Early Student Films George Lucas

George Walton Lucas Jr. was born on May 14,1944 in Modesto, California. He spent his childhood fascinated with comic books, especially "Buck Rogers" and "Flash Gordon". In the ’60 he started studies in the University of Southern California’s film school. He interpreted "film" to mean "photography," but once he began his work in motion pictures he knew it was what he loved. Lucas’ student work reflected the pop culture obsessions of his youth: “1:42:08”, a racing mini-epic, and “The Emperor”, about a disc jockey named Emperor Hudson, were signature student works, which Lucas would later revisit and build upon in “American Graffiti”. After graduating from USC in 1966, Lucas was hired as a teaching assistant assigned to train cameramen for the U.S. Military. It was during this time that Lucas found an opportunity to shoot THX 1138:4EB – an abstract, Orwellian science fiction short which went on to win several major student awards and which would ultimately be adapted to the big screen for Lucas’ first studio feature.