Steven had to face rejections in his film-creating efforts, but he transformed them all into alternative route to success.
The day seemed like other days I Steven Spielberg’s life. Attired in his office suit and carrying a briefcase, he walked past the guards of the Universal Studio Building, sat on a chair made some calls, then went around watching the film shooting in progress. But actually that day he wasn’t expected to be on the location and his briefcase contained only his lunch. At that time, no one heard about Steven Spielberg – an interval administration 12 years old employee working in the Universal Studio’s purchase division.
Steven got that job through Chuck Silvers, a friend of his father’s friend who was in charge of the Universal Studio film library while Steven was already an able film maker for teenagers. Silvers had told him what administrative tasks top do and he admitted he couldn’t give Steven a permanent pass card to enter into shooting locations. But Steven made his appearance every day during summer with his office suit and his father’s briefcase and sometimes got past the guards.
It was all that you could expect from a boy who adopted a personal lifelong conviction he learned from a 1954 Disney film where Davy Crockett said: “Make sure you are right and go on!” And the whole career of Steven’s film creating truly adhered to that advice.
When Steven was eight years old, his father gave him 8 mm Brownie film camera as his birthday present. Steven immediately took hold of it and started to documentate every family outing. Sometimes he even asked his parents to repeat acting some scenes so he could record them again more “artistically”. Amazed by his own ability to create stories, he was attracted to remake a favourite action film into his own version by shooting a train accident scene using his electric toy train. In the following year he succeeded in taking the shooting of his boy scout troop in the Western area. Thus he proved he could manage to gather a crowd as required by his film scenario. In that film “The Last Shoot Out” he won a prize for cinematography.
By the eighth year, Steven’s talent for film making was already known across his neighborhood and all the children there took part in his film actions. Wearing their fathers’ old army uniforms, they matched to the airfield where Steven had secured a permit to record them acting in the cockpit of an old fighter aircraft for the purpose of making a drama film about World War II titled “Fighter Squard”. Among the actual documentary scenes of fierce air battle he inserted scenes of his friend in action as having been hit.
People who know him then came to realize Steven’s talent. His film “Escape to Nowhere” won the national contest in the category of new coming director, and it was published in the local newspaper. “Firelight” – a predecessor of “Close Encounters of The Third Kind” which showed static animation and adjusted dialog, music and sound effect, was twice analyzed by a national newspaper and was presented in the city theater as if it was a Hollywood premiere. By the time he finished making “Firelight” at the age of 17 years old, Steven had established himself as a bright director and as mature as a man twice his age.
His achievement might resulted from his personal misery In his earlier age. As the eldest child of an IBM computer engineer and an ordinary housewife, Steven had to undergo three moves as he grew up and faced lots of difficulties they came with. Just as his teacher came to notice Steven’s intelligence, he hardly made an effort to attend to his school lessons, so he consequently got only C grade. He was unlike any other boy, rather he was peculiar; a boy whose talent and skill seemed to suit more for creating films than for sports or popularity contests. Frequently mocked and insulted, Steven’s unique interest and religious back ground made his class mates shun him. As the only few in the waspy suburban, he had to face ethnic insults thrown at him in his school community.
His home was no heaven either. His father worked for days away from home and Steven yearned for his presence. But when his father was at home, they both were involved in heated arguments over Steven’s low school grades, especially in science subjects – it was Mr. Spielberg’s greatest mistake for ever expecting his son to become an engineer like himself. When not arguing with his son, Mr. Spielberg got into quarrel with his wife, as the mind set of an engineer just won’t compromise with his wife’s artist mind set. The unhappy marriage ended in a divorce when Steven was in High School. The lack of fatherly figure in Steven’s life was later often to become his various films theme.
Unfriendly surroundings of his home and school made Steven took refugee into the Fantasy world of his films. He talked about his ambition to become a “Cecil B De Mille of science fiction” to anyone willing to listen, but his poor school grades didn’t help much in taking him closer to the fulfillment of his ambition. In the last year of his school, he enrolled himself to two of the best film institutions in the country: University of Southern California and University of California in Los Angeles. But even with ten years of experiences in film making and some recommendations from his mother in Universal Studio, he was flatly turned down.
Unwilling to give up, Steven entered California State College in Long Beach. He chose that study because it offered a title in the field of TV and radio which might open his way to Hollywood. But the university was not suited to his experiences. One of the instructor there recalled, “Steven knew more about camera than anyone else in the department. He could teach there.” After watching a short film made by George Lucas, a USC student, he tried again to transfer to a better film program. But his habit of playing truant-so he could watch movies all day long in the local theater-stuck to him through his university days. His low school grades were his setbacks and a professor told him, “You’d better go to Vietnam” because he was always expelled from the campus.
Not finding any inspiration in the university education, Steven created his own education. He cleaned his jacket and briefcase, then returned to visiting Universal location. He came into any department he could find access to-shooting rooms, editing, sound-mixing. He introduced himself either as an actor, director or producer and invited some of the people there to dinner. He sneaked into film location and stayed there until his unrightful presence was found out and he was ordered to leave. But quietly he returned. Steven guessed he was expelled from the location at lease once in a day.
When Steven tried to convince the Universal executives into watching one of the 8 mm films he made when he was learning, they told him they were only interested in 16 mm films. Steven got himself a job in the university cafeteria, used his money to create a 16 mm films by renting a camera and completed the film in one week. His mentor, Chuck Silvers reprimanded Steven not to see him again until Steven made a 35 mm films he did the same procedure and several months later, he showed Silvers his film on which Silvers recalled “What I saw was a perfect movies”.
The film was titled “Amblin”. It was a short duration silent film about a couple of burns having existence crisis, differed greatly from the sci-fi and combat films Steven later used to direct. Still, the short film was an amazing creation-amazing enough to be presented to the executive board, and then Steven, still in his 21 years of age, signed a seven years contract with Universal. After completing some tasks of directing TV dramas and low budgeted projects, Steven was entrusted to direct his debut of a big Hollywood film: a thriller film starring a shark!
“Jaws” was a box office and it made Steven a well considered director. He continued his relationship with Universal to produce “E.T”, “Jurassic Park”, and “Schindler’s List”. As reflected by his first producer, “it is not by any coincidence that Steven is in his present position”. Steven’s fervent spirit in making films strengthened him in standing fast against all rejections, prejudice and skeptism and gave him a determined conviction of his ability which drove him to keep moving forward.
That was the thing that made him have the last laugh. Once rejected by USC, Steven Spielberg is now holding the honoris causa degree granted by that institution and is a number of its supervisory board.
The day seemed like other days I Steven Spielberg’s life. Attired in his office suit and carrying a briefcase, he walked past the guards of the Universal Studio Building, sat on a chair made some calls, then went around watching the film shooting in progress. But actually that day he wasn’t expected to be on the location and his briefcase contained only his lunch. At that time, no one heard about Steven Spielberg – an interval administration 12 years old employee working in the Universal Studio’s purchase division.
Steven got that job through Chuck Silvers, a friend of his father’s friend who was in charge of the Universal Studio film library while Steven was already an able film maker for teenagers. Silvers had told him what administrative tasks top do and he admitted he couldn’t give Steven a permanent pass card to enter into shooting locations. But Steven made his appearance every day during summer with his office suit and his father’s briefcase and sometimes got past the guards.
It was all that you could expect from a boy who adopted a personal lifelong conviction he learned from a 1954 Disney film where Davy Crockett said: “Make sure you are right and go on!” And the whole career of Steven’s film creating truly adhered to that advice.
When Steven was eight years old, his father gave him 8 mm Brownie film camera as his birthday present. Steven immediately took hold of it and started to documentate every family outing. Sometimes he even asked his parents to repeat acting some scenes so he could record them again more “artistically”. Amazed by his own ability to create stories, he was attracted to remake a favourite action film into his own version by shooting a train accident scene using his electric toy train. In the following year he succeeded in taking the shooting of his boy scout troop in the Western area. Thus he proved he could manage to gather a crowd as required by his film scenario. In that film “The Last Shoot Out” he won a prize for cinematography.
By the eighth year, Steven’s talent for film making was already known across his neighborhood and all the children there took part in his film actions. Wearing their fathers’ old army uniforms, they matched to the airfield where Steven had secured a permit to record them acting in the cockpit of an old fighter aircraft for the purpose of making a drama film about World War II titled “Fighter Squard”. Among the actual documentary scenes of fierce air battle he inserted scenes of his friend in action as having been hit.
People who know him then came to realize Steven’s talent. His film “Escape to Nowhere” won the national contest in the category of new coming director, and it was published in the local newspaper. “Firelight” – a predecessor of “Close Encounters of The Third Kind” which showed static animation and adjusted dialog, music and sound effect, was twice analyzed by a national newspaper and was presented in the city theater as if it was a Hollywood premiere. By the time he finished making “Firelight” at the age of 17 years old, Steven had established himself as a bright director and as mature as a man twice his age.
His achievement might resulted from his personal misery In his earlier age. As the eldest child of an IBM computer engineer and an ordinary housewife, Steven had to undergo three moves as he grew up and faced lots of difficulties they came with. Just as his teacher came to notice Steven’s intelligence, he hardly made an effort to attend to his school lessons, so he consequently got only C grade. He was unlike any other boy, rather he was peculiar; a boy whose talent and skill seemed to suit more for creating films than for sports or popularity contests. Frequently mocked and insulted, Steven’s unique interest and religious back ground made his class mates shun him. As the only few in the waspy suburban, he had to face ethnic insults thrown at him in his school community.
His home was no heaven either. His father worked for days away from home and Steven yearned for his presence. But when his father was at home, they both were involved in heated arguments over Steven’s low school grades, especially in science subjects – it was Mr. Spielberg’s greatest mistake for ever expecting his son to become an engineer like himself. When not arguing with his son, Mr. Spielberg got into quarrel with his wife, as the mind set of an engineer just won’t compromise with his wife’s artist mind set. The unhappy marriage ended in a divorce when Steven was in High School. The lack of fatherly figure in Steven’s life was later often to become his various films theme.
Unfriendly surroundings of his home and school made Steven took refugee into the Fantasy world of his films. He talked about his ambition to become a “Cecil B De Mille of science fiction” to anyone willing to listen, but his poor school grades didn’t help much in taking him closer to the fulfillment of his ambition. In the last year of his school, he enrolled himself to two of the best film institutions in the country: University of Southern California and University of California in Los Angeles. But even with ten years of experiences in film making and some recommendations from his mother in Universal Studio, he was flatly turned down.
Unwilling to give up, Steven entered California State College in Long Beach. He chose that study because it offered a title in the field of TV and radio which might open his way to Hollywood. But the university was not suited to his experiences. One of the instructor there recalled, “Steven knew more about camera than anyone else in the department. He could teach there.” After watching a short film made by George Lucas, a USC student, he tried again to transfer to a better film program. But his habit of playing truant-so he could watch movies all day long in the local theater-stuck to him through his university days. His low school grades were his setbacks and a professor told him, “You’d better go to Vietnam” because he was always expelled from the campus.
Not finding any inspiration in the university education, Steven created his own education. He cleaned his jacket and briefcase, then returned to visiting Universal location. He came into any department he could find access to-shooting rooms, editing, sound-mixing. He introduced himself either as an actor, director or producer and invited some of the people there to dinner. He sneaked into film location and stayed there until his unrightful presence was found out and he was ordered to leave. But quietly he returned. Steven guessed he was expelled from the location at lease once in a day.
When Steven tried to convince the Universal executives into watching one of the 8 mm films he made when he was learning, they told him they were only interested in 16 mm films. Steven got himself a job in the university cafeteria, used his money to create a 16 mm films by renting a camera and completed the film in one week. His mentor, Chuck Silvers reprimanded Steven not to see him again until Steven made a 35 mm films he did the same procedure and several months later, he showed Silvers his film on which Silvers recalled “What I saw was a perfect movies”.
The film was titled “Amblin”. It was a short duration silent film about a couple of burns having existence crisis, differed greatly from the sci-fi and combat films Steven later used to direct. Still, the short film was an amazing creation-amazing enough to be presented to the executive board, and then Steven, still in his 21 years of age, signed a seven years contract with Universal. After completing some tasks of directing TV dramas and low budgeted projects, Steven was entrusted to direct his debut of a big Hollywood film: a thriller film starring a shark!
“Jaws” was a box office and it made Steven a well considered director. He continued his relationship with Universal to produce “E.T”, “Jurassic Park”, and “Schindler’s List”. As reflected by his first producer, “it is not by any coincidence that Steven is in his present position”. Steven’s fervent spirit in making films strengthened him in standing fast against all rejections, prejudice and skeptism and gave him a determined conviction of his ability which drove him to keep moving forward.
That was the thing that made him have the last laugh. Once rejected by USC, Steven Spielberg is now holding the honoris causa degree granted by that institution and is a number of its supervisory board.
Post a Comment