Steven Spielberg was not  a scholar, and his classmates teased him. Rather than read,  the kid really preferred running around with an 8mm camera, shooting homemade movies, which he showed to friends for a small fee. In his first year of high school, he dropped out. But  when his parents persuaded him to return, he was mistakenly placed in a learningdisabled class, which lasted one  month. Only when the family moved to another town did he  land up in a more suitable high school, where he eventually  graduated. After being denied entrance into a traditional filmmaking school, Steven Spielherg enrolled in English at California State University at Long Beach. Then in 1965, he  recalls, in one of those serendipitous moments, his life  took a complete turn. Visiting Universal Studios, he met  Chuck Silvers, an executive in the editorial department. Silvers liked the kid who made 8mm films and invited him  back sometime to visit. He appeared the next day. Spielberg, dressed in a dark  suit, carrying his father's briefcase with nothing inside but  a sandwich and candy bars walked confidently up to the  guard at the gate of Universal and gave him a casual wave.  The guard waved back. He was in. "For the entire summer," Spielberg remembers, "I  dressed in my suit and hung out with the directors and  writers, including Silvers, who knew the kid wasn't a studio employee, but winked at him. I even found an office  that wasn't being used, and became a squatter  . I bought some plastic tiles and put my  name  in  the  building  directory:  Steven  Spielberg,  Room 23C." It paid off for everyone. Ten years later, the 28yearold Spielberg directed Jaws, which took in $470 million,   then the biggest grossing movie of all time. Dozens of films   and awards have followed because Steven Spielberg knew   what his teachers didn't--talent is in the eyes of the filmmaker. Why did Steven's friends pay him some money?
To see his movies. To use his camera. To look at his photos. To include them in the movie.