George Lucas Interview from 2001

Transcript of George Lucas talking about independent filmmaking, or as he calls it, regional filmmaking: "To me independence means that you don't have a studio or somebody telling you how to make your movies, or approving your scripts, or looking at your dailies. Ultimately we've always had to have our films released by a studio. The great thing about digital technology is that that's going to go by the wayside. It's the quality issue. They're making films that are more on the level of what we were making on 16mm. It's kind of rough and rugged, and the style of the film accommodates that. What I'm saying is that you can do a big wide screen picture, of the highest quality possible, and do it with the same technology. So all I'm doing is taking what their doing and moving it up to the highest level, and (showing) that the quality is as good as you're ever going find. You know, you're never completely independent, but at the same time, in terms of being able to be free of the studio's influence - that's what I've always tried to do. And being from San Francisco, and being out of the main throw of things, we've managed to do that. Francis Ford Coppola, and American Zoetrope, and Saul Zaentz, and Fantasy Films, as San Francisco filmmakers we've managed to make our films without the interference and influence of the studios, and as far as I'm concerned that's what an independent is. I think the films you've see coming out of San Francisco are very different, and independent filmmaking, which I like to regional filmmaking, means that it has the influence of the region in which it's made - the region in which the filmmakers live, and grow up and they show their attitudes. It's different than if you're living in Hollywood, and you're all sort of exchanging ideas, and you all go to the same parties, and you all go to the same things and focus on the same things. (Regional filmmaking) brings out a certain kind of thinking. I'm for regional filmmaking, which means that people live in different places and the people don't have all that much contact with the Hollywood world."