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 superfluous effects crew he pioneered, Industrial Light and Magic, he continues toamaze audiences world wide. His name in synonymous with famousdirectors/producers in the world. His impacts reach come out of the closet in more fields thanjust film. He has created companies that produce award loving video games, toycompanies produce action figures designed after characters from his movies, legion(predicate)books by many authors based on his original film stories, and countless otherwings of Lucas reign exist in todays world. Since his youth, George Lucas hasexperienced many influences, which in turn push him to make the greatestcontributions to the film industry which leave an ever increasing impact on filmtoday and the world.     Throughout history, it is probable that those who are recognized as"great ones" were influenced in some way or a nother to become the leader whothey are. In George Lucas case, he was greatly influenced in his late teensand early twenties. Lucas claims to have chased girls and moved cars throughouthigh school, and barely made it through (Moritz 258). Soon after high school,Lucas attended Modesto Junior College in California and continued to work oncars as his main interest (Moritz 258). In Smith, Lucas is quoted saying, "Iwas 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, whointroduced him to film (Moritz 258). Eventually Lucas realized his new passionwas film. Mr. Wexler helped Lucas gain admission into the University ofSouthern Californias film department (Moritz 260). In college Lucas wasthe head of his film classes winning many awards and accolades. His firstfeature movie in college was titled THX-1138 and won his universitys award forbest film (Moritz 259).     Luc as is also inspired by his circle of friends and bloke directors,producers, and collaborations with them. With the success of THX-1138 at theuniversity, Lucas was awarded the chance to be an observer on the set ofFinians Rainbow directed by University of Southern California alumnus FrancisFord Coppola (Champlin 7). Soon the both began to chat, and then became friends,so Coppola let Lucas work for him on the movie. With his hard work, Lucasearned the respect of Coppola who in turn did Lucas the favor of convincingproducers to let Lucas direct a major motion picture (Moritz 7). Lucas firstmajor motion picture was American Graffiti, with this film Coppola had givenLucas the chance to make a foothold in the film industry, and he certainly did.