Steven Spielberg :: essays research papers

I'm Steven Spielberg and I was born in Cincinnati on December 18, 1947, but I was mainly raised in New Jersey and Arizona. When I was 12 years old I used my dads 8mm camcorder and made a movie. I continued to make films with the camcorder for five more years until I went on a trip to Universal Studios. I was 17 years old and I broke away from the main tourist group to see the sound stages. I bumped into the head of Universal's editorial department, Chuck Silvers. We talked for about an hour and he wanted to see some of my 8mm films. When I showed them to him he said they were good but he could only wish me luck. So the next day I put on a suit and borrowed my fathers suitcase and walked in the front gate of Universal Studio's like I did it every day. One reason I got away with this is because the guard thought I was the owners son. I bought some plastic name tags at a camera store and I found an empty office. Then I put my name in the building directory. Everyday that summer I hung out with directors, writers, and editors. After talking to all of these movie makers I found out that nobody really liked my movies. The next fall I asked some of the executives at Universal how I can get my films noticed. They said I should put my films on 16 or 35mm film. So I did. I made a 20 minute movie about a boy and a girl hitch-hiking from the dessert to the Pacific. The day after it was shown at Universal, Sidney Sheinberg, the head of Universal's T.V. production department, gave me a seven year contract to work on T.V. series. The first few years of the contract were fun, but after a while I didn't want to direct T.V. shows. In 1971 I got a chance to make my first real movie. It was Called Duel and it was about a salesman who was harassed by a truck driver. Even though the movie didn't make much money and wasn't popular, it was my first movie and I had a lot of fun. During the next 10 years I directed 4 of the top 10 movies ever made, including Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and E.T. which is number one. E.T.- The Extra Terrestrial made $720 million dollars worldwide in the theaters and over a billion dollars total with video sales. Some other movies I directed were, Indiana Jones and the