We're leaving Amblin this has been your
home since 84 right? >> Yeah, this has been I
built the building in the began it in
83, and we finished it like 8
months later at 84. >> I think because with
the BFG opening the idea was where your
old stomping grounds.. Get it? >> Well I have
not left giant country since I entered
giant country which was here at
Universal Studios. This has been my giant
country. I've always said that this is
Universal's been my ancestral home.
All these years. >> Are the stories true that you use
to sneak onto the lot here when you were
a young guy? How old? >> Probably about 16. >> So
you couldn't be tried as an adult at
that point? >> No, I would definitely been taken
to juvenile court and gotten a
suspended sentence before giving it a
good try, but I wasn't caught thank
goodness. I had a pass for 3 days and
I just took a chance, the guard would remember
it I had been here on three consecutive days.
>> So you were a regular? >> I walked in with no pass the
fourth day and he waved me through with
that way for the next three
months to my Summer vacation. >> Really? >> This how
I spent my summer vacation.
>> What would you do? >> Watch television shows
being shot. I would go all around the lot. Watching
the kind of coordination on the set. Just
watching everybody knew what they needed
to do, and they did their jobs and it was
very much like a kind of team sport.
>> Did you see any filmmakers that you admired?
>> Hitchcock, but I got thrown off that
set (no!) yeah, I was on the Torn Curtain
set for about 10 minutes before someone
came and told me to leave. >> Did you get to
see him? >> I got to see Hitchcock and Julie Andrews
but they were, I was on the
Phantom of the Opera stage. They were far
away and I had just come to an entrance
I was the back of the theatre there were
500 extras in this seats, that's when an
AD or a second AD or even a third AD got
kicked off by a third AD. >> Did you show
your papers? >> Why are you here? and I said
I'm just here to watch they said well no
this is a closed set and that was the
end of it. >>This is Courthouse Square. >> This
is where we shot Back To The
Future and that was the clock tower
there's the time already set on the
clock tower. >> But this existed before Back
To The Future, right? It was... >> Yeah, this was
always here we just I used what was
available to us. But that gas station
we put in for Back To The Future 2.
>> Was it used for a lot of random TV shows
and movies sets?
>> Its been used for everything
television series, movies. >> Before Back To
The Future didn't have a most famous use?
>> Aaahhh, it was used i think to Kill a
Mockingbird shot a little bit here, there
were a lot of television shows that shot
here, but this is most known for Back To
The Future now, at least at least that's what
the trams say. The tour guides tell everybody
which is most known for Back To The
Future we like that. Going to watch
out their are so many tours here now.
It use to be just like to zip up and down the streets
but I don't how to get here because I
go up Steven Spielberg Drive.
>> That's good, you know that one. >> I know how to get up
there. I love being bifurcated with Jimmy Stewart
that's a great honor actually. >> The corner
of Stewart and Spielberg. >> I love that
was the greatest honors of my life being
able to share a street sign with Jimmy Stewart.
So this just goes up
and these were all made, remember how many Western's they made in
the 50's and 60's?
So these were probably the most the
most utilized back lot in history is
back here.
And they're just western streets as far they I can
see even more than any old days. They were taken down for other sets. So it goes from
Western to kind of Spanish.
>> The Mexican style architecture really
complicated >> And this is Jaws.
The Orca used to be right there. I tell
you that story? One of our many
interviews? >> No no.  >> The Orca was here
>> The original Orca? >> The original Orca was here
and I used to come out
for about a couple of years after I made
the movie to get all over my PTSD. I
would just work through my own trauma
it was trauma, traumatic. >> From making that film?
Sitting in that boat alone for hours, I was just sit
in that boat alone just
working through and I would shake. I'd get
in the boat and I'd my hands would shake
and then I was fine and 5, 6 years went by
I hadn't seen the boat in 5 years.
I decided to just come back and revisit, it was gone.
Somebody unbeknownst to me or
Sid Sheinberg who ran the studio. >> Yeah. >> Had
torn it up and just thrown it away from
the entire boat away. Because they said
they said it was dry rot, there were
termites will of course there were termites and dry rot.
I'm going to actually ask them to
rebuild it and put it back here. I'm
going to actually see if they'll do that.
Because the tourist would love to see the Orca here.
>> Its chance to kind of
commune with that experience. >> Yes, when
the experience was very good to me as
you know the experience gave me complete
freedom for the rest of my career. So the
amount of success the film enjoy just
gave me final cut. It gave me the chance
to tell my own story. >> Steven Spielberg Drive is a long
road a long road. >>It's a long road, it's a long and winding road.
(laughing)
Suddenly I feel like I'm doing a James Corden interview.
 
James Corden, Corden interview.
>> Exactly, yeah. We'll start karaoke soon.
>> There we go, so you know what this is. >> Is this How the Grinch Stole Christmas?
>> This is Ronnie Howard's movie How the Grinch Stole Christmas.
Which is very very nice they kept this up.
Then right around the
corner is the infamous, Bates Motel.
>> There it is.
>> And it is and hasn't changed very much the same color.
They haven't even repainted this place.
It's I think they've replaced some light bulbs.
>> Wow.
>>This was a just
amazing piece of our direction to have
this here and have the you know Norman
Bates's mother's house right up there
it's pretty extraordinary and it all
seems so small now, you know? When you see
the movie it all looks bigger yeah it's
funny thing about movies they make
everything look bigger.
>> Well that's a little bit foreshortening, right?
>> Actors look bigger,
they make Directors seem bigger,
but we're not. We're really not so this is
and it was interesting when I shot War of the Worlds here.
This is where Rick Carter located the 747 crash.
We bought it for I think $50,000 and cut it up
into little pieces. Brought it up here
and built this neighborhood, for the crash site.
>> So the houses weren't here?
>> We added these houses, that this is part of
the Carters production design to have
this entire plane crash right in the
middle of a neighborhood.
>> Wow.
>> And then shear the house that they were hiding in,
in half, if you remember from the film.
So all of all of these is just kind
of scary to come up here.
When you see the movie you'll notice there's not a single body in the scene.
There's no bodies in the airplane.
And nobodies on the ground,
that was an illusion that seeing
the empty seats i thought was more
powerful than having a bunch of
dummies or extras.
>> Right.
Not to be confused by the way. But real mannequins
strapped into the to this to the seats
it was a lot more horrible I thought
just to have the whole thing empty.
And then this is where Lost World was.
This is the Lost World set.
>> Oh. No way.
This was the second Visitor Center
right around the corner.
That invokes some memories.
>> Yea, like what kind?
>> Bloody horror is how
all these movies are to make. (laugh)
>> I've never had a cakewalk. I have
never made a movie that could be you
know subtitled "The Cakewalk", some of my
films might seem like cake walks but
they're not at all. I like coming onto
each movie you know with my experience
not being what is going to keep me out of trouble.
>> Yeah. That's how you mix it up, how you stay fresh right?
You told me before spelkis, nervous are a good thing, right?
>> Good, nerves are good, they're good.
>> The announcement of Indiana Jones 5 is coming up.
(un audible)
>> Somebody told me I'm scheduled to make one of those again someday.
But that's not for a couple of years.
>> An Ready Player One in between then?
>> Ready Player One is what I'm going off next months to do.
>> When you were prowling around the studio as a 16 year old,
where there things you learn that
became valuable or was more just inspiration?
>> I basically took a master course in film editing.
Because if it was a lot harder to stay on a set,
for an extended period of time without really
without me being questioned, "What am I doing here?".
But what the editors embraced me and all of them did.
I probably learned more in editorial
sneaking around here, than I did on any sound stage.
>> How did you introduce yourself to them?
>> I told I told the truth.
I told all the editors I was
unofficially here to learn how to be a Director.
>> Uh huh?
And nobody blew a whistle on me,
>> (laughing)
and they like having me around.
And they played a couple of jokes on me.
Like the day they asked me to go like down to an
editing room and take out a filmed bin.
A 16-millimeter film bin out of that
editing room and bring it to the main lobby.
And I did it because they could suddenly
somebody's asked me to do something.
>> A job.
>> Yeah, a job.
Great, so I ran into the room and there was some guy
half naked you know behind the movie ola.
He had no, I don't know if he was dressed below the waist.
He just was just totally stark naked from the waist up,
and he was cutting on this thing.
I'd say excuse me, and I took the
bin out of the room and the guy stands up
start shouting at me with using a lot of
inappropriate language and I immediately
recognized him it was Marlon Brando.
I ran out of the room without the bin and
the editors were suppressing their
laughter because they didn't want to be
heard by Brando. But they were on the
floor, they're rolling on desks, they were
laughing so hard.
>> What was going on?
>> Brando apparently was cutting a documentary on Tahini.
They had lent him a room and they
played this a kind of uh I guess punked me.
>> laughing
So he was just in there,
he was in there going tribal and they sent this kid in
>> He was tribal when he stood up
I think he was wearing bathing trunks but ah,
that was that was the only time i ever
saw Brando in the flesh.
>> (laughing) You got to see a lot of him. (laughing)
>> Okay.
>> Thanks Steven.
>> Thank you. 
>> This was was really fun.
[music]
