Before George Lucas revolutionised popular cinema with the Star Wars and Indiana Jones films from the late 1970s onwards, he had spent a decade making very different films, first at the University of Southern California and then as an independent filmmaker working with the major Hollywood studios. This day school examines Lucas’ early experimental and documentary shorts as well as his first two features – the science fiction drama THX 1138 (1971) and the teen comedy American Graffiti (1973), situating them within American culture of the post-war decades and exploring their links to his later blockbusters.