Lucas: King Of Film :: essays research papers fc

Lucas: King of Film Whether it be through his epic Star Wars saga, or through the exalted special effects crew he pioneered, Industrial Light and Magic, he continues to amaze audiences world wide. His name in synonymous with famous directors/producers in the world. His impacts reach out in more fields than just film. He has created companies that produce award winning video games, toy companies produce action figures designed after characters from his movies, many books by many authors based on his original film stories, and countless other wings of Lucas' reign exist in today's world. Since his youth, George Lucas has experienced many influences, which in turn push him to make the greatest contributions to the film industry which leave an ever increasing impact on film today and the world. Throughout history, it is apparent that those who are recognized as "great ones" were influenced in some way or another to become the leader who they are. In George Lucas' case, he was greatly influenced in his late teens and early twenties. Lucas claims to have chased girls and raced cars throughout high school, and barely made it through (Moritz 258). Soon after high school, Lucas attended Modesto Junior College in California and continued to work on cars as his main interest (Moritz 258). In Smith, Lucas is quoted saying, "I was a hell-raiser; lived, ate, breathed cars! That was everything for me"(84). Lucas even worked on pit crews for race cars when he met Haskell Wexler, who introduced him to film (Moritz 258). Eventually Lucas realized his new passion was film. Mr. Wexler helped Lucas gain admission into the University of Southern California's film department (Moritz 260). In college Lucas was the head of his film classes winning many awards and accolades. His first feature movie in college was titled THX-1138 and won his university's award for best film (Moritz 259). Lucas is also inspired by his circle of friends and fellow directors, producers, and collaborations with them. With the success of THX-1138 at the university, Lucas was awarded the chance to be an observer on the set of Finian's Rainbow directed by University of Southern California alumnus Francis Ford Coppola (Champlin 7). Soon the two began to chat, and then became friends, so Coppola let Lucas work for him on the movie. With his hard work, Lucas earned the respect of Coppola who in turn did Lucas the favor of convincing producers to let Lucas direct a major motion picture (Moritz 7). Lucas' first major motion picture was American Graffiti, with this film Coppola had given Lucas the chance to make a foothold in the film industry, and he certainly did.