Must read - Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence
During high school he wasn’t much interested in studies-in fact, he almost flunked out. Growing up on a ranch on the outskirts of town he spent a lot of time alone, reading science fiction and tinkering with hot rods, his passion. The week before he was to graduate, a car sped past from behind as he was making a left turn into his driveway, smashing his small sports car to bits. He almost died.
After recuperating, my friend went to the local community college, where he discovered a calling that riveted his attention and mobilized his creative talents: filmmaking. After transferring to a film school he made a movie for his student project that caught the eye of a Hollywood director, who hired him as an assistant. The director asked my friend to work on a pet project, a small-budget film.
That, in turn, led to my friend getting a studio to back him as director and producer of another small film based on his own script-a movie that the studio almost killed before its release, yet which did surprisingly better than anyone expected.
But the arbitrary cuts, edits, and other changes the studio bosses made before releasing that movie were a bitter lesson for my friend, who valued creative control of his work as paramount. When he went on to make a movie based on another script of his own, a big Hollywood studio offered him a standard deal whereby the studio financed the project and held the power to change the film before its release. He refused the deal-his artistic integrity was more important.
Instead my friend “bought” creative control by going off on his own and putting every penny of his profits from the first film into this second project. When he was almost done, his money ran out. He went looking for loans, but bank after bank turned him down. Only a last-minute loan from the tenth bank he implored saved the project.
The film was Star Wars.
George Lucas’s insistence on keeping creative control despite the financial struggle that it entailed for him signifies enormous integrity-and, as the world knows, it also turned out to be a lucrative business decision. But this decision wasn’t motivated by the pursuit of money; back then ancillary rights meant selling movie posters and T-shirts, a trivial source of revenue. At the time, everyone who knew the film industry warned George against going out on his own.
After recuperating, my friend went to the local community college, where he discovered a calling that riveted his attention and mobilized his creative talents: filmmaking. After transferring to a film school he made a movie for his student project that caught the eye of a Hollywood director, who hired him as an assistant. The director asked my friend to work on a pet project, a small-budget film.
That, in turn, led to my friend getting a studio to back him as director and producer of another small film based on his own script-a movie that the studio almost killed before its release, yet which did surprisingly better than anyone expected.
But the arbitrary cuts, edits, and other changes the studio bosses made before releasing that movie were a bitter lesson for my friend, who valued creative control of his work as paramount. When he went on to make a movie based on another script of his own, a big Hollywood studio offered him a standard deal whereby the studio financed the project and held the power to change the film before its release. He refused the deal-his artistic integrity was more important.
Instead my friend “bought” creative control by going off on his own and putting every penny of his profits from the first film into this second project. When he was almost done, his money ran out. He went looking for loans, but bank after bank turned him down. Only a last-minute loan from the tenth bank he implored saved the project.
The film was Star Wars.
George Lucas’s insistence on keeping creative control despite the financial struggle that it entailed for him signifies enormous integrity-and, as the world knows, it also turned out to be a lucrative business decision. But this decision wasn’t motivated by the pursuit of money; back then ancillary rights meant selling movie posters and T-shirts, a trivial source of revenue. At the time, everyone who knew the film industry warned George against going out on his own.