a b (Andrew C. Bobrow) : There are several stories going around about how you got your first job. Would you care to tell us how it happened?
s s (Steven Spielberg) : Well, the story that's been circulating around town for the last 5 years is mostly true, even though it sounds mythological. It's the one about my crashing the gates at Universal, carrying a briefcase and wearing a suit and tie, finding an empty office, finding a vacant parking lot, and spending the next four or five months standing around on sets observing and taking notes, meeting directors and writers, making contacts and trying to find a toehold in the business.
But my first job had nothing to do with crashing the gates at Universal Studios. The first job came when Sid Sheinberg, who was president of television production at Universal at the time, saw a 24-minute short I had made called Amblin'. I made the short while I was a student at Cal State, Long Beach, but not as part of a film program at Cal State; it was done on my own with $15,000 from Dennis Hoffman, an independent producer.
When Sid Sheinberg saw it, he just said, very simply, "I'd like you to spend the next 7 years of your life here at Universal Studios. Along with that, you will be directing, writing, and producing. How would you like that? How does that sound?" Well, it sounded fine to me. There were no other jobs in the offing, and I had just turned twenty-one. It was a dream come true.
He immediately put me into a TV movie, a pilot trilogy called Night Gallery. I shot the second section with Joan Crawford, a 43-minute story written by Rod Serling. I didn't work for a year after the show came out.
a b : What advice would you give others attempting to get ahead in the commercial film industry?
s s : Do a lot of writing, try to make a short film or two, cut it yourself, also do the photography, and if you're a ham, star in it. But it's almost impossible to get work with none of your abilities showing. Studios aren't buying qualities like eagerness and enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. They want material evidence that you're a movie-maker who's going to turn a profit. They want to see and feel how good you are before they're going to give you $300,000 to make a movie.
I began by making 8 and 16mm films, some for $15 apiece and some for $200. You can't excuse yourself by saying, "Well, I can't raise the money to make the short film to get into the front door and show my work." It's not expensive to make little movies, even if they're in Super-8 and done with a Kodak Ektasound camera you've borrowed from a friend.
a b : What, in your opinion, has been the major factor which helped you getwhere you are now?
s s : Wanting it more than anything else.
From Lester D. Friedman and Brent Notbohm, Steven Spielberg Interviews, University Press of Mississippi, 1999
