Fall Week 1 - Steven Spielberg

Steven Spielberg (born in 1946) is the most famous and successful movie director alive today. Almost everyone has seen some of Spielberg's famous movies. He pioneered the "blockbuster" movie, a movie that breaks box office records while also creating a market for massive amounts of spinoff goods. His movies "Jaws", "E.T." and "Jurassic Park" were all blockbusters. He has won the Academy Award for Best Director twice, for "Schindler's List" (1993) and "Saving Private Ryan" (1998). These two movies also won Academy Awards for Best Picture. Steven Spielberg is a co-founder of the DreamWorks movie studio.

* Spielberg's movies are famous for product placement, or embedded marketing. For example, "Jurassic Park" marketed Ford cars, and "E.T." famously marketed Reese's Pieces (a peanut butter candy) when M&Ms (Mars Inc.) turned Spielberg down as a sponsor. Hershey, the makers of Reese's Pieces, paid Spielberg $1 million to use their product. The decision was a good one, as the movie and the candy became a big hit. Spielberg was named twice in the Cracked article, "The 10 Most Shameless Product Placements in Movie History."

* Spielberg was an English Major in college, as his university didn't have a film department.

* Spielberg says that when he was a kid, he saw the old classic movie King Kong. The movie was an inspiration for him to make "Jurassic Park," which is a kind of modern day King Kong or Godzilla movie.

[My personal thoughts and recollections about Steven Spielberg and his movies were supplemented with details, dates and numbers from Wikipedia. - Kevin] 

Steven Spielberg Biographies:
Wikipedia
IMDb
Biography.com

Spielberg Filmography

Links to trailers and clips of some of Steven Spielberg's movies:
Top 10 Steven Spielberg Movies
Jaws (1975) - trailer
"Jaws" theme song
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) - trailer: starring Harrison Ford
E.T. the Extra Terrestrial (1982) - trailer
Reese's Pieces product placement in "E.T. the Extra Terrestrial" (1982)
Hook (1991) - trailer; starring Robin Williams (R.I.P. Aug. 11, 2014)
Jurassic Park (1993) - trailer; starring Richard Attenborough (R.I.P. Aug. 24, 2014)
Schindler's List (1993) - trailer: starring Liam Neeson
Saving Private Ryan (1998) - trailer: starring Tom Hanks
Scenes from "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001)
Minority Report (2002) - trailer: starring Tom Cruise
Catch Me If You Can (2002) - trailer : starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks
War of the Worlds (2004) - trailer: starring Tom Cruise
Munich (2005) - trailer
The Adventures of Tintin (2011) - trailer
War Horse (2011) - trailer
Lincoln (2012) - trailer
Bridge of Spies (2015) - trailer: starring Tom Hanks
The BFG (2016) - trailer

The Post (2017) - trailer: starring Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep
Ready Player One (2018) - trailer

West Side Story (2020) - trailer and TV spot - re-make of a classic musical about gangs

Watch three or more clips of Steven Spielberg's movies (or watch a whole movie on a streaming service at home!)

Jurassic Park listening exercise PDF 🠈

Schindler's List listening exercise PDF 🠈

🠊 Jurassic Park (1993) brachiosaur scene for Kevin's listening handout
🠊 Schindler's List (1993) hinges scene for Kevin's listening handout

EdPuzzle - E.T. the Extra Terrestrial

Kevin will give you a copy of Tsurumi Review 52 in class.

To Do List

1) Understand the writing goals for the fall semester
2) Understand what a director does.

3) Know the director Steven Spielberg

4) Know the meaning of "blockbuster" and "product placement"

5) Watch as many Spielberg trailers as possible (minimum 3)

6) Do the Jurassic Park listening exercise

7) Do the Schindler's List listening exercise

8) Do the E.T. EdPuzzle above

9) Write a blog post about Steven Spielberg and his movies

10) Make corrections to your spring blogs

11) Look at Tsurumi Review 52 to see what a graduation report may look like.