Born in Ohio on December 18th 1946.Steven Spielberg is undoubtedly one of the most well known film directors to this day. At 67 years old he has directed a tremendous amount of films, some of which have been extremely successful. Not only is he a world known director he is known for writing films and producing them too.
His first experience of being in the film industry was in 1957 when he assisted the editor of 'Wagon Train' he was only 11 years old at the time and this must have hugely influenced him to become more involved. He directed a few short films, one of which he makes a stationary plane looks as though it is moving, 'Escape to Nowhere', 'The Last Gun' and 'Battle Squad'. One of his early films that he is most likely to remember is 'Amblin' this is because the films features desert, Amblin later becomes the name of the company that produces one of his best selling films of all time 'E.T. The Extra Terrestrial.' However these films were only a smidgen of what was to come.
His first major directorial effort was 'The Sugarland Express' (1974) but his next film was too be one that shook the world and made him stand out as a star among directors in the world. Jaws (1975), this was a wonderful hit and made other directors think about what they can do next. He also produced and directed many other famous films; E.T the Extra-Terrestrial, Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom, The Goonies, Gremlins, The Colour Purple and Empire of the Sun. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusaide, Back to the Future (part 2). Not only did he produce and direct these films he also had a massive influence on animation and animated films. 'Casper' and 'The Flintstones' are two of his most well know animated films. In the early 1990s Spielberg was very busy directing 8 films including, Schindlers List a massive film, Hook and Jurrasic Park. He continued to proudce films in the late 90's, The Mask of Zorro, Men In Black. But it was his directing side of the industry that he proved to be successful, Amistad, Saving Private Ryan and Shakespeare in Love.
He is a very well known director and in the production of ET he used lots of special effects, this previously had not been exploited. ET was a blockbuster and held a record of being the highest grossing film of all time, until 1993 when Jurassic Park also by Steve Spielberg overtook it.
Spielberg is a very successful director and producer but what makes him so different from everyone else? He has a very special talent and is able to recognise what sounds should go with what image that can be seen. He uses many foly sounds in order to ensure that the sound he gets is exactly as he needs it to be. He has studied and analysed famous movie directors such as Victor Fleming, that have been successful before his time, he uses there techniques and alters them just a little bit so that they fit his film. By doing this he is ensuring that the film will be successful as people may have seen the method used previously and therefore feel as though the film they are watching is as good as the last one that used that method. By moving the camera from left to right he does not always focus the shot on the centre, by doing this the audience gain information and the dialogue tells them what they need to know. It also keeps the audience engaged as they need to listen to one thing but watch something else.
Close ups are one of his specialties, he likes to use close ups to show the emotion, but when moving the camera to a close up he does not simply go straight on towards the face he comes from an angle, by doing this you get a sense of emotion as you interpret it differently. Another method that he uses for close ups is you can notice that the character that we are looking at, is not looking back at us. This engages the audience as they then want to see what the character they are watching is seeing. You feel the sense of fear that the character feels, this technique takes 3 shots to complete, first you see the character looking at something, normally they look worried or scared. Then you see what they are looking at, you gain knowledge. After that you see the characters reaction to what you and them have just seen, this allows you to feel the emotions of the character that you have connected with.
In a lot of his films you will notice that circles are used instead of squares, for example windows are often circles as they are softer. By making the shot softer is brings out more emotion. Or it can focus us to look at the centre of it and not realise what is going on around it.
Overall Speilberg is an incredible director and producer, he has won 3 Oscars, been nominated 120 times and won 125 other awards. These include Best Director - Saving Private Ryan this won him an Oscar.
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