George Lucas Interview (page: 3 / 9) Creator of "Star Wars"	Print Interview

Was there anything about you as a filmmaker, or about your ideas, that made it so difficult to get that second film made?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. George Lucas: I came from a very avant-garde documentary kind of film making world. I like cinema verité, documentaries. I liked non-story, non-character tone poems that were being done in San Francisco at that time. And that's the film making that I was interested in. Francis Coppola, who was my mentor, sort of -- he's a writer and works with actors -- stage director -- and he said, "You've gotta learn how to do this." And so I took him up on the challenge and wrote my own screenplays, learned to write and work with actors.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

Get the Flash Player to see this video. It took me three, four years, to get from my first film to my second film, banging on doors, trying to get people to give me a chance. Writing, struggling, with no money in the bank, working as an editor on the side. Working as a cameraman on the side. Getting little jobs, eking out a living. Trying to stay alive, and pushing a script that nobody wanted.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

When the going gets rough, how do you deal with feelings of desperation?

George Lucas: I've had this quite a bit in my career actually. You simply have to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. Put blinders on and plow right ahead.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. When I was doing American Graffiti I was still struggling with my 'I don't want to be a writer' syndrome. I had some good friends of mine that I wanted to write the screenplay, but it took me like two years just to get the money to do a screenplay. And I got a little tiny amount of money and -- which I had to go actually to the Cannes Film Festival to get on my own. So finally I got this money. I called back and I said, you know, "I got the money. We can start working on the screenplay." And they said, "Oh, we don't want to do that now. We've got our own low-budget picture off the ground and we can't write it." I said, "Oh no." I said, "What am I going to do? I am in Europe and I'm not going to be back for like three months and I want to get this thing off the ground." So they recommended another student from school that I knew pretty well. I had a story treatment that laid out the entire story scene by scene, so I called him over the phone from London and I said, "Do you want to do this?" And he said, "Okay." The person I was working with at that time as a producer made a deal with him for the whole money because there wasn't very much. It was so tiny that he could only get him to do it for the whole amount of money. When I came back from England, the screenplay was a completely different screenplay from the story treatment. It was more like Hot Rods to Hell. It was very fantasy-like, with playing chicken and things that kids didn't really do. I wanted something that was more like the way I grew up. So I took that and I said, "Okay. Now here I am. I've got a deal to turn in a screenplay. I've got a screenplay that is just not the kind of screenplay I want at all and I have no money." And, I spent the very last money I had saved up to go to Europe to make the deal, so I had nothing. That was a very dark period for me so I sat down myself and wrote the screenplay.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. I kept getting phone calls from producers saying, "I hear you're great." I had made a film called THX, which had no story and no character really. It was kind of an avant-garde film. And so I had all these producers calling me saying, "I hear you're really good at material that doesn't have a story. I've got a record album I want you to make into a movie." Or, you know, things like that. And they were offering me a lot of money and -- but they were terrible projects. And so I had to constantly turn down vast sums of money while I was starving, writing a screenplay for free that I didn't like to write because I hated writing. But, I did finish it. I did write the screenplay and eventually I got a deal to make the movie. And then after I finally got that, then my friends came back in and did a rewrite on it, but it was a very dark period, and I could have very easily just taken the money and gone off and done one of these really terrible movies. I don't know what that would have done for my career, but you know, when the times are hard like that you simply have to say, "This is what I want to do. I want to make my movie. I don't want to take the money." And you just walk forward, step by step and get through it somehow. And I got through. It actually only took me about three weeks to write that script. I just every day would sit down at eight o'clock in the morning and I'd write until about eight o'clock at night. And I just said, "I'm going to finish this, as painful as it is, and I'm going to ignore these phone calls of lure of riches and get through this. And somehow I did it.

[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Film is not an easy occupation. There's a lot of occupations that are difficult. Film is one of them. There's always adversity that you're faced with. I like to tell students that I talk to that, you know, it's not a matter of how well can you make a movie. It's how well can you make it under the circumstance, because there's always circumstances. You cannot use that as an excuse. You can't put a title card at the head of the movie and say, "Well, we really had a bad problem. You know, the actor got sick and it rained this day and we had a hurricane." And you know, you can't -- the cameras broke down -- you can't do that. You simply have to show them the movie and it has got to work and there are no excuses. And so, you really have to focus on what you're doing and just plow ahead no matter what hurdles are thrown in front of you.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

Get the Flash Player to see this video. After I did American Graffiti, and it was successful, it was a big moment for me because I really did sit down with myself and say, "Okay, now I am a director. Now I know I can get a job. I can work in this industry, and apply my trade, and express my ideas on things and be creative in a way that I enjoy. Even if I end up doing TV commercials or something, or I fall back into what I really love is documentaries. I'll be able to do it. I know I can get a job somewhere. I know I can raise money somewhere. I know I can do what I want to do." That was a very good feeling. At that point, I'd made it. There wasn't anything in my life that was going to stop me from making movies.

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