Steven Spielberg: An Overview

Eli Price (00:02.404)
Hello and welcome to the establishing shot a podcast where we do deep dives into directors and their filmographies I'm your host Eli price and I am here alone today doing a solo pod to open up our new series on Steven Spielberg we're gonna be covering in this series What I'm calling early Steven Spielberg

So that's gonna cover his movies in the 70s and 80s I wanted to do Spielberg, but I felt that it was a bit overwhelming to Take on his whole filmography all at once so it kind of breaks into thirds really well in an early early mid and more recent kind of

break up there for his filmography and so I decided yeah I was gonna cover his early films and see where we went from there so yeah we'll be covering films starting with his early TV movies like Duel which we will cover next week along with his other two TV movies called something evil and savage and yeah we'll go all the way

from Jaws to ET to the color purple and we'll end on Always, which was his last film of the 80s. And we'll stop there and see what we wanna do. Haven't really decided if I wanna just keep going with Spielberg after that. That'll be a while from now or kind of take a break and do a different director. But yeah, we'll see.

But we're definitely going to go all the way from his first stuff all the way to always so that's what we've got in store I'm really excited to cover a lot of these movies. This will be my first Series, you know, I've done Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan so far and it's been a blast those Directors though. I had already seen all their films before

Eli Price (02:21.998)
and some of their films more than once before already. Whereas I'm coming into this series a little bit more doing some blind spot watching too. So I'll have some first watches. Yeah, several. I'll have several first watches as we go through this series. So I'm really excited about that. Of course, we have the Indiana Jones.

Trilogy, the original three that'll be fun to go through movies like ET and Jaws, Close Encounters, just some really great stuff. And another thing I'm kind of excited about is with Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan, you have people that maybe don't go for some of their films, but none of them are really considered flops. Whereas with Spielberg, you actually kind of have.

two, maybe three movies that are kind of just considered okay or maybe even bad by the general consensus, both public and critics. And so that'll be fun too, to kind of hit a director that had some movies that just didn't do well and that weren't received well overall. And so yeah, we'll see what that ends up looking like. But yeah, I'm...

I'm super excited. Today, what we're going to do, and this is how I start off all of my director series, we're going to do an overview episode. And it's kind of, I guess, the inspiration for the name of the podcast, which is The Establishing Shot. We're going to kind of take an establishing shot of the director. So we're going to look at Spielberg's biography kind of.

his childhood and his early years, a little bit of his life. And then we're going to kind of do an overview also, or an establishing shot, if you will, of his techniques, his directorial techniques that he uses, and also some recurrent themes throughout his work. We're going to look at all of that in today's episode.

Eli Price (04:43.848)
kind of piece by piece, just as I said it just now. So we'll start off with his biography, his history, who he is, what his childhood was like. Then we'll kind of transition there into just kind of talking about a little bit of his inspirations, his filmmaking philosophy, and then go into his techniques, some techniques that we're gonna be looking for.

to keep an eye on as we watch through these movies and finally end up, like I said, with his themes, some recurrent themes we're going to look at. So yeah, I'm excited for this series. I have a couple, a few actually resources that I'll recommend at the end of the episode that I'm kind of using to research for this series. And so yeah, let's...

Let's just kind of jump right in. I always like to think through, okay, what was the first Spielberg movie I ever saw? What was the first movie of this director I saw? What memories do I have? And Spielberg is interesting. So he's definitely, I mean, he's the oldest director. The other two directors, their debuts came out after I was born.

Now we're all still young in the late 90s when Wes Anderson and Christopher Nolan were putting out their debuts. But I was, you know, alive and I was alive and kicking. And so this time Spielberg obviously has some movies that, all of the movies that we're going to be covering came out before.

I was born and so that's a bit different as well for me as well as having, you know, some blind spots. Yeah, I was thinking through Spielberg movies and, you know, I've seen, I know I've seen several, I saw several of these growing up. I obviously watched Indiana Jones movies growing up at some point. I don't have any distinct memories of them.

Eli Price (07:10.184)
Um, I know kind of the generation before me that was like, um, they're kind of golden calf was the Indiana Jones movies for their generation and, uh, watch them over and over. I don't really have that kind of relationship to Indiana Jones movies. It's funny. Um, you know, I've, I've heard people say, you know, talk about when you think about Harrison Ford, do you think of?

Han Solo or Indiana Jones. And I think for my generation, it's generally Han Solo, whereas for maybe the generation before, um, maybe spilt, maybe, um, they think of, you know, Indiana Jones instead of Han Solo. But, um, but yeah, for me born in the early nineties, it's, it's always Han Solo, but yeah, Indiana Jones, I definitely saw them growing up. Um, ET I'm, I'm, I'm positive. I saw ET growing up.

But again, I don't have any, I don't really have distinct memories of any movies of Spielberg's Hook, I know I saw. I have a couple of distinct memories though of movies that we're not covering in this series. One is the Jurassic Park movies. I have a memory of, I don't, it's a fuzzy memory.

I know my, it was when I was young, I was definitely probably like maybe eight, nine, seven, somewhere in that range probably. My grandma showed me a Jurassic Park movie. Now I say it's fuzzy because for one, I don't know if it was in theaters or not. If it was in theaters, it would have probably been the second Jurassic Park or the third.

But it might've been at her house. And if it was, it might've been the first Jurassic park. I just, I don't remember. I just remember my, um, my parents being a little bit upset because I was, you know, those movies are PG 13 and I was still young and my grandma just like, let me watch Jurassic park movies. Um, but I definitely have a memory of that and know that I loved it and, uh, and, you know, super into dinosaurs. Um,

Eli Price (09:35.784)
at that point in my life. So I have a distinct memory of that. The other distinct memory I have is seeing War of the Worlds on a birthday, I think, or the world's actually released in June and my birthday is later in July, but it was it was still in theaters. And I remember going invited, you know, some of my good friends. I would have been turning, let's see, I would have been turning 14.

But that's what I wanted to do for my birthday was to go see War of the Worlds in theaters. So yeah, I remember loving it too. I don't think I've seen it since then either. So I'm excited to eventually revisit that whenever we get to that portion of Spielberg's filmography might be way down the road, who knows. But yeah, those are really the only two distinct memories I have. Like I said, I know I saw the indie movies.

No, I saw ET, Jurassic Park, of course, but in this series in particular, really the indie movies and ET are the only ones I think I saw growing up. Yeah, none of the other ones really. And so yeah, that's part of the reason I have blind spots. Now, since then, I've rectified that. I have seen Jaws and Close Encounters and

Um, yeah, maybe a couple of others, um, in this series, but yeah, other than that, I've got some good blind spots to cover. So I'm excited about that. Um, yeah, I Spielberg let's, let's jump into Spielberg and who Spielberg is enough of me and my memories of, of seeing Spielberg movies growing up. So Spielberg, when you think of Spielberg, you really think of.

He's really a household name. You know, I remember we talked about Christopher Nolan in that overview episode of how he has become in recent years, kind of a household name after making like the Dark Knight trilogy and Inception and Interstellar. People began to know who he is, culminating in this past year, you know, Oppenheimer being such a big deal because it was a Christopher Nolan movie.

Eli Price (12:04.36)
Um, and you know, the Barbenheimer thing helped, but, uh, yeah, the big thing was it's, it's this big epic biopic by Christopher Nolan and that's, that was the, the draw. And so now thinking about Spielberg, Spielberg is like a precursor to Christopher Nolan. When you think of, when I think of what Christopher Nolan has become, I,

I see that route for a director kind of being paved by Spielberg, a director like Spielberg, who much like Christopher Nolan sort of was able to play the studio game while at the same time being able to kind of have his way with movies enough to where there was a personal stamp of sorts.

on it and so, yeah, when I think of Spielberg, I think of just a director who has really made, yeah, just made himself a household name. Everybody knows who Steven Spielberg is. Oh yeah, Steven Spielberg, Indiana Jones, Jaws. You know, even, you know, some people might just recognize him from being at the Oscars so much.

so many award nominations or that sort of thing. And really, I would venture to guess. I didn't look this up. But I would venture to guess he's probably the most commercially successful director of all time. And if he's not the most commercially successful, he's up there, no doubt. So.

What is the reason for that? Why is he a household name? Why is Steven Spielberg one of, if not the most commercially successful directors of all time? Well, I think one of the reasons is he's just such a genuine director. He is one of the most genuine directors of all time. He...

Eli Price (14:25.896)
He has his legendary stories and we'll kind of talk about that. That kind of comes with, with, with the job having these kind of legendary stories taught, talked about, about you, or maybe even exaggerating some yourself when you do talk shows or whatever interviews that just comes with the field. You know, everybody has those that are, that are like him, but he.

When I say he's genuine, what I mean is you can kind of tell that Steven Spielberg likes what he likes. He knows what he wants and he wants what he wants to make. When he's excited about a project, he throws himself into it and it comes across on the screen. And a lot of that comes with he has this air of humility. There's...

There's very little pretension in him. Now he's confident. You watch any interview with Steven Spielberg, you can tell he might not have always been that way, but he has confidence. He knows what he wants. He knows that he's good at what he does, but there's not pretension in it. He has this air of humility and he seems to have...

always just known who he was as a filmmaker. He doesn't do a whole lot of trying to do things he's not good at. There's probably some parts of his career that he does a little bit of that and we'll get into that as we go through the series. But he knows what he's good at, he knows what he's not good at and he really leans into what he's good at. And it's

It's, it comes across as just genuine because he's excited about it. He's good at it. Uh, and he's really trying to just put something out there that he himself is going to be excited about. And I think that's, that's an important thing as we, we go through the series. Spielberg, when you hear him talk about his movies, he's excited about them. There's not this artsy fartsy pretension.

Eli Price (16:48.52)
He's just like, man, I am excited about this movie because it's something that I would want to watch if someone else made it. And really like what that leads to is, you know, a major reason why he's a household name is simply the fact that people love his movies. And when I say people, I just mean the general public just.

Anyone you talk to can name Steven Spielberg movies they like. People like his movies. Why is that? Well, I think he's just a filmmaker who seems to have tapped into what people want to see on screen, unlike any other director. Is it spectacle? Yes, he knows how to make a spectacle. He knows how to use the big screen to do.

big things, exciting things, epic things that draw people to want to see his movies on a big screen and a loud theater, right? Yes, his spectacle is part of it. But the spectacle is accompanied by this earnest emotion. And it's almost like Steven Spielberg's films wear their emotion on their sleeve. There's so many great filmmakers.

that sneak the emotion in or even like when you think, when I think back to going through the Wes Anderson series, who is one of my all time favorite directors, but Wes Anderson’s interesting is movies don't necessarily wear their emotion on their sleeve. He he's kind of witty and kind of has it's not like he's sarcastic.

Um, it's, and it's not like the emotion is not genuine when it comes across, but it kind of sneaks up on you, uh, because so much of his film is so precise and so dry that when that genuine emotion appears, it kind of sneaks up on you. Whereas with Steven Spielberg's movies, the emotion is in your face. It's, it's right there. It wears its emotion on its sleeve. Um, and I, I just think that people really love that and it's.

Eli Price (19:08.592)
That could be a weakness wearing Having your movie wear its emotions on its sleeve But Spielberg because he's such a genuine filmmaker it comes across as genuine and people see it and people love it He wouldn't if if it was a bad thing the way he did it then he wouldn't be as successful as he is But I do want to make this transition by quoting Steven Spielberg he says

in Time Magazine in 1985, quote, I can always trace a movie idea back to my childhood, unquote. So really, like, as we really jump into this, I think to tap into who he is as a filmmaker, you really have to go back to his childhood. So let's. Let's go ahead and jump into. His his life, who is Steven Spielberg?

What, where did he come from? What was his childhood like? Let's look at it. So he was born on December of 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His dad, Arnold Spielberg was kind of a tech guy. He started off working on radios during World War II, did some tours, did some communication stuff. And he went on later to

work on TVs, helping build TVs, and eventually working with companies like GE and IBM, working on computers. Just a really smart techie guy who was kind of on the front end of a lot of important advances in technology. And his mother, Leah, she grew up, she was...

I guess the kind of signature thing about her is she was aspirations to be a concert pianist and kind of abandoned those aspirations to raise her kids, which it seems like she was happy to, it's probably a complex thing of you're happy to do that. Like that's what you want to do, but also like, you know, have this, uh, you know, that kind of abandoned longing to be something else like.

Eli Price (21:36.104)
to be a concert pianist, I'm sure was there. And he has three sisters, all younger. He's the oldest of four. His three sisters are Anne, Sue, and Nancy. And yeah, so he kind of has like a sort of typical American family in a way. But yeah, he, it's, you know, so.

If you've seen the fablements, which came out at this point a couple of years ago, a lot of, after doing my research on his life, a lot of his life really is captured pretty well in the fablements. Obviously there's some embellishments and some, some like switch ups and stuff like that, that are just used so that the narrative works well. But generally everything that happens.

in some form or another is pretty true to the research I've done reading about Spielberg and his life. And so like, and the movie is just a really good movie, I thought. So I appreciated that as I'm reading about Spielberg and his childhood and stuff, I'm like, man, the fabled man's really, he really captured his childhood and his.

life growing up so well and the narrative is so powerful in that movie. It really takes something that when you're just reading like bullet points about his life, it's, you know, it's just kind of information, but he takes that and turns it into a powerful narrative, which says something about him in and of itself. But but yeah, he.

One more little tidbit about his birth. He actually for a while claimed I think it didn't even come out until the 90s He kind of lied and claimed to have been bored in 47 part of the reason for that was he He had wanted to direct a movie by the time he was 21 I believe and so he had given himself I guess a little bit of a year grace period and

Eli Price (23:58.792)
and was claiming to be one year younger than he actually was. So that's, you know, I was talking about how directors have their legends about them where they embellish stuff. And that's probably one of his big ones. Doesn't mean he's not a genuine person, just means he had an aspiration and was going to try to cheat his way into it a little bit. I just thought that was funny. But yeah, and when he was two and a half years old,

They moved in 1949 to Camden, New Jersey, and later to a suburb of Camden called the, I think it was called Haddon Township in 1952. And really this is a common theme throughout his childhood. It's like every place he moved, he experienced more and more anti -Semitism.

a lot of wrestling with his Jewish background throughout his childhood. And this was really his first memories of that. And despite that, in Cincinnati, and I think some in New Jersey too, he was immersed in a Jewish family. There's a lot of talks about him being at his grandmother's house.

Um, she had so many friends that were Holocaust survivors and, um, he even, um, once saw, uh, a guy that was at his grandma's was a Auschwitz survivor and showed him the number that was tattooed onto him. Um, so really like, despite that in his early life, he was really immersed in that, that Jewish life from his.

his extended family being around. But yeah, earlier in 1952, he saw his first movie. This is, he's talked, you can find interviews of him talking about this and it's kind of depicted briefly in the movie, The Fableman's. His dad took him to see Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth at the Westmont Theater.

Eli Price (26:22.28)
in, I think in New Jersey, in Camden maybe. But I'm not really sure what the theater is, to be honest. I didn't write that down. But he talks about how he thought he was going to a circus. He was confused because they were standing in line by a brick wall and he didn't see the tent. He was wondering where the tent was.

Um, and finally realizes they're sitting down and it's a screen and you realize, Oh, it's not a circus. It's a movie of a circus. And, um, yeah, he, he was just fascinated by it. And he even fixated, uh, another thing depicted in the fabled ones. He fixated on this train wreck, uh, that happens in the movie. Um, and, uh, he even got electric chains, um, to, and you wanted to recreate this wreck.

with these, this electric train set that his dad got him to his father's disappointment, probably wrecking up the, the train set. He got him. He did, I think he did make a film of that in the movie, the fabled man's, it shows him kind of going straight from the movie to wrecking the train set and filming it. And I think there was actually a little bit of time removed there. He did when.

when he did get his hands on a camera, he did recreate that, but it wasn't until later. Yeah, he had, so you have that sparking his interest in film very early on, six years old, maybe even five actually, because his birthday's in December, so he probably was still five at that point. Sparking his interest in theater and spectacle.

Um, especially with his fixation on the train wreck. Um, and then also in these early years, he has memories of, um, outings to Philadelphia where they would see, uh, dinosaur skeletons and museums and, uh, steam trains and that sort of thing. And, um, all of these like things that he would go back to in his early childhood from.

Eli Price (28:39.848)
uh, Holocaust survivors to dinosaurs, to trains, to just the spectacle of the movies all stemmed back to there. Um, and it really came out his imagination would run wild as a kid, uh, from early on. He, um, and a lot of his imaginations actually would, his imagination would run so wild that it would.

scare him. He had some fear and anxiety a lot as a child. He remembers this tree outside of his window that would blow in the wind and cast shadows and would just freak him out, I guess. And he has vivid memories of that. And he even in...

As he got older and his sisters got older, he would terrorize his sisters, his imagination. He would, uh, they, both him and his sisters tell stories of him. Um, like that. I think I remember this one story that they tell of where he would get this skull. I don't know if it was like, uh, I guess it was probably a pretend school and he would like drip wax, like colored wax on it. So it looked like blood and, um, he would.

throw it in, he would put them in a closet and throw the skull in there with them and lock them, like hold himself against the closet so they couldn't get out and they would be screaming. And it's funny, Spielberg was recalling that and in one interview I saw and he, he was like, you know, I want to say like, I regret doing that, but I don't, it was fun, which is just so funny to me.

And his sisters seem to be doing okay. So they, they don't, I don't think they had really any lifelong trauma from that. Luckily. But yeah, another, childhood anxiety stemmed from just falling behind in school. He, he would learn later on in the nineties when he was in his

Eli Price (30:56.552)
50s or maybe even it might've even been later. He might've been 60 before he found this out. Um, but he found out later in life that he was dyslexic. He got diagnosed with dyslexia. So that probably had a lot to do with his struggles in school. Um, but it caused a lot of anxiety, um, as a child, um, because his dad was, was a really smart guy, a tech guy. And you know, that just that kind of classic American.

son not living up to the expectations of the father kind of idea was happening there. And so he had that. But yeah, he went to Hebrew school. And really, like as he progressed in school, he started to feel even though he was in Hebrew school, he still is living in this suburb that's primarily Christian.

and starts to feel more and more disenfranchised from his Jewish heritage, wanting a Christmas tree put up because all of his friends have Christmas trees put up. So that would be a struggle through his childhood as well. Yeah, one another movie that he remembers vividly as seeing Snow White in either 53 or 54, he saw it and

He actually remembers being terrified by it, especially the part where the tree and the forest grabs her. And that would actually come out again. Well, just like the Snow White, you know, he produced the movie Gremlins. And so the Gremlins watched Snow White in that movie, which probably was influenced by Spulberg. But also, and I think I want to say I haven't seen.

Minority report, but I was reading that the there's a bit of a tree grabbing someone recreation of some sort in minority report. And if I'm wrong on that, it's not my fault because I haven't seen it. I'm just going off of things I've read. So don't blame me if that's wrong. But yeah, in 1955, Arnold Spielberg, his father, joins a GE computer team in New York. And so.

Eli Price (33:24.242)
This really, so he's Spielberg is eight or nine years old at this point. And this really begins, his father already was, was a hardworking dad working all the time, but this really amplified the, the kind of absence of his dad, that kind of missing father figure. It's, it's, it's, it's kind of complicated.

His it's it's not like his dad wasn't putting effort toward trying to be as we'll see as we look through his childhood. His dad wasn't trying to keep a distance. He did put effort, but he was just a hardworking guy and was very, very committed to his work. And and so in yeah, in 55, he's gone all week. He's in New York. I think I read that he stayed.

would stay at a YMCA in New York all week long and come home on the weekends and then go right back up to New York to work. So he was just gone a lot. And, and like I was saying, his dad wasn't just cold and, and removed. He did put effort, Spielberg actually has a very distinct memory of one weekend, his father.

loaded him up in the car and they drove, drove out into the country to this field and Spielberg didn't know what they were doing. And they get out to this field and lay down and they're looking at the stars and it turns out his dad had heard there was going to be this comet. So they were looking at the stars. Spielberg just remembers it being just like this beautiful clear sky full of stars, which probably influenced a lot of his, um,

his composition maybe in his films too. But it turns out there was not just a comet, there was a whole meteor shower that they watched out in this field. And I can only imagine, you know, being eight, nine years old and just gazing in wonder at this and becoming eventually a filmmaker. And you have this just one wonder field.

Eli Price (35:46.926)
awestruck memory of this meteor shower as a kid and having that influence your visual style and your the way you just think about the grandness of movies, I guess. Just from there's just all these little cool little things that he remembers from his childhood that you can see how it could influence him as a filmmaker. But yeah, so I had mentioned earlier he

He didn't film his electric train right away. And that's true because his mom got his dad a Kodak Brownie 8 millimeter camera for his birthday in 1957. A few years after he saw the greatest show on earth. But yeah, he did. He borrowed his dad's camera and made his first little three minute short film of his electric train.

crashing to try to recreate that scene from the greatest show on earth. So yeah, that was kind of his very first, his very first venture into the world of filmmaking. A young 10, 11 year old Steven Spielberg making his first movie. Shortly after that, his dad's job moved him to Arizona. They lived in an apartment in Phoenix for a bit.

and then eventually moved to Scottsdale, which was a suburb of Phoenix, I believe. And, you know, through this time, it's just an increasing of his dad being absent because of his work. He's moving up in his field. He's actually managing something at this point. So just tons of hours at the office. And then on top of that,

That's that childhood anxiety. In Scottsdale, they were the only Jewish family in this suburb. And so the anti -Semitism he experienced just increased a ton. But even still, even with the anti -Semitism and the becoming more and more like disillusioned with his Jewish heritage,

Eli Price (38:10.364)
Um, at Ingleside Elementary, where he was at from 57 to 61, um, he has this memory of seeing his first archival footage of, um, of the Holocaust at school. They watched, um, a network special that had come on and he, he has a distinct memory of that. Um, but even with kind of the, the disillusionment and the feeling out of place.

both in his family and at school that that kind of he just had that kind of childhood where he was not he was Different enough at home where he didn't feel like he fully belonged to there not to any like Fault of his parents or sisters necessarily. He was just that sort of kid And it that was that way at school probably even more so at school

Just the feeling like an outcast, feeling like you're outside of the normal. And he wanted so bad to be normal. Well, he joined eventually the Ingleside Boy Scouts and he did find a bit of a place to fit in a bit there. He was known for his storytelling around the campfire. Imagine that. And he really was working toward becoming an Eagle Scout, which is the highest.

Level you can reach. Um, I'm there's Boy Scouts listening there. I'm probably like the terminology I have it all wrong. And so they're probably mad at me, but That's okay Yeah, the Eagle Scout is like the highest point you can reach I think in the Boy Scouts anyway he wasn't as good as like the physical stuff kind of as some of the other boys and his dad or somebody suggested that he shoots a movie to

received the last badge he needed to become an Eagle Scout. And so that's what he did. He got together and made this Western heist scene called the last gunfight. And I don't remember seeing how long that movie was, but he made it with his dad's camera, that eight millimeter camera, and with some of his friends from his troop. And so I imagine that was just a fun time. And they were actually like,

Eli Price (40:37.192)
with the work he did and got his badge, became an Eagle Scout. Another thing he shot at the time was he had made this little contraption with a wagon or something and had tied it onto their dog Thunder, attached it somehow and attached the camera to it. And so there's like all this footage that he got with the camera rolling of their dog just kind of running around and exploring their yard and neighborhood or whatever.

made a little, I think it ended up being an eight minute little short called A Day in the Life of Thunder. So there's some fun little memories he has that kind of inform his filmmaking later on. But yeah, in 1960, his dad was sent to Moscow as part of a engineers exchange program.

And, uh, one of the, the, the cool things that happened out of that was that, you know, again, was kind of an inspiration for his filmmaking later in life was that he, his dad saw, um, Francis Gary Powers, uh, he, he see, he got to see his shot down YouTube, uh, spy plane. Um, and I think got pictures of it and showed those to, um, Steven as he got back or whatever. Um, and you know, that.

Pretty sure the movie, Bridge of Spies, deals a little bit with that in some way or another. Yeah. Mm Francis Gary Powers is in that movie. So yeah, that's a little bit of a starting point, I guess, for being interested in that story or at least an adjacent story to that. But yeah, he, 60, in 1960 is...

Uh, that summer is when he really like, he started really, really, really digging into the film world. He, uh, he said that he spent all his summers, um, or all of his Saturdays, sorry, all of his Saturdays that summer at the cinema. Uh, and this is the summer where he saw psycho, uh, for the first time, um, at a drive in. Uh, so that was a big deal, you know.

Eli Price (43:01.032)
Um, and then, um, in 61, he goes to senior high school, um, from 61 to 64, uh, he's at his high school and in Scottsdale and, um, and eighth grade, he shoots a Western for a school park project. Um, it's kind of like a, what do you want to be when you grow up project? And he shot a film because he was at this point already thinking that he wanted to go into filmmaking in some way. Um,

He shot during this time, he shot a eight millimeter film of an Arcadia high school play. He shot a movie, a little movie called a fighter squad. It was a 15 minute film. A cool thing he did in that little film was that he actually found some World War II archival footage and kind of spliced it into his, his movie. He got his dad somehow got.

Uh, him access to the cockpit of a, of an actual P 51, uh, fighter jet. Um, I, I assume it's a fighter jet. Uh, someone might get mad at me for getting that wrong too, but I only have so much time to research all this stuff. So can't make sure all my, my planes are exactly named right in my notes. Uh, but yeah, and then his dad actually built like a little.

cockpit set of sorts for him in their backyard as well. So he made that little 15 minute fighter squad movie and splice some archive footage in there so that it looked much bigger than it actually was, which is pretty creative and cool to do as a kid. And during this time, he started holding regular screenings of movies at their house. I want to say he would charge like 25 cents or something like that.

His sisters would do like drip sell drinks or whatever and they would have You know people from the neighborhood, I guess come to watch movies at their house Which is a pretty cool idea. I think there is even a story of him Getting a screening for some movie that was like I Guess I guess it was a movie that was like still out in theater or something

Eli Price (45:28.776)
It was something to that effect because he wanted to sell tickets to it, but his dad was like, you shouldn't really be making money off of this. And suggested that he give it to a charity. And so he, he did end up giving all the proceeds for those tickets that people bought to watch the movie at their house to, I want to say it was a.

a, an organization for disabled children, um, which is really cool. Um, and so, yeah, he, he starts out at this time and yeah, um, all of this time to, um, unfortunately is also, um, in the midst of all of his diving more and more into filmmaking is also a time where his parents were becoming more and more distant from each other, more and more tension between his parents. Um, and so really like,

His time filmmaking and editing his little movies and going to the cinema every Saturday was really an escape from that in a way. And I think that that kind of probably too informs the sorts of movies he made. A lot of his movies are just kind of escapist movies there.

movies that where you escape into a world bigger and grander than the one you normally are in. And so you can see kind of the beginnings of that in his childhood there. In 1962, he made a 40 minute, eight millimeter color film called Escape to Nowhere.

And he used an arid landscape not far from their home. I think it was supposed to be set somewhere in North Africa or East Africa or something like that. And he used his parents' Jeep and these fake German helmets. A lot of his friends helped him make it. They were, you know, his friends were the actors and whatnot in the movie. And he actually won. He got it in this Canyon Films Festival in Phoenix, I believe.

Eli Price (47:48.744)
Um, it was like a amateur film festival. So, um, you know, for amateur filmmakers and he actually won a prize at that film festival with this, uh, 40 minute escape to nowhere short film. Um, and he won, um, a Kodak 16 millimeter camera. Um,

Eli Price (48:30.248)
And yeah, his dad suggested that he traded in for an eight millimeter because 16 millimeter film was expensive. It's almost like it's the beginning of him dealing with like a producer director relationship. His dad's like, the film's too expensive. We've got to get a cheaper camera. And so yeah, he ended up trading.

went with his dad's advice and he traded that codec 16 millimeter in for a, I hope I'm pronouncing, a Bolex, I guess, a Bolex H8 8 millimeter camera. And I guess the 16 millimeter was worth enough where he was also able to get a Bolex sonarizer along with the camera, which was a sound device. And so that's, that's.

Pretty cool, I think. Winning a little prize at a little film festival that early on, he would have been 15, 16, around that time. So pretty cool. In the summer of 62, he visited Warner Brothers a lot on a tour.

And he, I think he tells a story of, um, of going on, he was on the tour bus and they made a stop and there was a bathroom break. And, uh, he said, he said he just stayed in the bathroom and he stayed in there for a long time until he couldn't hear anything. Um, and came out and he was just there on the lot. Um, and, uh, the tour bus had left without them. And so he just walked around and, um, there's kind of.

even legends about him, um, you know, showing up again and, uh, putting his name on a door or something, which I don't know how much truth there is all that. Um, and I'm not even sure if that's at the WB or Universal, which he, he also spent some time at Universal. Um, but yeah, uh, just, uh, just a fun tidbit there. And then sometime in the fall of 63 or early 64, I'm not really sure.

Eli Price (50:53.544)
he visited Universal and had a connection through his dad and I want to say it was a connection that set him up with Chuck Silver's who at the time was the assistant editor for the Universal television and Silver's ends up giving him a little tour of Universal and he kind of hits it off with Silver's, you know, obviously trying to network and

You know, get his foot in the door. He knows he wants to make films in some capacity. But yeah, he, you know, he that's the kind of his that relationship with Chuck Silver's ends up being really important for him. So that's kind of the genesis of that. But in in September of 1963, his dad left for San Jose, California to work for IBM, working on.

a computer, some sort of, you know, leading technology computer work that he was doing for IBM. And then eventually the family follows him to San Jose in March of 1964. Right before, though, they left for San Jose, he made his very first feature film. It was called Firelight and it was two hours and 15 minutes.

pretty long for a first feature film. And it showed at the Little Theater in Phoenix. Now, you can actually see like very, very small pieces of this. I don't think the whole film is out there anywhere. I had luck to believe me. There's several things of his early work that you just can't find. It's not out there.

There are a few though where you can watch short little clips. Like actually his little...

Eli Price (52:58.056)
escape to nowhere film. You can, you can actually see a little bit of that. Um, there's little pieces of it and it's actually, um, I think in the fabled men's, that's the one, um, that it's either that one or the one he did with his boy scout troop, um, the last gunfight or maybe actually both are shown in, um, yeah, I think both are shown in the fabled men's, but.

The escape to nowhere one is the one where it's kind of like a war and it shows this like pan at the end of things where there's one soldiers left standing and it pans and you see all like the dead soldiers, which are, you know, his friends laying there. And yeah, that one is in the fablumans and you can watch like short little pieces of it that people have found and put on like YouTube or whatever.

And it's really crazy how I was watching that and I was like, this is just like they recreated it in the Feywomans. And I thought that was so cool. How, you know, they got it just right. And, you know, he was recreating that probably mostly from memory. I don't know. Maybe he, he still has it somewhere and rewatched it so that they can remake it for the movie. I guess that would make sense. But yeah, I just thought that was so cool.

And before we keep going talking about Firelight, because we'll talk about special effects there, but he was already like really had a mind for special effects. He would rig up these little, I guess, fulcrums with plywood or boards of like 2x4s or whatever where he would set them up in the field and pile dirt on them so that.

And, you know, map out, Hey, you're going to run this way and you're going to step on that board. And when his, you know, the, his friend actors would run, you know, there's supposed to be gunfire and, you know, bombs going off or whatever they would run and they would make sure they would step on these boards and it would throw the dirt up. Like, um, like a mine went off or, you know, a bullet hit or whatever. Um, so just, just having that mine for special effects, he already had it that young, which I thought was really cool. Um,

Eli Price (55:18.984)
And then, and when he, when he eventually makes this feature firelight, um, he took, he actually took every weekend for a whole year, which reminds me of Christopher Nolan making, um, uh, his first feature following, um, he was older, a good bet older than Spielberg was. Um, but, uh, but yeah, and actually I've, I've heard, uh, I was watching, um, uh, a speech, so it was giving.

I want to say for AFI maybe, but he even said, you know, when I was making my first feature, which wasn't, which is an awful movie by the way, he kind of just wrote it off as being just a terrible movie, which maybe it was, I don't know. I haven't seen it. But yeah, he took every weekend for a whole year to shoot it and get it made. And it's really like.

You can watch like a few little pieces of it. There's somehow someone got a hold of a few little tiny like clips of it and you can watch those on YouTube. It's really bad quality, unfortunately, but but you can watch those little pieces. It's it's very, very little. It's like maybe a minute's worth of random clips. But but yeah, he has some special effects with this like red light. It's supposed to be this like visit from a UFO.

And really like you watch it and you're like, wow, this is kind of a predecessor to Close Encounters. And with the way he did the little special effects with the red light and stuff. And even like there's like a scene in Close Encounters where these three ships kind of come down and they're like blue and red lights and they kind of take off and like spread out from each other.

And there's actually like a little clip you can see of a similar thing with much less quality and much less realized than in Close Encounters. But it is that same like three little UFO lights that like come down and take off or whatever. You can see that in those clips in Firelight. So really cool. He's already thinking about that sort of epic UFO encounter movie.

Eli Price (57:42.12)
Um, he, um, he composed the music for that, uh, himself on his clarinet. He played the clarinet. Uh, haven't mentioned that, but he was pretty musical. Um, and, um, John Williams even has, has said in the past that if Spielberg really wanted to, he could compose, he could probably compose his own, uh, scores for his movies. Um, but I doubt that would be as good as John Williams, but, um, but yeah, he, um, yeah, he had his high school orchestra.

Play the music for the for the movie and the movie cost $600 at the time which I think adjusted for like inflation. It would end up being like over 5 ,000 I Want to say 5 ,700 something like that is what I read in today's dollars 2023 monies But yeah $600 to make this little two -hour this little two -hour and 15 minutes. I

movie, uh, that he admits is not very good, but had the beginnings of close encounters, which, which is important because close encounters, I think is a great movie. Um, but yeah, so they move, um, to San Jose, California. Um, and he spends his scene. That was his senior year of high school at Saratoga high school there. Um, he, he.

recalls being bullied heavily there. I mean, you're moving as a senior in high school. You're the new kid. He experienced a ton of anti -Semitism there in California. Very unfortunate, just really like amplifying the otherness he already felt. But...

escaping into film, even more. He, he takes on journalism and writes on sports for his high school and he does a lot of like filming of some games and stuff like that. So yeah, I guess you would probably think he's getting an eye for action. I'm filming sports events at his high school. I hadn't really thought about that before, but probably so.

Eli Price (01:00:07.848)
He remembers making a three -minute short with a classmate about JFK. Even had like, it was maybe from what I got, I haven't seen it. I don't know if you can see it, but from what I gather, it was like maybe his first venture into the silhouette, which is kind of a visual motif that he uses. And then May of 65, he shoots Senior Sneak Day.

which if you've seen the fable men's, you recall the little sequence where he shows the day at the beach that all the seniors kind of, I guess it's like skipped with the school's permission kind of thing. And in that he actually too kind of recreates stuff from Hitchcock's the birds with the way he would like, he cut like going back and forth between like.

People lay in there on the beach and some birds, some seagulls, I guess, that were approaching. So pretty funny there. And actually, like one of his biggest bullies did actually like congratulate him on the film. I would imagine it's amplified for narrative purposes in the Fablemen's, that whole sequence. But that did actually, there was something of that sort that actually did happen that he recalls.

So yeah, he graduates high school. He decides to go to college. A big reason was because he did not want to go to Vietnam, did not want to get drafted. Understandable. And so another reason he did want to go was to go to film school. Unfortunately, he...

did not get into USC or UCLA. He just didn't have good grades. He just didn't do well enough in school. And so both of those film schools rejected him. And he ended up going to Cal State in Long Beach where he studied humanities there. He was there from 65 to 69. He lived with his dad for the first year he was there.

Eli Price (01:02:27.816)
Um, and then, uh, yeah, in the summer. Okay. So before he starts college and the summer of 65 is when his parents split up. Um, and so his, uh, his mom, I think, uh,

I don't know if she moved back to Phoenix with his sisters then, or if it was a year later when the divorce was finalized. But yeah, his parents did split up in the summer of 65. He actually, going back to his relationship with Chuck Silvers, he works with one of Chuck's assistants at Universal. It was a kind of unpaid gig he did, doing a lot of running around. And so, and then he kind of...

was notorious for being like the kid on sets. He would just do whatever work he needed to get done and then just walk around and try to watch sets, watch films being made. And he tells a story, and I think others do too, of him getting kicked out of a Hitchcock set. I can't remember even what movie it was, but like a third.

I think Spielberg says he got kicked out by a third assistant director. And so, you know, kind of one of those things like, hey, what, you know, what are you doing here? Oh, I'm just watching. Well, it's a closed set. So you have to leave sort of thing. And actually in that summer, too, he ran into John Cassavetes and Cassavetes took him on as a bit of a like unpaid production assistant for the movie Faces.

And so he got to spend some time on that set of making, you know, doing probably just grunt work for the movie Faces with Cassavetes, which is really cool. One of the other things I thought was really cool was just like his ambition. He would run into, you know, stars and, you know, famous directors, I'm sure, on the lots at Universal. And he would...

Eli Price (01:04:38.088)
Um, one of the things he would do is he would invite them to go to lunch with them in the commissary. So he'd be like, Hey, Charlton Heston, you want to go get lunch with me? Um, and talk about filmmaking and yeah, he had lunch with Charlton Heston. He had lunch with Cary Grant, um, with Rock Hudson. Um, uh, some of the big names. I'm sure he had lunch with a lot of other people too. Just this kid who's excited about filmmaking and.

I'm not afraid to, to, you know, take a step and, um, and invite a guy like Charlton Heston and Cary Grant, uh, to go eat lunch in the commissary with you. Um, really cool. But yeah, after that summer, he starts, um, studying humanities at Cal State. Um, after a year, uh, he moved in with, um, with a class, well, I'll say a classmate. It was actually a law student named Ralph Burris. I guess a friend he met at Cal State. Um.

And yeah, he continues to shoot short films and he even starts like trying to submit them to the executives at Universal. But he does eventually get advice like, hey, you got to start shooting on 16 and 35 millimeter because they're not going to look at eight millimeter film. It's just not respected, not taken seriously. And so and he starts working at restaurants to be able to buy film.

And in the spring of 1967, he starts making a movie called slipstream about he's kind of capturing a bike race that's happening. And around this time to his roommate, Ralph Burris had dropped out because he had aspirations to be a producer. So he had dropped out and Burris got $3 ,000 from his parents, uh, on to him. Um, a friend, uh,

gave them $1 ,000. Chuck Silver's gave them some 35 millimeter film stock. And then he needed some more equipment. So his dad actually set up a production company called Playmott Production because he was still considered a miner and wasn't able to rent stuff himself. So he would rent it through this little production company that his dad set up. And yeah, you can actually see.

Eli Price (01:07:05.32)
I mean, it's probably like less than a minute's worth of footage of slipstream on YouTube. And again, like all this stuff that you can see on YouTube is like really bad quality. I'm sure it would be if it was kind of taken and, you know, criterion got a hold of it, they would make it look good. But yeah, it's bad quality, but you can...

watch a few clips of slipstream, but they just didn't finish it. Um, they just didn't have enough money and, um, it just never got done. Uh, the baby slipstream. Um, so yeah, uh, jumped to January of 1968. Um, he is the first time he met George Lucas. He was at a film festival of some sort, I think a student film festival maybe. And, um, there was, he went, saw a screening of.

Lucas's THX 1138. And so he had gone backstage to congratulate the filmmaker and there was George Lucas talking with Francis Ford Coppola. And so that was the first time he met Lucas and Coppola, I guess. And yeah, that would be the beginning of a long friendship and partnership. So that's a really cool thing.

In July of 1968, he sets out to make a 35 millimeter short film called Amblin. That's ambling without the G, of course. And he brings on his friend Ralph Burris as his production manager. His sister Anne actually, I think, helps write some of the script or dialogue or something. And I say dialogue, it's...

Mostly really a silent film, I think, as far as like, I don't know how much dialogue, I did watch it. This is another thing, you can watch this movie on YouTube and it's really bad quality. I know there's good quality of it out there because you can watch like a short trailer of it that is in that really good quality that someone has out there somewhere. I don't know if you can maybe purchase it.

Eli Price (01:09:29.704)
but it is for free on YouTube. It's just really a bad quality grainy print of the movie, unfortunately. So I thought it was good and interesting, not great, but also I can't really say that with confidence because I watched a bad, it was bad.

both sound and picture quality. So that was pretty distracting. So I can't really give it a fair shake of what I think about it. But yeah, he shot this mostly in the Mojave Desert. He had really just two actors, mainly a guy and a girl. The guy, well, let's see if I'm jumping ahead of myself.

No, so the guy in the film is kind of supposed to represent him He's kind of he has this guitar case and it's like he's posing as like this hip guy this hippie and this girl is kind of has a Like a hippie hitchhiking kind of it. They're they're both trying to hitchhike together is what it comes down to and Yeah, they so eventually you find out that his in his guitar case is not a guitar but all these like

some books and some soap and toilet paper and a nice shirt and tie. Um, so really all along he was a square, uh, sort of thing. And so it's, it's kind of like, people think it's like this, uh, stand in for, for Steven of like, he's trying to be this, but really he's a square. Um, you know, which I can see him kind of doing that with, with that character, but in, uh, yeah, in September of 68.

He signed a contract with Dennis Hoffman to finance the movie. There ended up being this long standing dispute between him and Hoffman because there was this clause in the contract he signed to get it financed where basically within 10 years he had to direct another movie for Hoffman.

Eli Price (01:11:54.408)
Um, I don't know if it was like one or if there's like a multiple movies he was supposed to direct for Hoffman in this contract. Um, but, um, but yeah, so that didn't happen. And so after Steven Spielberg had success with Jaws and Close Encounters, um, Hoffman sued him because of this contract. He never directed this movie for me that was in this contract and they settled out of court for $30 ,000.

Um, later in 1987, Spielberg actually invested in this donut company that Hoffman started, but Hoffman didn't, um, uh, he, he kind of failed his financial obligations and, and that deal. Um, and so Spielberg backed out. So it was kind of like this tension between these two guys and then jumped to 1994 Hoffman find this is when it came out in the public that Steven Spielberg had been lying about his age. And so, um,

Part of the settlement in the original deal was like, oh, he's this age. I don't know. There was some sort of thing with his age about the settlement. I can't remember exactly what it was. But yeah, he finds out his real age, which would have been to his benefit in the original settlement that they came to.

And so he sued Spielberg again, this time for $33 million. Um, and obviously Spielberg's been very successful at this point. Um, and, uh, Spielberg actually wins this one. Um, and, uh, it's because, uh, in the contract, it said that Hoffman was supposed to have produced a script to Spielberg for him to direct. And he actually never held up that part. He never produced any script.

He never like gave Spielberg any scripts. And so that whole thing was kind of like a wash. Like he didn't actually do what he was supposed to do in the contract either. Um, so yeah, that was a whole like drama that went on, but Amblin did get financed. Um, and it did get made. Um, and, uh, yeah, he, uh, Spielberg obviously got it in the hands of his friend Chuck Silver's.

Eli Price (01:14:13.288)
Uh, in the fall of 68 and Silvers was so impressed with it that he called up Sin Sheinberg, who was the, um, I think the vice president of Universal at the time. And he was like, you've got to watch this movie, the short film by this kids, Bilberg. Um, so, uh, yeah, Sheinberg's watches it and is very impressed. He's so impressed that he calls Steven Spielberg into his office and offers him a seven year exclusive contract working for Universal TV.

Um, and so, yeah, December by December of 1968, the Hollywood reporter announced that at 21 years old, Steven Spielberg was the youngest ever to sign with universal TV. Um, yeah. So he leaves college in early 1969, doesn't graduate. Um, and part of that legend is that he never even went back to, to clean out his locker. Um, and yeah.

Amblin won best short film at the Atlanta Film Festival and at the scene Competition or Cine I'm not sure really sure exactly how that is pronounced or said or what but yeah one those One best short film at those which is really cool and it was I think they did try to get it into the Oscars in the short film category, but it was rejected because there's like

some depiction of drugs. And so they, um, they rejected it. Just funny. Uh, I guess that was a thing then they, they would reject movies because of drug depiction. I didn't know that. Um, but yeah, that was the thing apparently. Uh, but yeah, he, so yeah, he, Amblin is, is successful for what it is. Um, and he gets a deal out of it, a seven year deal. Now Spielberg.

Um, you know, he's come out and said that he really had no interest in directing TV. Um, but he kind of saw it as like, well, this is an opportunity and I need to jump on this opportunity. He tried to take it as this kind of learning experience, uh, which he did. Um, but, uh, and he did eventually see it as, um, a good experience and a good start to his career.

Eli Price (01:16:39.592)
But he does now say that he had more fun shooting 8mm films as a kid than he ever did working in TV, which is understandable. But yeah, so he starts working at Universal, he's 21 years old, and man, he really dealt with a lot of people that were resentful of his age. People didn't want to work with him. And you got to think too, these are...

especially a lot of the actors and actresses, these are people that were like golden age actors and actresses that are kind of in this point in their career where they're not, people weren't asking them to be in their movies as much and they're having to do TV work. So, you know, there's already a bit of resentment just at the industry itself. And then you've got this 21 year old walking around like,

with this deal and it's like, oh, here's this kid that they signed so they could say they signed this young kid. Um, so there was some resentment there and some lack of respect, I guess. Um, but yeah, in, in 1969, uh, he directs his first, um, first official directed thing. It was, uh, the show night gallery, which kind of follows in the footsteps of a Twilight zone sort of.

anthology episode sort of thing. Um, and so he, he actually directed the second segment of the pilot episode. Um, and that was his segment was called eyes. Um, and originally Betty Davis was actually supposed to be that main actress, uh, in the main role there for, for that, uh, that segment. Um, and when she heard that they were going to have this 22 year old kid, um, directed, she.

would not do it. She stepped out. Joan Crawford stepped in and she, it's like this little like weird kind of relationship because she did like like Spielberg's ambitiousness and would even like stick up for him later on in his career, his time at Universal working in TV there. And so, and yeah, it,

Eli Price (01:19:01.16)
But at the same time, she apparently had a lot of baggage and was just like really hard to work with as an actress. Um, and, and was at a point in her life where she didn't remember lines as well, that sort of thing, a lot of stress. And so it was a, in Spielberg, um, in hindsight said that that was a trial by fire. Um, and, uh, he actually, um, he actually even took like a year off.

of directing any shows and was trying to write his own stuff and get that picked up somewhere. And he didn't really have any success with that. But yeah, he comes back in 1970 and directs episode 27 of the first season of Marcus Willby MD. His episode is called The Daredevil Gesture. And I...

I did actually watch this. You can find it on Amazon. And it's really a pretty standard show. I should say in Night Gallery, man, you really do get some really interesting shots in researching kind of Spielberg's techniques and the way he composes scenes and that sort of thing. You get some of that in Night Gallery, which I was really impressed by.

Seeing his eye for stuff like that, that early on, his very first paid project. And then you get these cool fancy -schmancy shots that he's trying to do. There's one where it's looking at the reflection of one of the gems on a chandelier and then zooms out from that or goes through it or something like that. There's this scene where...

Uh, Joan Crawford's character, um, is sitting kind of in the background and the foreground is the doctor who's, um, going to do the surgery that she's wanting to. She's a blind lady that's paying someone to give her their eye transplant or something. It's a really kind of goofy plot. Um, but yeah, this she's in the background and the foreground is him walking in front of these like statues that she has.

Eli Price (01:21:25.08)
lined up in her apartment. So there's this really good, and there's really good dialogue composition in this. And he actually later on in 71 directs another night gallery called Make Me Laugh, which is interesting. It's not great. Again, it's kind of really goofy writing in those. But yeah, in both of those, there's this like,

way he composes his dialogue shots that is really good and really like, uh, dynamic, I guess, um, that you can kind of like thinking through his filmography and thinking through his career, you can see that that he's all he's been composing shots that way and blocking his actors in these dialogue scenes and this interesting way, um, all this time, which I think is really cool. Um,

But yeah, as far as what I've seen of all these shows that we're going to talk through, really Marcus Welby MD, that episode he did for that show is the most like just standard, just straight, straight show. There's not really a whole lot going on in Marcus Welby MD.

Uh, as far as, um, doing anything interesting. Um, but yeah, uh, what is interesting is like the show is about this kid who's, uh, weighed down by his age and his, he's a hemophiliac, um, his circumstances. And it's kind of like, it kind of almost feels like Spielberg's, um, situation being a young guy who's weighed down by circumstances. Um,

Yeah, it's just shot very conventionally. There's not a ton of interesting stuff going on there. Now, in 1971, he does a lot of work in 71, a ton of work. And he directs this episode of this show called The Name of the Game, which kind of follows three different journalists, I believe. He directs this episode that's kind of like...

Eli Price (01:23:49.704)
It almost works as like a standalone movie, a standalone, like special, I guess you could say of the show because it's, it's actually like set in a dream sequence where, and a futuristic dream sequence that one of the journalists has when he, after he kind of gets knocked out by wrecking his car. And it's, it's a.

The episode is in season three, it's called LA 2017. And it's this like, Strangelove episode. It really like, one of the things I thought was cool about it was it's kind of taking sci -fi seriously. Not in the sense of like, oh, it's too like, I don't know, I'm sure you know what I mean by that. It's not taking it seriously in the bad way.

Um, it's taking it seriously in a good way. Um, and, and it's kind of like one of those early kind of sci -fi ventures that is taking the genre seriously. And it's not just like B movie material. Now I say that I did, I did think that the writing was very not good for LA 2017. Um, there's just so much banter. There's this like.

shtick they do where like they're talking in numbers, they're just saying numbers to each other back and forth and then like laughing like it was some joke or something. And I was like, this is really stupid writing. But yeah, it's it's a lot as far as like the writing goes, I don't think it's that great. It's interesting. And it's trying to do something new and different, which I appreciate. But the.

The writing is bad. There's this, it's definitely about environmentalism, which was maybe fresh at the time, but just feels really on the nose. But you do get these like really interesting shots. He's starting to build on his work of like building characters and their emotions with closeups. And this one.

Eli Price (01:26:10.856)
He's starting to get a feel a little bit more feel for shooting action scenes like they're underdeveloped There's these seen the scene where the there's these guys running and the cameras like they're supposed to be running in the camera You know backing up with them and you're seeing them run in front of the camera and it's like it's kind of sloppy But you can see he's kind of getting a feel for that So yeah, I did I did enjoy watching LA 2017

But yeah, it's interesting. He did two episodes of this show called The Psychiatrist in 1971. It only had six episodes. He did episode two, The Private World of Martin Dalton, and he directed episode six, which was called Par for the Course. Now, he does say he remembers the guy that was in charge of the show gave him a lot more direct.

I looked at libraries. You can't find this show, The Psychiatrist.

It only ran six episodes and I guess it just didn't do well enough for them to even put it out there in the digital era now. But yeah, these were, even though that's the case, these were a bit of a breakout for him in the TV world. From what I've read, they really showed his adeptness at capturing emotion and utilizing the camera to its maximum potential.

There were even, there's this story of, and I don't remember which episode it was, but this guy calls, it was either Chuck Silvers or Sid Sheinberg, who we've talked about. They're like, hey, you gotta come see this. I've never seen the cast or the crew crying while we're shooting. And he was shooting this scene.

Eli Price (01:28:32.358)
I think a kid was involved or something. And yeah, the cast and the crew were apparently just overwhelmed and crying as they're shooting this emotional sequence. And so yeah, it just, his adeptness at capturing emotion was very apparent. And this landed him the job shooting the first episode of Columbo called Murder by the Book. He, Spielberg,

when they sent him the script for this, he actually saw this as like a, he saw it as the best script he had ever seen. And yeah, he really like, because of that, he really tried to like make the most out of his budget to get the most out of this movie that he possibly could. And yeah, I,

I thought this was really good. Out of all of the TV show stuff I watched, I was able to watch that he did, this was definitely the best work. It's a good script. You've got good, like probably the best actors as far as like where they were at that point in their career that he was working with. He has...

These really interesting low angle shots, these zoom outs from other things to characters, like where it's focused in on something in a room, but then it zooms out in this wide shot where you see the characters in screen. Again, these compositions. There's these moments where there's like, you know,

two or three characters on screen and just the way he composes the dialogue is just between them is just very interesting and really, I guess, adds to whether it's tension or the drama of the scene. You can just really see he's good at this. And then you have like interesting examples of

Eli Price (01:30:57.288)
like transition sites and stuff like there's these transitions where the car drives up right up on the camera where the headlights like close up and it uses that as a transition. But yeah. Yeah, it's just really well. It's really, really good. I thought it was a great. It was definitely the best work I think he did out of all of his TV work. The last thing he did for TV.

was also in 71, as far as like TV shows, was for the show called Owen Marshall Counselor at Law. And he directed the third episode of that called Eulogy for a Wide Receiver. This is another one that I wasn't able to find streaming or rentable or at the library or anything like that. So yeah, it just seemed like it was maybe another one sort of like.

sort of like his Marcus Welby episode where there wasn't a whole lot to write home about it, except for maybe him, you know, again, like in The Psychiatrist, just gaining more adeptness at capturing emotion. So, yeah, that was the last thing he directed for TV. We'll talk a lot more about Duel and something evil and savage.

Next week dual was a TV movie that he directed in 1971. He actually used his I think it was a Not final cut version of Colombo He gave to the guy that had the rights to the dual story to be I think it was like show me your best work and I'll decide if I want to give you the script kind of thing and That episode of Colombo got him the script for dual

So yeah, we'll talk about those next week. Two of them were TV movies, like just made for TV movies, which were Duel and Something Evil. And then Savage was, is kind of considered just a TV movie, but it was actually like a pilot, supposed to be like a pilot episode for a show that never got picked up. But yeah, he, yeah, that was his start. Like once he got Duel,

Eli Price (01:33:21.352)
He did direct those two other things, but man, after Duel got picked up and then he will talk about it more next week, but actually did some got some theater time. He finally got some traction and was able to get moving with the Sugarland Express, which was his first theatrical released. Like I said, Duel did get a theater run in Europe and late.

It got a theater run also in the US later on, like a few years later. But yeah, The Sugarland Express was his first theatrical released feature film. And then he made Jaws after that and there's no turning back after Jaws. So yeah, it's really interesting. A really interesting start to his life. I think we touched on a lot of good.

tidbits of kind of like things that you see from his childhood that just greatly influenced him now. I did want to run through some other important life moments. One of the cool things we touched on is introduction to George Lucas and Coppola. But he was in this like little crew of guys that were coming up all at the same time.

That included those two guys Lucas George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola Coppola was a bit older than these other guys He had he had kind of gotten his start about ten years maybe before but still relatively Of the same age and era. Yeah, Francis Ford Coppola George Lucas Martin Scorsese Brian De Palma They were like this little crew. They actually were dubbed at one point the movie Bratz, which I think is funny

But yeah, they were all of they all became very close. And even like kind of like fun competitive kind of thing going on between them. They would show each other their movies and critique and all that sort of stuff. It was like their own little like art movie community that they had. I always love that sort of stuff. I love when these guys like find their own little niche and their own little communities.

Eli Price (01:35:49.992)
where their kind of creativity can bloom, I guess, and grow. And it's kind of like an iron sharpens iron sort of thing. And it's just, I also think it's cool because you think about Scorsese, Lucas, Spielberg, De Palma, Coppola, they all had such different careers, different.

different ways of making their film. Each of those filmographies are so different, but they were so close and they weren't making the same sorts of movies, but they loved and supported each other's movies and films and careers. I just think that's really cool. In 1980, he started Amblin Entertainment, a production company.

He co -founded that with Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall who you may recognize still producing movies Especially Kathleen Kennedy is a pretty recognizable name but yeah, he so between 1984 and 1990 which is kind of later in the period we're covering in this series He was he he directed movies, but during that period

Uh, that kind of six, seven year period, he actually produced or executive produced 19 films, um, in those years, which is really impressive at that point in his career. He was successful and he was just moving nonstop. He's making movies. He's producing movies, his executive producing movies. Um, really cool. And also like he produced a ton of cartoons and, um, even a couple of animated features like, uh, the American tail.

Fievel movies and the Lambo the first lamb before time movie he produced He did a lot of TV production with like He had stuff like Animaniacs and pinky in the brain. I think Freakazoid Tiny tunes I think was was a Hamlin production that Steve or Steven Spielberg produced

Eli Price (01:38:08.52)
He was just like working nonstop in the mid 80s, early 90s. He first met his wife, his first wife, Amy Irving through Brian De Palma. She was in the movie Carrie. So he met her on that set. And they got married years later. They were married for four years from 1985 to 1989. So the kind of last little portion of

Um, the series we're covering, he was married to Amy Irving. Um, and they did unfortunately get divorced. Um, he talked about in a documentary how he never thought because he had experienced a divorce as a child, he never thought he would get divorced. Um, and yet he found himself getting divorced. Um, and they did have one child together, Max and, um, Spielberg recalls just like,

feeling so just overwhelmed with guilt about, you know, how this would affect Max. From what I can gather, they stayed like close to each other where they could, you know, both be parents to Max and stuff like that. And it's not like it was a really, really contentious breakup or anything from what I can gather.

I'm not real sure. Later on, he married Kate Upshaw in 1991, who most people might know. She's the main female actress in Temple of Doom, acting alongside Indy Harrison Ford. But yeah, that was in 91 that they got married. And Spielberg even recalls, he said that even when he first met her that...

bells were ringing, I think is how he put it. One thing that I think is really cool and important. Now this is a period that we're not covering in this particular early Spielberg series, but just to keep in mind, he did struggle immensely with his Jewish heritage, his Judaism growing up. And...

Eli Price (01:40:35.72)
kind of distance himself from it. And some of that does come off in his early movies, a lot of dealing with just feeling out of place with who you are, with your background, with your heritage, and wanting to not be that, but be more American sort of thing. So you see a lot about that. But.

Uh, it was really like a turning point in 91 for him, as far as that goes, when he married Kate, um, she was a Protestant growing up, but she was very interested in Judaism. Um, and did a lot of study and stuff as they were engaged. Um, and she actually ended up converting to Judaism before they married.

And he credits her for really like reconnecting him with his is Jewish heritage and his Jewish faith Which I thought was really cool She was very committed to it And and really brought him back to it, which he he appreciates immensely From from interviews I've seen with him and stuff and yeah

They had a big family together, three biological children, and they even adopted two children. And he never thought he would have a big family and here he is with his big family. Yeah, he, he shortly after, obviously he would make a Schindler's List. One of the really cool things about Schindler's List, along with its Oscar wins is that.

He took all of his percentage of the profits and started the Shoah Foundation, which is still an organization, a nonprofit today. And its whole objective is to gather and archive people's stories that have experienced atrocities like the Holocaust. So it started off with documenting and archiving.

Eli Price (01:42:48.456)
the stories of Holocaust survivors, tons and tons and tons of stories that the Shoah Foundation has archived. And it's expanded to just that gathering stories of people that have experienced stuff like that all over the world, which I just think is a really, really, really cool endeavor, I guess. Yeah, I just think that's really, really fantastic and really cool. And

That really wouldn't have happened. Maybe it might not have even happened if it wasn't for Kate Upshaw coming into his life and reconnecting him with his Jewish faith and all that. But, but yeah, we'll, we'll definitely cover Schindler's list and, uh, in a future Spielberg series, but for now we're sticking with the seventies and eighties. Um, overall stuff about his career. He's, um, he had 22, uh,

Academy nominations over he so far over the course of his career only three wins, but yeah, he so Obviously like that doesn't include acting and All the kind of like subcategories that includes like the categories where he would get awards for being the director so best picture best director he has he did get a nomination for

original screenplay for a fabled men's did not win that. But, um, but yeah, that's the only screenplay he's gotten nominated for. He hasn't written most of his screenplays. Um, really just a handful, um, from, I'm pretty sure, uh, yeah, best picture nominations for EET, the color purple Schindler's list, saving private Ryan Munich warhorse Lincoln bridge of spies, the post West side story and.

the Fable Men's. He also got from his producing, he has best picture nominations from Iwo Jima and Maestro this year for the Oscars that are coming up. So best director, he has nominations for Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E .T., Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, Munich, Lincoln.

Eli Price (01:45:13.616)
West Side Story and the Fableman's. You see a lot of crossover there. I think the difference would be Raiders got the best director nomination but not best picture. And Color Purple got the best picture nomination but not best director. Same for the post, I think. And Bridges of Sighs. And then, yeah, so he won three. He won...

Best Picture and Best Director for Schindler's List, and he won Best Director for Saving Private Ryan. So yeah, 22 Oscar nominations, three wins. If you look at other award shows, 14 BAFTA nominations and two wins, both for Schindler's List. 27 Emmy nominations and 12 wins for all those or for cartoons.

Well, I say all of them there. I think he's gotten awards also for a band of brothers and the Pacific, which are, um, World War II mini series that he's direct that he's produced. Um, and then 24 Golden Globe nominations and nine wins, um, kind of scattered throughout his career, but yeah.

His filmmaking. So. Inspirations. I did write down some of his big inspirations as far as filmmakers go. One thing that I didn't touch on when I was going through his childhood, but that is really important, is that in 1963 he saw Lawrence of Arabia by David Lean. Phenomenal movie if you've never seen it. I would make sure to fill that blind spot.

uh, sooner than later. Um, but yeah, he, he actually says he went to, went to and saw it at the theaters and like almost decided he was going to give up on the dream of being a director after first seeing Lawrence of Arabia. Uh, he went, um, went, I think I guess it was a summer release. He went and saw it Saturday like he would do in the summers. And it was like, the bar is so high, I can never reach it. And I'm going to give up on directing.

Eli Price (01:47:28.744)
But he also, he went on to say in the interview I was watching that he went and saw it again the next weekend, and then he went and saw it the weekend after that and the weekend after that. So he made it seem like he watched it like four weekends in a row and just came out after seeing it that many times and was like, okay, this is what I want to do. That movie was like solidified in his mind that he wanted to be a filmmaker.

which I think is a testament to his eye for good cinema, but also to how good Lawrence of Arabia is. And he actually said that this is one of the films he watches every year still to this day, which I get it. It's a great movie. It's definitely a rewatchable movie. But yeah, some other stuff. 2001, A Space Odyssey he saw and just blew him away. This is...

That was, would have been not terribly long before, before Close Encounters came out. But yeah, some other filmmakers that were really influential, obviously Cecil B. DeMille, we talked about the greatest show on earth. But you also got John Ford, very influential. You have that scene in the Fableman's. I'm not sure how true to life that is. I didn't really read anything about that.

actually happening, but yeah, Stanley Kubrick, influential. Alfred Hitchcock, a really big influence. And you know, you have the story of him sneaking on that Hitchcock set. Orson Welles is someone that he aspired to be like, really like probably the inspiration for him to kind of fake it on his age because he wanted to be a young guy getting the big

big movie like Orson Welles did. Yeah, and then just like just that persona that Welles had he just aspired to. John Frankenheimer is another. Francis Truffaut is one that he points to like as far as like European filmmakers go that really like was an inspiration to him. And then just another big inspiration that that I've heard him point out.

Eli Price (01:49:54.728)
several times as the Twilight series, which we'll be able to, and I have an episode where we talk about his portion of the Twilight Zone movie, which he produced and directed a portion of. So that'll be fun. But yeah, his filmmaking philosophy. I have this quote from Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick said, I believe Steven Spielberg summed it up about as profoundly as you can.

He thought the most difficult and challenging thing about directing a film was getting out of the car. And so when you talk about filmmaking philosophy, before you even get into the philosophy, you have to talk about how hard it is to make a film. And Spielberg recognizes that. And I did see in several interviews, they were, you know, they would ask him, you know, do you still get nervous when you're doing the next scene? Spielberg was just like, yeah, every time.

Every time we're getting ready to shoot a next screen, it's like, you know, you have a big test coming up in school and you just kind of get that nervous knot. He said, but it's like his, it's like the best feeling because it pushes him. And yeah, he, he did. It's challenging. It's a challenging. He's, you know, you're not sure how things are going to turn out that day.

But some early advice that Spielberg says he got was that, it was a director, I don't remember who it was, but they told him, never let other people see you when you're unsure of yourself, when you're on set. And he took that advice and ran with it. George Miller in the Preface to a Book, I'm reading, actually said, he got to go.

Um, on set of, I can't remember what movie it is now. Um, but he got to go on set and he said Spielberg was like calm and collected and knew exactly what he was doing. Um, you would never know that he was actually nervous, you know, um, completely relaxed and in control on set. Um, yeah. And, and Miller pointed out that one of the things about Spielberg is that he's.

Eli Price (01:52:17.064)
To be great, you really have to have humility. And we kind of talked about that at the beginning, and Spielberg's humility is evidenced by his unflagging curiosity. That's a quote from George Miller. His unflagging curiosity, I love that. Because it's true. When you have a humility about you, it comes through in your curiosity about the world. You don't assume to know.

And so it creates this curiosity about why things are and what emotion, you know, what emotions you're going to explore and that sort of thing. But yeah, another thing that I think informs the way Spielberg makes movies is that he's more concerned about why something works rather than why other things don't work. And I think a lot of times, you know, in stuff like endeavors, like making a film,

You can get so caught up on why is this not working? Why is this not working? Why is this not working? How can I fix this? I want to make this happen. How can I fix this? And you get fixated on that. But I think one of the reasons why Spielberg's movies come off as so genuine, both just like in their storytelling and in their emotions is because he is not worried about why something doesn't work. He's just worried about what does work.

And I think that creates this true to life feel sometimes because that is kind of how life is. Sometimes you do something and there are some things that don't work about it. But if you don't focus on those things and you focus on what is working about the situation in your life and pour yourself into that, then even the people around you are going to.

Maybe see the flaws, maybe see the things that don't work, but they're not really going to be concerned about it because you're not concerned about it. And you're just pressing forward and you're genuine and you're invested and it's going to draw other people into that as well. And I think that comes across in his movies very, very well. Yeah, sure. Maybe some dialogue is corny or maybe this special effect is corny, but there's a...

Eli Price (01:54:40.442)
Genuineness to it and there's an earnestness to it and a humility to it that says yeah Maybe that doesn't look real enough or maybe that line was too corny, but I'm focused on what is working here and it's you know, it's Harrison Ford's persona or it's you know this set piece and that's working and I'm loving it and you're like Yes, Wilberg. I don't care about that corny line either. I'm all in with you

And I just really think that's great. And one of the quotes that I wrote down that kind of goes along with that is he tells a story about being interviewed and he kind of like didn't even, it just came out of his mouth. He told an interviewer, I dream for a living. And he said he's come to believe that that's really what he does. He dreams for a living and he puts those dreams on the screen, which I love.

One of the things that I thought was cool that I saw him talk about as far as filmmaking philosophy is that he aspires to be able to bring people of different ideologies into the same room, watch the same movie, and experience the same emotions come out. No matter what you walk in with, you go out having experienced the same emotion and the same story. And that's something he aspires to do with all of his films. And I...

I think that's a really, again, just humble and earnest aspiration that really comes through in his movies. He's always wanting to be a storyteller first, to stay devoted to his stories and his ideas. And yeah, I think he is a great storyteller. He maybe doesn't write all of his films, but the way he...

portrays them on screen and directs the camera. He tells stories with cameras. That's one thing that I've noticed and kind of heard as I've done my research is he is so invested in making sure that the camera is moving and focused on the right thing and capturing the right thing to get the story across. And then,

Eli Price (01:57:07.208)
Yeah, I think the last thing here is something he said, which is that the toughest thing in directing is knowing what you want, not getting what you want. So just knowing what you want, and that's something that I've noticed so far in just researching Spielberg is that he knows what he wants. And that's harder when you're trying to tell stories than getting what you want.

Once you know what you want, that's what's most important. And you can find a way to get it. If you're more concerned of getting what you want, but you don't actually know what it is that you want to capture, then it's not going to turn out well. It's going to build distrust with you and your producers, with the studio, with the actors. But if you know what you want, you can get people to come alongside you and help you accomplish that. They'll trust you.

And I think that's a big thing that really worked for Spielberg and got his career kicked off is he knew what he wanted and eventually he was able to get it. He wasn't concerned at first with getting it. He was concerned of knowing what he wanted to do and trying to do it. And eventually people recognized that in him and gave him the chance. So I really love that.

But I think it's time that we kind of jump into some techniques. We've talked a lot about Spielberg, his history, who he is. Let's talk a little bit about the techniques that he uses. I'm going to kind of just run through these. I'll try to categorize them. And these are just going to be things that we're going to be looking for as we go through the series. And yeah, we'll start with production design.

One of the things that Spielberg does is he uses the scale. He uses scale to create extraordinary circumstances. So you'll see a lot of crowds, big dinosaurs, aliens, and big UFOs, a big shark, right? He's using scale to create these extraordinary circumstances for his characters. You'll see a lot of massive locations and sets.

Eli Price (01:59:27.176)
You know, you just think about the huge working sets of the Indiana Jones films or, um, you know, the expansive sky of ET you think of and close encounters too, really the vast desert of close encounters. Um, the, the sea in Jaws, um, those shots looking out into the ocean, it's an extraordinary circumstances that he's making for his care and even, uh, props.

He'll use props to indicate scale. The example that I ran across was all of the luggage in Schindler's List just shows you how many people there are. It builds this idea with the props of the massiveness of the situation. And he's always had a grasp on special effects as kind of going along with production design.

We kind of talked about that even early on in his little short films as a kid. Having a grasp on special effects and even like creating camera movement that goes with special effects really good. So that's, I think that's one of the big things of his production design is this, they take you into this extraordinary world by using scale. Color, he uses color as like a supporting,

thing in his compositions. He'll use color to establish a tone or indicate an emotion. He'll often do that. He will use color to kind of show that you're transitioning now into this fantastical world or that you're transitioning into this like otherworldly situation. You think about the colors of the spaceships in Close Encounters.

Um, is, is the kind of the big example that I can think of as far as that goes. Um, and then he uses it to, to draw your attention or your eye. Um, and so you think of like, um, and the color purple, Shug Avery and her red dress when she shows up and how that contrasts and stands out amongst the crowd and draws your attention to her. Um, there's also the little girl in the red coat and Schindler's list where your eye is drawn to her.

Eli Price (02:01:52.84)
And yeah, he'll even use brightness of color to heighten the extraordinary nature of a scene. So yeah, a lot of, as we go through these, you'll see a lot of it is him building on the scale and the grandness and the extraordinary nature of the setting or the circumstance that the characters are in.

And we'll kind of bring these all together in a minute. Yeah, the cinematography. We'll be looking for a lot of the ways that Steven moves the camera and the way he uses his compositions and his blocking. He does have a variety of camera movements. You think he does these very smooth, operatic camera moves from.

from close -ups to wide shots and vice versa. And even from those smooth moves to gritty realism with handheld and moving the camera around and jostling and stuff like that. So yeah, a very varied use of the camera. And he's had lots of directors of photography that he's worked with early on. He's...

He's worked with one guy Kaminsky since 93, but we're not going to be covering any of those movies. So really early on, he's using just a lot of different guys that he's working with. We can look for some cinematic motifs. I mentioned one earlier in silhouettes. He uses a lot of silhouette. The one that stands out in my mind is Indiana Jones against the sunset, where they're digging in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

putting the hat on, a lot of shadows. And you'll see a recurring visual motif of reflections, seeing people in mirrors and stuff like that. And then I think the big thing is the way he moves the camera. The camera movement is always that of an active viewer, not a passive one. And it's just so cool.

Eli Price (02:04:10.152)
It draws the, what it does is it draws the audience in where you feel like you're a part of the action and part of the drama, whether it's, you know, the way he moves the camera or mounts it on a vehicle even to, I think the way that he composes his dialogue shots just like draws you into the drama of the conversations you're listening to.

It makes you feel like you're in the room, you know? And he'll do these layered blocking shots that I noticed even when I watched the Savage, which I might talk about a little bit next week in next week's episode, where he'll have a character in the background and another character will walk into frame.

and the focus will change from the character that was further away in the background to the character that's now talking in the foreground of the shot. It builds like, I don't know, in his close -up, the way he does the close -ups, he'll use that where a person will step into frame and all of a sudden it's a close -up and it's focused on their emotion and what they're saying. It's all used to build character and to draw you into,

the situation and these layered blocking and these multiple compositions, meaning within one shot, the characters will be blocked in the scene in different positions. And it keeps the scene active and it keeps it interesting and it keeps you engaged in what's going on. There's a shot in...

Jaws where Brody and the mayor I think or and maybe a one or two other guys are talking in front of this billboard and you can You can even you can see how like There's all these different ways that they're blocked and composed around in the shot that keeps you engaged there they're not just static I guess as a Different way to think about it and then

Eli Price (02:06:32.136)
He also does these, he'll do these long takes that kind of sustain the momentum of action. So instead of like in an action sequence doing a lot of like cutting to this view of the vehicle and this view of these vehicles and all that, which he does do do that, but he'll also like have times where he will stay on. Okay, so I mean, think of like there's a piece of...

the car chase, I think, in Raiders of the Lost Ark, where there's a while where it stays on the shot of, I think it's through the passenger side or the driver side, one of those two. It's a view through the side of that window, and it stays on there for a little bit, and you see the action taking place. And it's sustaining that momentum of the action by doing a long shot.

Instead of using like a lot of cuts and editing to create that that action and that momentum and and what I'll say leading into before leading into editing his camera movement and his his cinematography in general Alongside of used alongside of the way he he has his films edited They're all about immersion. They're all about

Well, I'll say this, they're all about two things. They're about immersing you in both the action or the drama of the sequence and also immersing you in the character and the emotion of the character. A lot of his directing is so character focused, drawing you into these characters, giving you closeups so that you can...

hone in on their emotions, what they're feeling, what they're experiencing, their point of view if you're getting POV shots. It's all about immersing you both in the action and the drama of the situation and the world, these expansive and fantastical worlds that he creates, but also in the emotions and the experience of the character, the thought, even the thought life.

Eli Price (02:08:56.102)
visually of the character on screen. And so, you know, editing, transitioning to that, it may be the least discussed of his, of all of his like filmmaking techniques, I guess. And it's probably because he mostly sticks to continuity in his editing. It makes his stories really easy to follow and also kind of makes the editing

go a little bit more unnoticed than movies that are doing more jumping in time and that sort of thing. Most of his films are very like just straight continuity, like beginning to end sort of stories. But he does use editing in interesting ways. He does a lot of cuts to close -ups, like we were talking about.

A lot of cutting to closeups of characters, and not just like closeups, but like he'll do extreme closeups to catch characters reacting to the extraordinary or reacting to the drama of a situation to capture their emotions. You think about the scene in Jaws where Brody's on the beach, Captain Brody, and he's watching the ocean.

And you have these cuts every time someone walks in front of the, walks through the frame, it does a cut from a POV shot of him looking at the ocean to his face. And each time it cuts, it gets both closer to his face and to the ocean. And it amplifies his, the tension of what he's experiencing. You know, he's nervous, he's anxious, he doesn't know if...

something bad is gonna happen again. And the way that he edits that sequence builds that tension. And as it builds it, you're getting closer in on his face and closer to the tragedy that's about to happen in the ocean from his point of view. And man, it's just like master class, like editing and tension building. It's like he loved Hitchcock or something, but yeah.

Eli Price (02:11:17.928)
Another thing about his editing is he, one thing I've noticed about Spielberg, even not having watched a good bit of his movies, is that he has a very good sense of space and geography. And that comes both from his compositions and the way he like blocks his sets out and stuff. But a lot of it comes from the editing too. You really can get.

your audience lost in the narrative and not knowing what's going on where people are. If you don't have a good sense of how to edit action sequences or even like just more tense, dramatic sequences, if you don't have a good sense of how to edit those pieces together so that people can stay tuned in to where people are, what the stakes are.

what's going on, what's happening in this space, where's this character in relation to this character, in relation to this thing that's going on that they're trying to get to or trying to avoid. Just that sense of geography is so important. And a lot of that comes from not just the compositions of the scenes and the sets and placing people in the right place, but also in the editing.

And man, he's so great at it. He'll give you a clear sense of space. He'll give you point of view shots, and these all keep you grounded in the story and the action. And it creates suspense too, because when you're aware of the stakes of a sequence, of that part of the story, you're tuned into the narrative. You can keep track of everything because...

The way it's edited is showing you all the information you need to know so that you can keep up with what's going on and keep up with where the characters are, what the stakes are. It builds tension because you know all of these things. You can keep track of it. And yeah, so good. And then, like I was saying, a lot of character -oriented editing too, alongside of his

Eli Price (02:13:38.888)
compositions in his cinematography, a lot of it's character oriented. He'll do close ups. Obviously, we talked about that, but also like wide shots to show us their situation so that you not only are you like getting a close up so that you can really like see how they're reacting and what their emotions are on their face, but also you get these you'll get these wide shots so that you can see what they're experiencing. And.

Another thing along with that is I watched this really cool video, I think, by StudioBinder. It's a YouTube channel that has a lot of great stuff. A lot of this technique stuff comes from them, just researching from them. So that's a, you know, give a shout out to StudioBinder. Great resource for just like learning more about filmmaking. I highly recommend checking out their YouTube channel.

But one of the videos I watched, there's a guy talking about his kind of something that he has noticed about Spielberg watching a lot of his movies over and over is that he has, he calls it a point of thought instead of a point of view. I thought it was really cool. He was the example he gave is in Raiders of the Lost Ark where Indy is.

running through the streets and he's trying to find Marion. It's the scene where she's in a basket and all that stuff. He's trying to find her. You get these what seem like point of view shots. So you'll see Indy running up and then it'll cut to what would normally be a point of view shot where you see Marion crossing in front of and out through an alleyway in the basket being carried by these baddies.

But it's actually not a point of view shot, because if you look at where Andy is looking and you look at what the sort of plate, like, sort of alleyway he ran into, it doesn't make sense that she was running in front of him. And then you notice, like, when you cut back to his eyes, the sound is coming from, like, a different direction. So that's sound design working with your editing, too. But, and so what he's saying there is,

Eli Price (02:16:04.68)
It's putting you like in the thoughts of Indy instead of instead of giving you his point of view. It's giving him he's imagining, oh, she's over here and she's being carried this way. And so it's like you're getting a point of thought. You're getting what he's imagining where she is. And that's what that cut is to instead of a point of view. I thought that was really cool. And he kind of.

pointed out some other examples in that video. But he's always showing you what you need to understand the narrative and understand the character. I think is a really important part about his editing that goes a lot of times unnoticed. Yeah, sound design is big in his movies. You have iconic stuff like Indy's whip. He uses sound design just to build like,

that the, the aura of the character, I guess, like you hear that whip, you think Indiana Jones. Um, and then like, even like to build tension, you think of the ticking clocks in the movie link Lincoln to, to show, um, kind of the urgency of the situation. He does a lot of juxtaposition of small sounds and big sounds. Um, you think about the atom blast and kingdom of the crystal school, you know, you, you go from this like.

loud boom of the atomic blast to this very like subtle like crackling as like the mannequins and stuff are getting hit by debris and dust. Just like those juxtaposition of sounds or think about like the quietness of the kids in the car in Jurassic Park and then the water starts to shake and all of a sudden the T -Rex is there doing his T -Rex roar.

and that juxtaposition of the small quiet to the big grand sounds. And it all is built around tension building and storytelling. Very good. But another thing you'll see is that he'll use sound design to draw your attention to something. The big example that I saw was Meryl Streep's heels.

Eli Price (02:18:30.17)
As Katherine Graham in the movie The Post, she's in this world that's run by men. She's surrounded by men. But you'll notice in watching the movie that there'll be these situations where, you know, a bunch of men are walking around, but you know where Katherine is because you hear those heels click, click, click, you know, walking. And you know, she is about to enter the room or she's coming.

So I thought that was a cool thing that I saw pointed out. Yeah. And then finally, the music. You know, Spielberg, John Williams is his longest collaborator and Spielberg considers him to be an invaluable partner. He's been with him since Jaws. And man, John Williams has this way of...

just sweeping you off into these extraordinary worlds that Spielberg creates. It's just really incredible. Yeah, just think about E .T. and the bike in front of the moon sequence, that music, or the Indiana Jones when you hear the theme. And he uses the music so dynamically and so in sync with what's going on.

If you just think about that opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark, how the, if you, if you really pay attention to the score, which you might not watching because it's so in tune that it's kind of like, it blends in with the action. But yeah, just as things are building, like the, the, the music blends as like something frantic is happening. The music gets frantic.

It's really, really incredible how in sync that score is with the action and that opening sequence. I would recommend going and checking that out. And then, yeah, it lets you know what to feel, what to expect. I mean, just think about the Jaws theme. You know when you hear the dun -dun that that shark is coming. Yeah, and then one fun fact.

Eli Price (02:20:53.768)
Well, I'll save that for the ET episode. Yeah, lastly, we're going to wrap up and talk about some themes. And we've hit on a lot of this stuff already because the themes of his movies are very much wrapped up in his philosophy of filmmaking and even the way he makes films, the techniques that we've just talked about. But yes, Spielberg.

his movies, especially, especially, especially early on in his career. And in a different way as he gets later in his career. But he always has ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. And I think that's another reason why his films are so loved and so widely loved is because people see themselves.

in his characters because they're just ordinary people. They're not grand, exciting people. They're just kind of even like you think about Indiana Jones, it's you know, you have that opening sequence and you're like, who is this guy? And then you jump and he's just like this kind of nerdy professor, like talking about archaeology at a college. Like he's just kind of a normal guy. And like he makes a lot of people like think like, oh, Indiana Jones, he's a great like.

adventurer and, but really like if you watch the movies, he just like flying by the seat of his pants through those movies. Like he should definitely be dead. But, um, but yeah, uh, so even the Indiana Jones to like all the other characters, like they're just ordinary people that find themselves in extraordinary circumstances. And, um, and I would even say, especially like early on just stemming from his place in the studio system.

He has a lot of stories of underdogs that are pursued by these huge forces. Yeah. So ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Another thing is escapism. I think Spielberg's films are like the perfect escapist films. They're those films you go to see to escape from reality and experience something amazing or fantastic or.

Eli Price (02:23:17.704)
Um, extraordinary. Um, and you know, it stems from his experience, just always being kind of a lonely guy in an outcast. And he created these worlds that he could explore, um, out of that, um, out of feeling like he didn't belong where he was. So I'm going to create a place that I can explore where I belong. Um, and I think because.

Sometimes escapist films can feel kind of removed and drier emotionally than they should, but Spielberg's aren't that way at all. And I think because it stems from this place of wanting to create this world where you can belong, where you can do something extraordinary despite the ordinariness of your situation or of who you are.

Another recurring theme are families. He often has families very centered in his stories, but they're also often fractured in some way, whether it's just kids being placed in unfathomable circumstances, situations, whether it's divorce or absent fathers or mothers that are more friends than

than mother. These are all kind of like centered on his experience growing up and his anxieties in his childhood. I once heard him say that filmmaking is his therapy in an interview. And he is he's working out his fears and his anxieties from his childhood and from his his, I guess, early career out on the screen.

which I don't think there's anything wrong with that. That's just part of being an artist. Another thing that kind of goes along with that is just empathy for the outcast. I mean, just think about ET or, I mean, even Indiana Jones is a bit of an outcast. The dad in Close Encounters, a bit of an outcast. Man, it...

Eli Price (02:25:43.624)
He just has such empathy for people that might be different or seen as an other. And I think he has that all through his career, but especially early on. And the last thing here is just experiencing wonder. Steven Spielberg has this way of kind of putting fears and astonishment together to...

create these experiences of wonder where kind of maybe the most...

The ultimate image of this idea would be the child when he gets the door open in close encounters and the bright red light of the UFO is out there and it's this kid looking out in amazement. And you have the amazement of the kid and he's drawn to this. He's curious about it. He's wondering what it's about. He's not really scared.

But he's astonished by it. He is drawn to it. And then you have the mother who is just like overwhelmed with fear. She doesn't know what that is. She doesn't trust it. You know, she wants to rescue her son. And so you have these two emotions like mixed together that you're like experiencing with each of these characters and they it just creates this sense of wonder. And and it really is truly like.

When you think of things that are wonderful or full of wonder, there is this, there's an astonishment and excitement and a curiosity with it, but there's also a fear because it's unknown. You're unsure what it entails for you, what it could bring. If I step into this thing or touch it or experience it, is it going to be too much for me to handle? Is it going to change my life too much?

Eli Price (02:27:53.864)
And I think that's that idea of just wonder and that being an important aspect of our lives is very much throughout his Steven Spielberg's whole filmography. But yeah, so that's some thematic elements about Steven Spielberg. And just wrapping up, I...

I watched this documentary just called Spielberg and Leonardo DiCaprio said something in it that I thought was cool. He just very simple. He said that Spielberg story is just a pretty fantastic Hollywood story. I think I would agree. Just what you see, one thing that I think as we go through this series that I'm excited to just dig in. One reason I'm excited to dig into Spielberg's filmography is just.

I feel like what you see is what you get with Spielberg. He's who he is, is genuinely him. And what you see on the screen comes across in the same way. And he just always is trying to find the good in the world. I think through his movies, he's trying to grasp at what's good and right and interesting about the world. And he does that through extraordinary circumstances, but it's, it's all.

coming back and grounded in those characters that we relate to. So I'm just, I'm looking forward to that. Early on in his career, Pauline Kale, who was a very well -known and respected critic of the day, had said that she, when the Sugarland Express came out, she said,

This guy really is in tune with good filmmaking. She was really impressed with the movie. But one thing she said, maybe not negatively, but I don't know, maybe it was a negative or a criticism, or maybe it was just like wondering kind of about this guy is she was, and part of it is because it's something that's kind of plagued him through his career is that his films are not artsy enough. He's not, uh,

Eli Price (02:30:14.856)
He's not an all -tier filmmaker. He's not, he's too commercial. All these things, which I've heard Steven say that in an earlier interview in his career that was brought up in Spielberg, you know, just questioning whether his movies were really art with a capital A, I guess. Spielberg just straight up said, well, I think that thought is pretentious. And he's like, why can't...

a boy on a bicycle going in front of the moon, silhouetted against the moon be art. He's like, why, you know, it's, it's a very pretentious thought to say that my films are not art, which I appreciated him kind of standing up for that, in that interview. But yeah, Pauline, going back, Pauline Kale had, had wondered, she had wondered about that. She had wondered, does, is there really anything beneath the surface with this guy or does he just kind of have a knack for?

for the camera. And Spielberg said, I saw an interview later on in his career where he said that Pauline Kell was right in her initial take of him. At that point in his career, there wasn't a ton beneath the surface. It was all out there. And he said, but what he's come to realize is that he's grown.

throughout his career as a filmmaker. He's become a person with more depth, with more, interested in more things and in trying to focus on what's important and what's needed in the moment and not just making fun movies. But he said he had to grow into that. And I think that's very insightful and self -aware.

to know the things I was making at that point in my career, maybe they were surface level, but they were what I needed to make so that I could get to where I am today. And he's still making great films. I think his West Side Story is great and I think The Fableman's is one of his better works. It's a great film, I think.

Eli Price (02:32:39.656)
Um, and so I just think as we go through this series, um, I I'm looking forward to seeing how he grows to starting with TV, going through and, and watching, uh, his early work all the way through the eighties. I'm just looking forward to see how he grows as a filmmaker and his storytelling and, and the depths of what he's, um, wanting to, to capture and, and let us experience as his audience. Uh,

very much looking forward to that. And I do want to say before we close out, I had a few recommendations. Let me grab behind me one that I've been, I've actually been listening to it on Spotify audio books, but I do, I did check it out from the library first before I was listening to kind of flip through it and see if I wanted to give it a listen. I'm holding it up, but if you're listening, it is called,

Steven Spielberg, A Life in Films by Molly Haskell. What's interesting about this is early in his career, Molly Haskell as a critic was a big critical of Spielberg. She wasn't really all that into his movies. And so it's interesting to get a perspective of his films and his career.

through the perspective of someone who has kind of had to grow more to like him than she did at first. And like I said, I'm listening to that on audiobook. Obviously, I have my film studies notebook that this guy, George R. Gill, ARGYLL, sells on Amazon. Very helpful in taking notes and like that sort of thing. My main...

I have also listened a little bit to another audio book on Spotify. I want to say it's called The Steven Spielberg Companion or something like that. I'm pulling it up as I talk. A Companion to Steven Spielberg. It's edited by Nigel Morris. And I think it's just a collection of essays on Spielberg and his works.

Eli Price (02:35:02.664)
I haven't listened to much of that, but I have listened to some of the introduction. My main resource is actually a fairly new book that has come out. It's called Steven Spielberg, All the Films, the Story Behind Every Movie, Episode, and Short. And this is by Oliver Bousquette or Bouquet, Arnaud de Villard, Deviard.

and Nicholas Schaller. I should have practiced saying these names before I got on here. But yeah, here is the book. The book cover, if you're looking for it online, is a picture of Steven Spielberg sitting crisscross applesauce between the toes of a T -Rex, I guess. But yeah, this one has been really interesting. It really does.

go movie by movie through his career, giving you kind of background information on it and that sort of thing. And then of course, huge resources, getting those physical copies of the movies with all the extra features and all that sort of stuff. And I did also mention StudioBinder on YouTube as a great resource. So yeah. Next week.

We will be covering the, we'll mostly be talking about the movie Duel, which was his first TV movie that he directed and actually extended it for a European run in theaters, as I mentioned. We'll be talking about that. We might briefly touch on Something Evil and Savage, which you can actually go watch those on YouTube. Those are a couple of TV movies he made.

Dual, you can find probably to rent. I don't think it's streaming anywhere, but you can rent it. I actually checked it out at the library and watched it that way. So you could do that too if you're interested in kind of watching some of those before the episode next week. I would prioritize dual, obviously. I actually think it's pretty good.

Eli Price (02:37:30.024)
and it'll be the main topic of discussion. And then I would actually, I might prioritize Savage over Something Evil just because for one, I think it is a little bit better. But yeah, if you can watch all three of those, I would recommend it. It's really interesting to see some of his early work like that. And like I said, Something Evil and Savage are both on.

YouTube so you can watch those there. But yeah, that's really all I have for this week. I hope you're as excited about this Spielberg venture as I am. And I just wanted to give a quick reminder. If you could just take a moment, give the show a rating and review on both Apple.

and Spotify that really helps the visibility of the show and really anything else you want to see about the show, how to support it, how to support the show financially, all that. Again, leave a voicemail. You can go to establishingshotpod .com and find all that stuff there and more. And so, yeah, I really appreciate you listening. I appreciate you.

going on these adventures through directors with me. And yeah, looking forward to next week going over the movie Duel and his other TV movies. But until then, I've been Eli Price and you've been listening to The Establishing Shot. See you next time.