Biography of legendary director George Lucas

Film producer, screenwriter, editor, director, cameraman, businessman and philanthropist. He became most popular after creating the sci-fi saga Star Wars and a series of films about the adventures of Indiana Jones. Lucas - one of the most wealthy directors in the world.

On 14 May 1944 in the state of California on a ranch in Modesto, the future director was born. The boy was given the name George Walton Lucas Jr, which he later made famous by becoming a dreamer and fantasist on a large scale.

Childhood and youth

From early childhood, the boy, like Skywalker, dreamed of becoming a professional car racer in the future, for this reason Lucas was fascinated by a variety of machinery and how it works. However, a malfunction in the car caused an accident involving Lucas, which results in a guy spending time in a hospital roomLucas makes a fateful decision to change his role, forgetting his future as a car racer and instead giving all his energies and talents to the film industry. Lucas makes a fateful decision to change his role, forgetting about his future as a car racer and instead giving all his strength and talents to the film industry.

To achieve this goal, Lucas became a student at the University of Southern California, where he managed to release his first film works, the most famous of which was the film entitled "THX-1138: 4EB (Electronic Maze).". This work was awarded a prize position at the National Student Film Festival.

Lucas' creative endeavours

Around these same years, the future director met a man who was his business partner for a long time, but also became a real friend to Lucas. This man's name - Francis Ford Coppola. The guys released a joint project. It was a company called American Zoetrope, which they founded in 1969. The company's first film project - a feature-length version of the film called "THX-1138". However, this brainchild of Lucas was rather coolly received by the public and critics. Perhaps this is due to the "eccentricity" of the film.

In 1971, Lucas set up his own studio, to which he gave the name "Lucasfilms Ltd". It was here that a film was shot, which was the first step in the director's long creative journey. The film called "American Graffiti", which saw the light of day in 1973. Its plot is less intricate, but it was recognised by specialists and was nominated for an Oscar and won a Golden Globe Award..
The success of the first film so inspired the director to further creativity that after reading stories and comics about the adventures of the samurai, George decided to start work on the creation of his brainchild, which brought him world fame, namely the saga called "Star Wars".

Lucas's brainchild is now recognised as a cinematic classic, but it was very difficult to find the finances for the filming process. Most of the film companies couldn't understand the idea of the film and thought it was a failure. Accordingly, and allocate funds for the shooting process of the film refused. But everything changed for the better, and the money still found: they agreed to allocate the film company "20th Century Fox". But this is not all gifts of fate. Lucas managed to sign a contract, which, at that time, was very profitable (40% profit from the rental and sale of related products). What was the rationale behind this decision? It's very simple - at the time, one of the most popular film companies of our time wasn't doing well, so they decided to take a risk.

The first part of the famous saga, which saw the light of day in 1977 brought Lucas fame, glory and big profits. Box office receipts of the film broke the record Spielberg's film Jaws, which was a record-breaker at the time. However, the large fees that the film box office brought in were several times lessthan the amount of money Lucas made from the sale of merchandise related to the saga. Fans bought every last one of them in huge quantities. The same fate awaited all subsequent "Star Wars" instalments.

Lucas made not so many films, but they were enough to make a creative revolution in the cinema of that time. The director managed to prove to the world community that the success of the film depends not on the number of invited famous actors, but on the competent use of special effects. George's films take the audience into a fairy-tale world, into the atmosphere of childhood. We can have a long discussion on the topic of "Did Lucas undermine serious cinema by using this creative approach or not?". However, after the release of the saga, Hollywood decided to turn its attention to colourful attraction films, temporarily boycotting all other genres.

The success of Star Wars

The saga called Star Wars has brought extraordinary fame to the director. In his interview, the man says that he has a whole special ritual. At the time when his next creation is released, Lucas makes an "escape" to the ocean shore and quietly rests there, experiencing the excitement caused by his brainchild. This helps not to soar and not to become conceited from the dizzying success, but also also not get depressed by the barrage of criticism. After 10-15 days, he returns to his homeland, as at this point the hype around his film usually subsides. Then Lucas has the opportunity to calmly analyse the result of the premiere of his brainchild, avoiding the fuss and ambiguous opinions that flowed in the first days of distribution.

When asked what is more difficult to write a script for a future film hit or to bring it to life through the process of filming, the director replies that both the first and the second are more difficult - causes certain difficulties. "Personally, I don't think I'm - a professional screenwriter. I feel good about myself as a film maker. For this reason, I have an idea of what I want the film to look like in the end. I think of a film as telling a story with music and images that change with each other. And I'm enjoying the activity: very often I can spend 12 hours instead of 2 on my work, to the extent that it fascinates me, I may not notice how time flies."