the hardest thing to listen to your
instincts your human personal intuition
always whispers it never shouts the envy
is a good thing more interest in the
story teller doesn’t know anything about
where to put the camera then someone who
knows everything about the camera but
nothing about the story process we are a
nation of immigrants at least for now
but I kind of like to make movies that
leave you with with a an impression it
doesn’t go away in 24 hours he’s an
American director screenwriter producer
and editor he is considered one of the
founding pioneers of the new Hollywood
era he has an estimated net worth of 3.6
billion dollars
he’s Steven Spielberg and here’s my take
on his top ten rules for success number
eight is my personal favorite and make
sure to stick around although to the end
for some special bonuses when you have a
dream and the dream isn’t something you
dream then it happens the dream is
something you never knew was going to
come into your life
dreams always come from behind you not
not right between your eyes it sneaks up
on you but when you have a dream it
doesn’t often come at you screaming in
your face
this is who you are this is what you
must be for the rest of your life
sometimes a dream almost whispers and
I’ve always said to my kids the hardest
thing to listen to your instincts your
human personal intuition always whispers
it never shouts very hard to hear so you
have to every day of your lives be ready
to hear what whispers in your ear it
very rarely shouts and if you can listen
to the whisper and if it tickles your
heart and it’s something you think you
want to do for the rest of your life
then that is going to be what you do for
the rest of your life and we will
benefit from everything you do the main
thing is I am a sinner maniac and I’m
I’m scared to death of the dark except
when the motion picture theater I love
to see images because I love images that
tell stories before I ever knew how to
read I used to look at the sunday
funnies and still understand everything
the storyteller wanted me to
and that’s what I love to do more than
anything else I’d love to make pictures
so I can look at them so you could look
at them and so I can watch you looking
at them which is really for me the best
part if I had to single out one area to
which I have an utter devotion it would
be with my preoccupation with the idea
and the fight to still believe in the
idea when so many others around you just
don’t get it and the challenge of
staying interested in one single idea
for sometimes years and the struggle not
to contaminate that idea after months
and years of obsessing over it when I
was in my early teens I stayed up all
night writing a screenplay and felt
something to this day I swear I cannot
get enough of it was as close to the
feeling of flying as I have ever had you
know what I mean when when you’re trying
to get the words on paper and your three
thoughts ahead of yourself and it’s a
race to get it all down before it goes
back to where that’s ever that stuff
originally comes from and it was called
inspiration and I actually made a movie
from that script I wrote all night and
it was called firelight and it was truly
an awful movie
but the process was what it was all
about the experience of that obsessive
focus of having an idea and actually
being able to photograph it that’s been
the magic potion for me ever since the
envy is a good thing
you you can’t rise to any great height
without not just envy but but it’s
because Envy might be the wrong word
it’s more jealousy an ambition and
wanting to do better than those guys and
they all felt that way we all felt that
way about each other but in trying to
inspire each other and outdo each other
we work together and collaborated with
each other to make our films better my
movies are better for having Francis
George and Marty and Bryan in my life
and I think some of their films are –
it’s not about camera magic yeah I mean
when I’m looking at student films or I’m
looking at first time director short
films I’m not looking for how great the
camera is I mean so many people I can
look at any TV commercial and know that
there are directors out there that can
place a camera and sell a product
because they tell a story that that
holds together is compelling and
original and that’s the secret you know
I’m more interested in the storyteller
doesn’t know anything about where to put
the camera then someone who knows
everything about the camera but nothing
about the story process and the way you
create a better future is by studying
the past Jurassic Park writer Michael
Crichton who graduated from both this
College in this medical school like to
quote a favorite professor of his who
said that if you didn’t know history you
didn’t know anything you were a leaf
that didn’t know it was part of a tree
so history majors good choice you’re in
great shape
not in the job market but culturally the
rest of us have to make a little effort
social media that were inundated and
swarmed with is about the here and now
but I’ve been fighting and fighting
inside my own family to get all my kids
to look behind them to look at what
already has happened because to
understand who they are is to understand
who we were and who their grandparents
were and then what this country was like
when they emigrated here we are a nation
of immigrants at least for now
so to me this means we all have to tell
our own stories we have so many stories
to tell talk to your parents and your
grandparents if you can and ask them
about their stories and I promise you
like I have promised my kids you will
not be bored and and that’s why I so
often make movies based on real-life
events I look to history not to be
didactic because that’s just a bonus but
I look because the past is filled with
the greatest stories that have ever been
told heroes and villains are not
literary constructs but there is the
heart of all history there’s always been
a an emotional quotient in in every film
of yours and is emotion close to you and
what is the deciding factor is business
more important for you or the emotional
factor in a story now the emotional
factor in the story always because you
have been breaking the business barriers
very often but but what what what what
calls to me is not whether a film is
going to make a gazillion dollars what
calls to me is is there an ad p– urge
in the center of myself that only that
film will release and and then and then
exercise and that’s the only condition
I’ll direct a movie if I’m doing a
sequel of course I’m doing the lost
world a secret of Jurassic Park of
course I know that the bar has been
raised because if it doesn’t make this X
amount of money everybody thinks it’s a
failure and there’s that added pressure
of great expectation the Indiana Jones
series are not sequels but on all the
other three Indiana Jones films that
I’ve directed there’s a tremendous level
of expectation and that’s nerve-racking
yeah but but the fact that those movies
are successful and make a lot of money
isn’t why I decided to direct sequels to
the Indiana Jones series and I think
it’s OK that a first-time filmmaker
being so inspired by movies and music
videos and
any kind of music or media can make a
derivative film it’s okay that your
first videos and your first attempts at
telling a story our derivative are
obviously influenced by something that
you know you saw last week and you want
to kind of do a version there’s nothing
wrong with learning the ABCs learning
your craft by being derivative but at
some point you’re going to need to find
your natural voice and find a way to
give voice to who you are and who you
are by the way who you are as original
it just is because you’re not Tom you’re
not me and you’re not your best friend
and you’re not your teacher not your
parents you are you and because of that
you do have every bone in your body is
an original bone it’s sometimes trying
to figure out how to express your own
original on that analogy and that
sometimes takes a number of years to
figure yourself out well I love college
because I knew exactly what I wanted to
do and some of you know too but some of
you don’t or maybe you thought you knew
but are now questioning that choice
maybe you’re sitting there trying to
figure out how to tell your parents that
you want to be a doctor and not a comedy
writer
well what you choose to do next is what
we call in the movies the character
defining moment now these are moments
you version while you’re with like in
the last Star Wars the first force
awakens
when Rey realizes the force is with her
or Indiana Jones choosing mission over
fear by jumping into a pile of snakes
now in a two-hour movie you get a
handful of character defining moments
but in real life you face them everyday
life is one straw a strong long string
of character defining moments and I was
lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly
wanted to do but I didn’t know who I was
I could I and how could any of us
because for the first 25 years of our
lives we are trained to listen to voices
that are not our own parents and
professors fill our heads with wisdom
and information and then employers and
mentors take their place and explain how
this world really works and usually
these voices of authority makes sense
but sometimes doubt starts to creep into
our heads and into our hearts and even
when we think that’s not quite how I see
the world it’s kind of easier just to
nod in agreement and go along and for a
while I let that going along to find my
character because I was repressing my
own point of view because like in that
Nilsson song everybody was talking at me
so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my mind
and at first the internal voice I needed
to listen to was hardly audible and it
was hardly noticeable kind of like me in
high school
but then I started paying more attention
and my intuition kicked in and I want to
be clear that your intuition is
different from your conscience they work
in tandem but here’s the distinction
your conscience shelves here’s what you
should do
while your intuition whispers here’s
what you could do listen to that voice
that tells you what you could do nothing
will define your character more than
that because once I turned to my
intuition and I tuned into it I certain
projects began to pull me into them and
others I turned away from I just think
the people when I go to a movie it
shouldn’t be given the entire meaning of
the film in a nutshell they totally
people guessing I’m not really guessing
that should come out satisfied that
they’ve had an emotional experience and
they’ve understood and liked all the
people in the picture but they should
also go out up out of the movie thinking
about them we let the movie stick to you
know to them like a musk you know you
can’t get it off with soap and water it
just is just is on you for studies with
you yeah it’s kinda like being skunked
way you might have to explain being
skunk to an Australian audience to small
furry creature white stripe down the
tail sprays you and you can’t get it out
of your clothes off it to burn your
clothes because the after odor lingers
for months sometimes years kind of like
ready like to fall out there once you’ve
got the smell of I got a nice width I’m
turbo these analogies but but I kind of
like to make movies that leave you with
with a an impression it doesn’t go away
in 24 hours it was a lot harder to get
started when I was growing up and
wanting to be a movie director almost at
12 years old because when I first picked
up a camera in order to get out where
were you living with you I was in
Scottsdale here in Arizona you know I
got honey I was looking for a way to get
fulfill the requirements to get a
photography merit badge I was in the Boy
Scouts of America and the magic was that
he’ll make her before no I don’t be a
filmmaker at all I would want to be a
Eagle Scout that was my only aspiration
was become want to get the highest rank
I could in this in Scouting and so on my
way to being an Eagle Scout I had to get
a certain you know requisite amount of
merit badges and one of them I want to
get was photography and the requirement
was to tell a story was still
photographs and my dad’s camera broke he
did not have a still camera like the
brownie Kodak that he had wasn’t working
so I but he did an eight millimeter
Kodak eight millimeter movie camera and
I went to the Scoutmaster and I said
can we change the rules just so I can
tell a story on film because we don’t
have a still camera and the Scoutmaster
said go ahead and do it so I got three
minutes worth of film which is by the
way all those cameras used to take these
little three minute rolls of film and I
made this Western on a weekend I show
that you headed you edit did you camera
cutting a camera cut you know a little
shot at my friends and cowboy outfits
robbing a stagecoach which was sort of
an exhibit out in front of a place
called Pinnacle Peak patio a restaurant
which is still there outside of scotch
did you know to camera can you just I
just figured out you know you do a shot
in this direction of the bad guys with
their guns masks on and my citrus played
the damsels in distress and the
stagecoach giving away their costume
jewelry well my mother’s jewelry I
didn’t tell her we took my mother’s
jewelry to give away to 12-year olds you
know pretending to be about robbers and
I made this little movie and then showed
it to the Boy Scout Troop that weekend
and they all went crazy for they
screamed and applauded and I suddenly
got bitten by that bug and I wanted to
do this for the rest of my life it was
like became so clear to me but it was
hard then because to make movies you had
to pay for film and pay for developing
of the film so I had to go to my dad to
say dad you know I learned some money
but I can earn all the money because I I
go to school I can’t get a job to earn
the money to pay for all this equipment
so my dad helped me however today it’s
easier today everybody seems of a
camcorder everybody has some high eight
digital camera and it’s a lot easier to
get your hands on you buy that editing
program computer you can buy it as
software program for the computer and go
out and make a movie and tell a story
and figure out who you are as a
storyteller and and so in a sense it’s
easier today for young people to at
least prove to themselves is what they
want to do for the rest of their lives
or at least in the interim of the rest
of their lives and it’s also if you get
bitten by that bug you can make a lot
little movies and somehow those films
will get seen by people hopefully that
will hire you do a music video someday
or a TV commercial or a television show
or someday a feature film
thank you guys so much for watching I
hope you enjoyed I made this video
because Anthony Jackson asked me to so
if there’s a famous entrepreneur that
you I’m gonna profile next leave it in
the comments below and I’ll see what I
can do I’d also love to know which of
Spielberg’s ten rules have the biggest
impact on you and why what change you’re
going to make now in your business or
life leave it in the comments I will
join in the discussion finally I want to
give a quick shout out to Robin
Robertson thank you so much for
pre-ordering my book it means a lot to
me for those of you who are buying make
sure you email in your receipts for a
chance at a shout out in a future video
thank you guys so much for watching
continue to believe or whatever your one
word is and I’ll see you soon
Helen kales she had a radio show off the
air she said to me now you have I hear
1941 coming out
she said well we’re all waiting for that
one you know you’re not going to get off
as easy to get off with your first two
films we’re waiting for you to fail and
in so many words she pretty much just
said to me you know we’ve got our knives
sharpened because this better be the
greatest thing anybody’s ever made are
you gonna go down in flames and I’ll
never forget her warning almost like
sight unseen whether it’s a good picture
of bad picture it’s your turn to be
slapped I was kind of riding the
whirlwind and when I did 1941 I have to
tell you I felt like I was made of
Teflon
I felt that anything I put on film was
going to succeed I felt invincible and I
think in a sense at that point in my
life the best thing that could have
happened to me was the drubbing that
1941 got both from the critics and the
public and and I I tell you something I
sobered up so quickly after that was
over I just became so precious and
indulgent about getting everything right
I did 20 takes on inserts that should
have been done by a second unit I
shouldn’t even done the insert I shot
all the miniatures myself I directed
every single miniature I should have had
a miniature unit come in and shoot the
ferris wheel rolling down the pier
I had a first unit production company
and they were being paid first unit
dollars to shoot what should have been
second unit miniatures what they paired
down 20% miniature unit and I couldn’t
let go I couldn’t share the workload
with anyone and I learned the greatest
lessons of my career just from the
experience of 1941
instincts your human personal intuition
always whispers it never shouts the envy
is a good thing more interest in the
story teller doesn’t know anything about
where to put the camera then someone who
knows everything about the camera but
nothing about the story process we are a
nation of immigrants at least for now
but I kind of like to make movies that
leave you with with a an impression it
doesn’t go away in 24 hours he’s an
American director screenwriter producer
and editor he is considered one of the
founding pioneers of the new Hollywood
era he has an estimated net worth of 3.6
billion dollars
he’s Steven Spielberg and here’s my take
on his top ten rules for success number
eight is my personal favorite and make
sure to stick around although to the end
for some special bonuses when you have a
dream and the dream isn’t something you
dream then it happens the dream is
something you never knew was going to
come into your life
dreams always come from behind you not
not right between your eyes it sneaks up
on you but when you have a dream it
doesn’t often come at you screaming in
your face
this is who you are this is what you
must be for the rest of your life
sometimes a dream almost whispers and
I’ve always said to my kids the hardest
thing to listen to your instincts your
human personal intuition always whispers
it never shouts very hard to hear so you
have to every day of your lives be ready
to hear what whispers in your ear it
very rarely shouts and if you can listen
to the whisper and if it tickles your
heart and it’s something you think you
want to do for the rest of your life
then that is going to be what you do for
the rest of your life and we will
benefit from everything you do the main
thing is I am a sinner maniac and I’m
I’m scared to death of the dark except
when the motion picture theater I love
to see images because I love images that
tell stories before I ever knew how to
read I used to look at the sunday
funnies and still understand everything
the storyteller wanted me to
and that’s what I love to do more than
anything else I’d love to make pictures
so I can look at them so you could look
at them and so I can watch you looking
at them which is really for me the best
part if I had to single out one area to
which I have an utter devotion it would
be with my preoccupation with the idea
and the fight to still believe in the
idea when so many others around you just
don’t get it and the challenge of
staying interested in one single idea
for sometimes years and the struggle not
to contaminate that idea after months
and years of obsessing over it when I
was in my early teens I stayed up all
night writing a screenplay and felt
something to this day I swear I cannot
get enough of it was as close to the
feeling of flying as I have ever had you
know what I mean when when you’re trying
to get the words on paper and your three
thoughts ahead of yourself and it’s a
race to get it all down before it goes
back to where that’s ever that stuff
originally comes from and it was called
inspiration and I actually made a movie
from that script I wrote all night and
it was called firelight and it was truly
an awful movie
but the process was what it was all
about the experience of that obsessive
focus of having an idea and actually
being able to photograph it that’s been
the magic potion for me ever since the
envy is a good thing
you you can’t rise to any great height
without not just envy but but it’s
because Envy might be the wrong word
it’s more jealousy an ambition and
wanting to do better than those guys and
they all felt that way we all felt that
way about each other but in trying to
inspire each other and outdo each other
we work together and collaborated with
each other to make our films better my
movies are better for having Francis
George and Marty and Bryan in my life
and I think some of their films are –
it’s not about camera magic yeah I mean
when I’m looking at student films or I’m
looking at first time director short
films I’m not looking for how great the
camera is I mean so many people I can
look at any TV commercial and know that
there are directors out there that can
place a camera and sell a product
because they tell a story that that
holds together is compelling and
original and that’s the secret you know
I’m more interested in the storyteller
doesn’t know anything about where to put
the camera then someone who knows
everything about the camera but nothing
about the story process and the way you
create a better future is by studying
the past Jurassic Park writer Michael
Crichton who graduated from both this
College in this medical school like to
quote a favorite professor of his who
said that if you didn’t know history you
didn’t know anything you were a leaf
that didn’t know it was part of a tree
so history majors good choice you’re in
great shape
not in the job market but culturally the
rest of us have to make a little effort
social media that were inundated and
swarmed with is about the here and now
but I’ve been fighting and fighting
inside my own family to get all my kids
to look behind them to look at what
already has happened because to
understand who they are is to understand
who we were and who their grandparents
were and then what this country was like
when they emigrated here we are a nation
of immigrants at least for now
so to me this means we all have to tell
our own stories we have so many stories
to tell talk to your parents and your
grandparents if you can and ask them
about their stories and I promise you
like I have promised my kids you will
not be bored and and that’s why I so
often make movies based on real-life
events I look to history not to be
didactic because that’s just a bonus but
I look because the past is filled with
the greatest stories that have ever been
told heroes and villains are not
literary constructs but there is the
heart of all history there’s always been
a an emotional quotient in in every film
of yours and is emotion close to you and
what is the deciding factor is business
more important for you or the emotional
factor in a story now the emotional
factor in the story always because you
have been breaking the business barriers
very often but but what what what what
calls to me is not whether a film is
going to make a gazillion dollars what
calls to me is is there an ad p– urge
in the center of myself that only that
film will release and and then and then
exercise and that’s the only condition
I’ll direct a movie if I’m doing a
sequel of course I’m doing the lost
world a secret of Jurassic Park of
course I know that the bar has been
raised because if it doesn’t make this X
amount of money everybody thinks it’s a
failure and there’s that added pressure
of great expectation the Indiana Jones
series are not sequels but on all the
other three Indiana Jones films that
I’ve directed there’s a tremendous level
of expectation and that’s nerve-racking
yeah but but the fact that those movies
are successful and make a lot of money
isn’t why I decided to direct sequels to
the Indiana Jones series and I think
it’s OK that a first-time filmmaker
being so inspired by movies and music
videos and
any kind of music or media can make a
derivative film it’s okay that your
first videos and your first attempts at
telling a story our derivative are
obviously influenced by something that
you know you saw last week and you want
to kind of do a version there’s nothing
wrong with learning the ABCs learning
your craft by being derivative but at
some point you’re going to need to find
your natural voice and find a way to
give voice to who you are and who you
are by the way who you are as original
it just is because you’re not Tom you’re
not me and you’re not your best friend
and you’re not your teacher not your
parents you are you and because of that
you do have every bone in your body is
an original bone it’s sometimes trying
to figure out how to express your own
original on that analogy and that
sometimes takes a number of years to
figure yourself out well I love college
because I knew exactly what I wanted to
do and some of you know too but some of
you don’t or maybe you thought you knew
but are now questioning that choice
maybe you’re sitting there trying to
figure out how to tell your parents that
you want to be a doctor and not a comedy
writer
well what you choose to do next is what
we call in the movies the character
defining moment now these are moments
you version while you’re with like in
the last Star Wars the first force
awakens
when Rey realizes the force is with her
or Indiana Jones choosing mission over
fear by jumping into a pile of snakes
now in a two-hour movie you get a
handful of character defining moments
but in real life you face them everyday
life is one straw a strong long string
of character defining moments and I was
lucky that at 18 I knew what I exactly
wanted to do but I didn’t know who I was
I could I and how could any of us
because for the first 25 years of our
lives we are trained to listen to voices
that are not our own parents and
professors fill our heads with wisdom
and information and then employers and
mentors take their place and explain how
this world really works and usually
these voices of authority makes sense
but sometimes doubt starts to creep into
our heads and into our hearts and even
when we think that’s not quite how I see
the world it’s kind of easier just to
nod in agreement and go along and for a
while I let that going along to find my
character because I was repressing my
own point of view because like in that
Nilsson song everybody was talking at me
so I couldn’t hear the echoes of my mind
and at first the internal voice I needed
to listen to was hardly audible and it
was hardly noticeable kind of like me in
high school
but then I started paying more attention
and my intuition kicked in and I want to
be clear that your intuition is
different from your conscience they work
in tandem but here’s the distinction
your conscience shelves here’s what you
should do
while your intuition whispers here’s
what you could do listen to that voice
that tells you what you could do nothing
will define your character more than
that because once I turned to my
intuition and I tuned into it I certain
projects began to pull me into them and
others I turned away from I just think
the people when I go to a movie it
shouldn’t be given the entire meaning of
the film in a nutshell they totally
people guessing I’m not really guessing
that should come out satisfied that
they’ve had an emotional experience and
they’ve understood and liked all the
people in the picture but they should
also go out up out of the movie thinking
about them we let the movie stick to you
know to them like a musk you know you
can’t get it off with soap and water it
just is just is on you for studies with
you yeah it’s kinda like being skunked
way you might have to explain being
skunk to an Australian audience to small
furry creature white stripe down the
tail sprays you and you can’t get it out
of your clothes off it to burn your
clothes because the after odor lingers
for months sometimes years kind of like
ready like to fall out there once you’ve
got the smell of I got a nice width I’m
turbo these analogies but but I kind of
like to make movies that leave you with
with a an impression it doesn’t go away
in 24 hours it was a lot harder to get
started when I was growing up and
wanting to be a movie director almost at
12 years old because when I first picked
up a camera in order to get out where
were you living with you I was in
Scottsdale here in Arizona you know I
got honey I was looking for a way to get
fulfill the requirements to get a
photography merit badge I was in the Boy
Scouts of America and the magic was that
he’ll make her before no I don’t be a
filmmaker at all I would want to be a
Eagle Scout that was my only aspiration
was become want to get the highest rank
I could in this in Scouting and so on my
way to being an Eagle Scout I had to get
a certain you know requisite amount of
merit badges and one of them I want to
get was photography and the requirement
was to tell a story was still
photographs and my dad’s camera broke he
did not have a still camera like the
brownie Kodak that he had wasn’t working
so I but he did an eight millimeter
Kodak eight millimeter movie camera and
I went to the Scoutmaster and I said
can we change the rules just so I can
tell a story on film because we don’t
have a still camera and the Scoutmaster
said go ahead and do it so I got three
minutes worth of film which is by the
way all those cameras used to take these
little three minute rolls of film and I
made this Western on a weekend I show
that you headed you edit did you camera
cutting a camera cut you know a little
shot at my friends and cowboy outfits
robbing a stagecoach which was sort of
an exhibit out in front of a place
called Pinnacle Peak patio a restaurant
which is still there outside of scotch
did you know to camera can you just I
just figured out you know you do a shot
in this direction of the bad guys with
their guns masks on and my citrus played
the damsels in distress and the
stagecoach giving away their costume
jewelry well my mother’s jewelry I
didn’t tell her we took my mother’s
jewelry to give away to 12-year olds you
know pretending to be about robbers and
I made this little movie and then showed
it to the Boy Scout Troop that weekend
and they all went crazy for they
screamed and applauded and I suddenly
got bitten by that bug and I wanted to
do this for the rest of my life it was
like became so clear to me but it was
hard then because to make movies you had
to pay for film and pay for developing
of the film so I had to go to my dad to
say dad you know I learned some money
but I can earn all the money because I I
go to school I can’t get a job to earn
the money to pay for all this equipment
so my dad helped me however today it’s
easier today everybody seems of a
camcorder everybody has some high eight
digital camera and it’s a lot easier to
get your hands on you buy that editing
program computer you can buy it as
software program for the computer and go
out and make a movie and tell a story
and figure out who you are as a
storyteller and and so in a sense it’s
easier today for young people to at
least prove to themselves is what they
want to do for the rest of their lives
or at least in the interim of the rest
of their lives and it’s also if you get
bitten by that bug you can make a lot
little movies and somehow those films
will get seen by people hopefully that
will hire you do a music video someday
or a TV commercial or a television show
or someday a feature film
thank you guys so much for watching I
hope you enjoyed I made this video
because Anthony Jackson asked me to so
if there’s a famous entrepreneur that
you I’m gonna profile next leave it in
the comments below and I’ll see what I
can do I’d also love to know which of
Spielberg’s ten rules have the biggest
impact on you and why what change you’re
going to make now in your business or
life leave it in the comments I will
join in the discussion finally I want to
give a quick shout out to Robin
Robertson thank you so much for
pre-ordering my book it means a lot to
me for those of you who are buying make
sure you email in your receipts for a
chance at a shout out in a future video
thank you guys so much for watching
continue to believe or whatever your one
word is and I’ll see you soon
Helen kales she had a radio show off the
air she said to me now you have I hear
1941 coming out
she said well we’re all waiting for that
one you know you’re not going to get off
as easy to get off with your first two
films we’re waiting for you to fail and
in so many words she pretty much just
said to me you know we’ve got our knives
sharpened because this better be the
greatest thing anybody’s ever made are
you gonna go down in flames and I’ll
never forget her warning almost like
sight unseen whether it’s a good picture
of bad picture it’s your turn to be
slapped I was kind of riding the
whirlwind and when I did 1941 I have to
tell you I felt like I was made of
Teflon
I felt that anything I put on film was
going to succeed I felt invincible and I
think in a sense at that point in my
life the best thing that could have
happened to me was the drubbing that
1941 got both from the critics and the
public and and I I tell you something I
sobered up so quickly after that was
over I just became so precious and
indulgent about getting everything right
I did 20 takes on inserts that should
have been done by a second unit I
shouldn’t even done the insert I shot
all the miniatures myself I directed
every single miniature I should have had
a miniature unit come in and shoot the
ferris wheel rolling down the pier
I had a first unit production company
and they were being paid first unit
dollars to shoot what should have been
second unit miniatures what they paired
down 20% miniature unit and I couldn’t
let go I couldn’t share the workload
with anyone and I learned the greatest
lessons of my career just from the
experience of 1941
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