George Lucas

George Lucas founded Lucasfilm in 1971 to support films he wanted to make on his own terms. He grew up in Modesto, California, and studied filmmaking at the University of Southern California. His interests joined art, photography, machines and stories. Before starting Lucasfilm, he worked with Francis Ford Coppola at American Zoetrope and made his first feature, THX 1138. The company’s financial problems after that film helped push him toward an independent business. Lucasfilm’s first production was American Graffiti, released in 1973. Its story drew on the cars, music and uncertainty of the world Lucas knew as a teenager. The film gave his new company a successful start. Star Wars required a different kind of preparation: the images Lucas imagined could not be made with an existing production setup. In 1975 he founded Industrial Light & Magic and brought in specialists, including visual effects supervisor John Dykstra, to build the tools and methods the film required. He also hired sound designer Ben Burtt, whose work helped start a lasting sound business. The release of Star Wars in 1977 supported more than sequels. Lucasfilm developed licensing, publishing, sound, games and digital production tools. Its Computer Division was sold to Steve Jobs in 1986 and became Pixar. Lucas’s company thus grew through work that served the making of stories, while some of that work became useful to other filmmakers or independent businesses. In 2012 he brought Kathleen Kennedy in as president and sold Lucasfilm to Disney. Lucas’s reading gives another view of his craft. He recalls liking adventure books such as Kidnapped, Treasure Island and Huck Finn. He also credits Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces with helping him organize his ideas for Star Wars. These are specific accounts of literary taste and influence. They show a filmmaker drawing on earlier stories while building the practical means to tell new ones.