panels on everything from how to secure music rights for your film to how to make a trailer.

Monday afternoon, Austin filmmaker Robert Rodriguez and Henry Selick put on a mini film school in special effects. Selick is the director of this year’s animated 3D smash Caroline, while Rodriguez is credited with the revival of 3D earlier this decade with Spy Kids 3D.

Each showed behind-the-scenes footage of how they pulled off certain effects, the simplist of which had Rodriguez painting a treadmill green and having the actor walk on it so as to not run out of green-screen space.

“Not having the resources you need is the ultimate gift you can give your creativity,” Rodriguez said.

Those words of wisdom no doubt resonated with the many student filmmakers in the crowd, including nearly everyone from the Birdville ISD Media Tech program that I profiled last week.