George Lucas

George Walton Lucas Jr (born May 14, 1944) is an American film director famous for his epic Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies. Star Wars in 1977 is considered by some to be the first "high concept" film, although others feel the first was Steven Spielberg's Jaws.

Biography

Lucas was born in Modesto, California. His father George Walton Lucas, Sr., ran a stationary store. Lucas attended Downey High School, and he was interested in racecar driving. He dreamed to become a professional racecar driver. However, a terrible automobile accident abruptly ended that dream, and therefore, changed his views on life. During the 1960s, Lucas studied cinema in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, one of the earliest universities to have a school devoted to film. There he made a number of short films, including an early version of THX1138, later to become his first full-length feature film.

After graduating, he co-founded the studio American Zoetrope with Francis Ford Coppola, hoping to create a liberating environment for filmmakers to direct in outside the perceived oppressive control of the Hollywood studio system. American Zoetrope never really succeeded, but from the financial success of his films American Graffiti and Star Wars, Lucas was able to set up his own studio, Lucasfilm, in Marin County in his native northern California. Skywalker Sound and Industrial Light and Magic, respectively the sound and visual effects subdivisions of Lucasfilm, have became among the most respected firms in their fields. Lucasfilm Games, later renamed to LucasArts, is highly regarded in the computer games industry.

Lucas was fined by the Directors Guild of America for refusing to have a standard title sequence in his Star Wars films. After paying the fine, Lucas quit the guild.

On October 3, 1994 Lucas started to write the three Star Wars prequels and on that November 1 he left the day-to-day operations of his filmmaking business and started a sabbatical to finish the prequels.

Currently Lucas' reworkings of the originally released Star Wars films has attracted criticism from some fans, as he is refusing to re-release the originals on DVD. Others claim that Lucas's decision is based around his wish not to re-release films which to him represent unfinished efforts. The latter sometimes have accused the former of believing they know more about Star Wars than its creator. Most, however, believe that the original versions should be preserved at least for historical value, since those versions were the ones responsible for creating the fanbase and changing the entire Hollywood studio film paradigm.

Innovator

Besides his directorial and production work on movies, Lucas is the most significant contemporary contributor to modern movie technology. In 1975 Lucas established Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) in Van Nuys, CA, which was responsible for the invention the special computer assisted camera crane "Dykstraflex" that was used for most of the space fight sequences used in the Star Wars movies (technology which was later adopted by most other visual effects production units, such as those responsible for "Battlestar Galactica" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation"). Through ILM, Lucas spurred the further development of computer graphics, film laser scanners and the earliest use of 3D computer character animation in a film, Young Sherlock Holmes. Lucas sold his early computer development unit to Steve Jobs in 1988, which was renamed Pixar.

Lucas is also responsible for the modern sound systems found in many movie theaters. Though Lucas didn't invent THX, he is responsible for its development.

Now Lucas is spearheading digital photography for movies. Though personal digital photography is now mainstream, most movie studios still use traditional cameras and film for movie production. Lucas departed from this model by filming Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones almost completely digitally. He showed the result to a select audience of the Hollywood elite, before the movie's general release. For the presentation, Lucas used a special digital projection system. The attendees said the movie had the clearest and sharpest presentation they had ever seen.

Despite the successful demonstration of the technology, movie studios are slow to move to this new model, in part because of the high price of the digital equipment. But digital movie photography has several advantages:

• Digital editing is much easier and less expensive since the movie is already in digital form.
• Delivery of movies to cinemas is much cheaper since the digital media is much smaller than traditional reels which can weight hundreds of pounds.
• Movies stored digitally are less susceptible to decay and degradation in quality.
• Transferring digital movies to DVD is much cheaper since both forms are digital.

As time goes on, Lucas is expected to make more contributions to modern moviemaking technology.

Quote

"A movie is never finished, only abandoned."

Most notable movies

• THX1138 (1970) (director, writer)
• American Graffiti (1973) (director, writer)
• Star Wars (1977) (director, writer)
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) (executive producer, co-writer)
• Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) (co-writer, executive producer)
• Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) (executive producer, co-writer)
• Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) (co-writer, executive producer)
• Howard the Duck (1986) (executive producer)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) (co-writer, executive producer)
• Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) (director, writer, executive producer)
• Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002) (director, co-writer, executive producer)

External link

• The IMDb entry on Lucas (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000184/)

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