| Legendary Hollywood executive shares tips, stories with SOC students BY SALLY ACHARYA 
Photo by bill petros
Sidney Sheinberg There was no particular reason for a studio executive to notice a college intern or the 24-minute film he made that featured an olive-spitting contest. But one day, the short film made it into the screening room of 32-year-old Sidney Sheinberg, who decided to talk with the student director. Presumably, only the student considered this a momentous occasion. But it would prove to be a key moment in Sheinberg’s career, and in Hollywood history. Sheinberg spoke last week at the School of Communication about his three decades at the helm of MCA/Universal Pictures, the challenges of today’s Hollywood, and how to succeed in Tinseltown. Sheinberg put out a long line of blockbusters in his tenure at MCA/Universal, including Jaws, E.T, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, and Schindler’s List. He now heads an independent entertainment company and is on the board of Human Rights Watch. It was, of course, inevitable that the conversation would return more than once to Sheinberg’s discovery of Steven Spielberg—who, after all, was the same age as many in the AU audience when he got his chance to impress a studio vice president. Sheinberg explained how he decided to give the young Spielberg a chance. There was, of course, the camera work and mature editing. But ultimately, it was something beyond technical skill that tipped the balance. “To achieve success as a director, the first requirement is that you have some brains,” Sheinberg said. Spielberg “was a very smart guy.” So as vice president of Universal’s TV branch, Sheinberg decided to give the youth a shot at directing an episode of the TV show Night Gallery. Sheinberg himself was not far removed from law school at the time. When he came to California in the late 1950s, he had taken a job in the legal department of a television subsidiary of MCA, never expecting to move into management. But law school proved to be an excellent preparation for the movie business, he said. And so did his liberal arts education. “Unless you aspire to a highly technical career, and in my opinion even if you do, a solid liberal arts education is the best,” he said. The one-time lawyer is concerned these days with the trend toward monopoly in entertainment and news. The seemingly broad selection of cable channels masks the reality that the channels people really watch are controlled by a small number of companies, he said. Entertainment giants are getting around antitrust laws by claiming that the “efficiency” produced by mergers makes them more competitive globally. “Efficiency” and “globalization” are the buzz words in a new status quo that is limiting the number of voices that can be heard, Sheinberg warned. That was not, however, a reason to be discouraged from trying to break into the entertainment business, he said. Sheinberg advised the students to seek out mentors and a community of like-minded people, and to “pay a lot of attention to the company and people you’re working for.” But if a higher-up dismisses a creative idea, take it with a grain of salt. “Beware of those who know what will work and what won’t,” he cautioned. He illustrated his advice by telling about a rival studio that had two films about aliens in the works, and only wanted to make one. One of the directors had just suffered a major flop, and researchers insisted that his proposed film “would appeal only to children and old men,” Sheinberg recalls. The other film, research predicted, would be a huge hit. That’s how Columbia decided to make the forgotten Starman and made it possible for Sheinberg to grab the rejected film for Universal Pictures. The film that “wouldn’t work” was called E.T. Sheinberg spoke at a conversation and question-and-answer session led by SOC faculty with strong entertainment and media credentials themselves: Jane Hall, a regular commentator on the Fox News Channel, and two-time Academy Award winner Russell Williams. A linkup to California made it possible for him to be introduced by alum Danielle Gelber, SIS/MA ’82, a senior vice president at Showtime and a member of the SOC Dean’s Advisory Council. |
