George Lucas' Advice

[Music] I actually wrote the story and produced Indiana Jones I didn't actually direct it it was that other guy that looks like me I'll give you two things one which I've answered a few times here around the table so I figured I'd share it with everybody which is you know how did I end up where I am and when I was in high school I was a consummate underachiever I hated school I love to build things I loved woodworking I loved working on cars and engines worked in a formal car service and all I want to do is race cars right before graduation I was in a terrible automobile accident and was almost killed and as a result of that sort of sat in hospital for a long time thinking about my place in the world and decided that I would give education another try and took my very bad grades to a junior college and discovered social science humanities became very infatuated with anthropology and psychology and suddenly found something that I really loved and did very well and then when I graduated and I was about to go on to the last two years of college at San Francisco State to get a degree in anthropology my best friend who had grown up with since I was four years old said you know come with me to to Stockton I have to take a test to get into USC and I don't want to do it alone and con just take a test with me so I don't have to be there with myself so I said okay so I went up there and took the test not thinking that I'd pass but I did pass and I I got accepted at USC and I said to my friend well now what am I gonna do I said I really like anthropology and I think I want to do that he said yeah but you you wanted to go to art Center you really wanted to be an artist and you know this is your second choice anthropology and I did I wanted to be an artist photographer I'd done a lot of photography and I wanted to be an illustrator but my father said there'll be no artist in this family yeah that's a horrible way to make a living and if you want to go and be an artist thing you're gonna have to pay for it and he knew me well enough to know that I wasn't about to do that I will take the route of least resistance I sort of picked up my grades but I was still a consequent underachiever and so he said well you know SC they've got a department they're a photography I said oh that sounds good it's easier than P you'll love it okay maybe I'll do that so I went down there and it wasn't a school of photography it was a school of cinematography and it wasn't actually a school of cinematography it was actually a school of cinema where you'd learn to make movies and I said this is insane you mean you go to university and you can learn how to make movies I never heard of such a silly thing so and I hadn't really paid much attention to movies when I was young I sort of watched a little bit of television stuff when you saw earth vs. the flying saucers and you know Bridge on the River Kwai and a few things like that but I didn't know anything about movies and and I got there my first semester I had to take a lot of requirements you know Spanish science that sort of stuff but I got to take two classes almost a history of movies and growing up in a very small town with one movie theater I hadn't seen a lot of movies and I did we didn't get a television until I was 10 so in those days one of the main advantages of being in a film schools when you take a history class or something you actually got to see movies you couldn't see it's an amazing thing the world you live in today you can actually go down to a store and just get any movie that's almost ever been made and you can see it and then you can actually have the filmmaker you know in the extra bonus disc tell you how they made it and everything that's basically what a film school was except you were surrounded by a lot of kids that sort of believe the same thing you did so I got there and I learned about move which I really didn't know anything about in terms of the history of movies watching really great movies and I had a production class introduction to animation where eventually they gave me one minute film and they said here run the camera you know follow these instructions move it to the right move it to the left move it up move it down and so I took that little assignment it was my one minute of film and I made a 1 minute movie out of it I took a lot of still photographs and created a collage and a whole different way of doing animation and put a soundtrack to it my professor was unbelievably impressed with it and it blew everybody away in the film department and they sent it out to festivals and it won like 47 festivals and I said wow I know how to do this I'm actually pretty good matter of fact I'm better than anybody here I love this you know this I want to do this rest of my life and so I was lucky enough to find my path my passion before that I had passions you know I wanted to be an artist I wanted to build cars I want to create things but and I liked anthropology I really wanted I was very interested in social science very interested in why we do things where we came from all kinds of you know mythology and I realized after a few years you know and then I went to film school made movies and ended up being where I am but I realized that I was following on everything I did I was following something I really cared about something I loved something I was passionate about and I kept following that passion whether it was cars whether it was anthropology whether it was art photography and eventually it led me to my huge passion my real passion which was making movies which combined all of those things and I realized that had I gone on to get my degree in anthropology I would have probably made anthropological movies in New Guinea or someplace and eventually been on National Geographic and you know the History Channel and Ben than making features and I had done Star Wars just the same if I'd have gone the Art Center and become an illustrator I would have probably started doing animation and doing animated films and making animated things and then ultimately I would have gone on and been right where I was so no matter which route I took because I cared about all of them they all went to the same place had I done what my father had wished me to do which is to go into these office equipment business with him which I knew light wasn't what can I do I knew I hated that my life would have been unpleasant and so I think it's very important not to do what your peers think you should do not do what your parents think you should do or your teachers but to do what you inside or even your culture of things but do what's inside you and when I went to film school every said we were nuts what do you went to film school for you know you're only there's nobody from a film school to ever gotten a job in the film business just had never happened so you were just doomed to be a ticket taker at Disneyland so there was like why would you do that you know why don't you take a major that you can actually get a job at why do one-way but once I fell in love with it there was no going back even though I had absolutely no chance of making it in the film business and I did the same thing when I graduated I moved back to San Francisco no we can't make movies no San Francisco you're crazy I said but I don't want to be a knowledge I don't want to do that I don't like those kind of movies I want to do different kind of movies and they said well you'll fail one of those never happen and we managed to make it work in San Francisco so that's the long story of how I got here another short story of one thing I discovered along the way is that several speakers I've ever talked about happiness and I've discovered along the way that happiness you have you live in two worlds here happiness is pleasure and happiness is joy you know can be either one you add them up in exotic falls under the uber category of happiness pleasure is short-lived lasts an hour last a minute lasts a month and it Peaks and then goes down it Peaks very high but the next time you want to get that same peak you have to do it twice as much it's like drugs you know just you have to keep doing it because it insulates itself no matter what it is whether you're shopping whether you're you know engaged in any other kind of pleasure that all has the same quality about it on the other hand is joy and joy is the thing that doesn't go as high as pleasure in terms of your emotional reaction but it stays with you joy is something you can recall pleasure you can't so the secret is that even though it's not as intense as the pleasure the joy will last you a lot longer and people who get the pleasure they keep saying well if I can just get richer and get more cars you know I'll never you'll never relive the moment you got your first car that's it that's the highest peak yes you can get three Ferraris and a new Gulfstream jet and maybe you'll get close but you have to keep going and eventually you run out I mean you just can't do it doesn't work so if you're trying to sustain that level of peak pleasure you're doomed it's a very American idea but it just can't happen you just let it go peak great pleasure it's fun it's great but you can't keep it going forever just accept the fact that it's here and it's gone and maybe again it'll come back I never get to do it again joy lasts forever pleasure is purely self-centered it's all about your pleasure it's about you it's about it's a selfish self-centered emotion that's created by a self-centered motive of greed joy is compassion joy is giving yourself to somebody else or something else and it's a kind of thing that is in its subtlety and lowness much more powerful than pleasure you get hung up on pleasure you're doomed if you pursue joy you will find everlasting happiness so with that I'm gone bye-bye thank you

Channel: Colorado Flier

Views: 413,380

Keywords: George, Lucas', Advice

Id: sCP2SGTIz28

Length: 11min 2sec (662 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/Fedexed]

That was great. His insights on joy vs pleasure were really dead on. Lucas is one smart sob.