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George Lucas, the imaginative force behind the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' trilogies, is responsible for some of the most popular films in movie history. As a teenager interested in filmmaking, he received encouragement from the cinematographer Haskell Wexler and gained admission to the film school of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. After graduating in 1966, he worked as an assistant to the director Francis Ford Coppola, and Coppola helped persuade a studio to finance an expansion of Lucas' student film into the feature-length ''THX-1138'' (), an Orwellian science fiction tale. The film was a commercial failure, but Lucas' next picture, the nostalgic ''American Graffiti'' (), was a major hit at the box office and earned him two Oscar nominations. Lucas spent the next four years writing and making ''Star Wars'' (), an ambitious sci-fi fantasy with special effects years ahead of their time. The studio that backed ''Star Wars'' had little faith in the project, but it turned out to be one of the highest grossing pictures of all time, earning more than $400 million dollars and spawning a slew of successful sequels and prequels. After ''Star Wars,'' Lucas stopped directing, but he continued to write and became one of Hollywood's most popular producers, responsible for ''Raiders of the Lost Ark'' (), among other successes. He also founded Industrial Light and Magic, a special effects company, and developed the THX Sound System. Lucas returned to direction with ''Star Wars: Episode I--The Phantom Menace'' (). This clip is courtesy of THE HISTORY CHANNEL.