Director Steven Spielberg and his father Arnold

I am happy and sad to say that this will be my last blog post on this topic. So, for such an occasion I thought the analysis of Steven Spielberg’s life would be appropriate as he was on my list to write about and I never got around to it. Spielberg is considered to be one of the best movie directors of all time and is currently the highest paid director beating out the likes of Michael Bay, the Russo brothers, and many more. As you can probably guess, he didn’t get there overnight. He held a sustained passion for which he would not let go under any circumstances. 

As a young child, Spielberg had practically no ambition, like most children, but at the age of 12 he made his first film. A home movie production of a train wreck, in which he used his very own toy trains. Spielberg continued on to then film more of his amateur 8mm films. As a boy scout, Spielberg completed his photography merit badge by filming a nine minute cowboy 8mm film called The Last Gunfight. It sounds very cheesy, however, this can be considered the start of a very fruitful career. He took the opportunity to apply his passion to his current “work” by adapting a merit badge for photography to the big screen. A year later, Spielberg created another film, a forty minute long war film called Escape to Nowhere that was solely composed of his high school friends. He had entered the film into a local film festival and won first prize, which in turn motivated him to make several more 8mm films throughout his teenage years. 

During his senior year of high school, Spielberg and his family had moved from Phoenix, AZ to Saratoga, CA where his parents would get divorced, leaving Spielberg to move to LA with his father. At this point in his life, Spielberg had become hard set on becoming a movie director, so moving to LA gave him the opportunity to pursue this goal through higher education. Unfortunately passion and school work often do not intersect as one is usually given up for the other, and in this case nothing would stop Spielberg from pursuing his dreams. So he applied to his dream school, University of Southern California’s film school, where he was promptly rejected for his C average in high school. He could’ve given up and said that fate has concluded his own ineptitude as a director, however something as simple as being rejected from a school should not be the reason for failure and Spielberg understood this. He then applied twice more to the same school with the same outcome: rejection.

Steven Spielberg (left) on the set of Saving Private Ryan with Tom Hanks (Right)

He then later applied and got accepted to California State University, Long Beach. During his time there he would take up an intern position at Universal Studios’ editing department, where he was given the opportunity to write and direct a short film for theatrical release, a twenty-six minute 35mm film called Amblin’. The film had won a number of awards and had caught the eye of studio vice president Sidney Sheinberg. Sheinberg then offered Spielberg a seven year contract, which was eagerly accepted. Making Spielberg the youngest director ever to be offered a long term contract with a major Hollywood studio. Spielberg dropped out of college and the rest is history. 

We will never know if Spielberg would be the same man today if he had gotten accepted into his dream school, but we do know that he found the place where his talents were recognized and appreciated by his peers. He didn’t let his high school bullies, or college board, or anyone else dictate his actions or his passions. He knew what he was passionate about and simply persevered in the face of failure. If you were to take anything away from these ten blog posts it should be the common theme across all of my posts, perseverance is the greatest ally to success.