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ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Is the editing part getting harder to do the old way, when the rest of the industry is using electronic editing on computers?
GEORGE LUCAS: He still uses a Moviola! One of these days, the belt will break on it. And he'll go down to one of those repair places and they'll say, ''Oh, I'm sorry, sir, we don't sell those anymore.''
STEVEN SPIELBERG: We cut on a Moviola, and we preview on a KEM.

Wow — so wait, let's get this right for our readership. A KEM is a so-called flatbed editing machine, which came into fashion around the 1970s as a replacement for Moviolas, which go back to the '20s. And you and your editor Michael Kahn still use both?
SPIELBERG: I own about 30 KEMs. We cannibalize them for bulbs and parts. It's like the Concorde in the last three years of its service.
LUCAS: Steven enjoys the look and feel of the technology that existed when he came into the movie business. He's familiar with it, it's comfortable, he likes it, he's nostalgic about it. But he is not above, when we've got a problem, using new technology to say, ''I will solve this problem that way. I am not gonna just do it the old way for its own sake.''
SPIELBERG: Look, I will never take full credit for this, but I provided the opportunity for the very first digital [CG-character] shot in film history, in a movie I produced, Young Sherlock Holmes.

Right — the shot of the stained-glass window coming alive.
SPIELBERG: And I basically provided the opportunity for digital dinosaurs in the first Jurassic Park. So I may be a Luddite in my own personal preferences of the tools I need to make myself feel comfortable. But George and I have been on the cutting edge of all the technology that exists today.
LUCAS: When Steven works on his scripts, he does his work on a computer. I wouldn't touch a computer. I do mine on nice yellow tablets with a No. 4 pencil, and I will not change.
SPIELBERG: This interview must seem like we're in Bellevue.

You've both used John Williams as a composer on nearly all your films. How early does he start work on his themes?
SPIELBERG: The themes come to him when he sees the movie.
LUCAS: But it sounds like the music was first, and then we did the movie around it. It feels like that.

John Williams is 76 now, and you've both passed 60 yourselves. Is that alarming?
LUCAS: We just refuse to accept it. We are not gonna get gray. We are not gonna get old. We are as young as we've ever been, and we don't recognize the fact that we've gotten older. Do we? [Laughs]
SPIELBERG: It's true. I'll never forget when I was making Jaws, [producer] David Brown said, ''I'm nearly 60 years old and I feel like I'm 24.'' I've always felt that way about myself. I got to a point in my life where I was happy and satisfied, and had a burgeoning family and a wonderful career. I've always sort of time-locked and mind-blocked myself in my 30s, and that's always the age I feel.
LUCAS: We still kid each other and cause trouble with each other. We still bug each other the same way. I think our relationship has stayed exactly the same.

Bonus! See the online-only continuation of EW's conversation with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas


Posted Apr 17, 2008 | Published in issue #988-989 Apr 25, 2008 | Order Article Reprints
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