(31 May 2002)
1. Wide of students arriving for graduation ceremony
2. Medium of film director Steven Spielberg arriving
3. Close as Spielberg hugs friend
4. Close up of balloons
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert C. Maxson, President California State University, Long Beach:
"I would like to welcome Mister Spielberg, on behalf of his classmates, the graduating class of 2002."
6. Close up of Spielberg listening
7. Wide of students applauding
8. Wide of ceremony
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Robert C. Maxson, President California State University, Long Beach:
"Your presence is a wonderful statement about honoring commitments, about honoring obligations, about finishing the unfinished. When you graduate today with your classmates, you will have finished the unfinished."
10. Spielberg walks to stage
11. Spielberg accepts diploma waves to crowd
12. Wide of applauding crowd
STORYLINE:
Hollywood film director Steven Spielberg is adding a Bachelor of Arts to Long List of accomplishments by finishing what he started 37 years ago at California State University at Long Beach.
Steven Spielberg is the man who defined blockbuster and who has won three Oscars not to mention Emmys, Golden Globes and lifetime achievement awards.
He's even got five honorary doctorates, the last one on Monday from Yale.
But during the fall semester of 2001, Spielberg wrote a term paper for his Natural Science 492 class at Cal State Long Beach, fulfilling a general education requirement to earn the one credential missing from his astonishing resume: Bachelor of arts, with an option in film/video production.
Spielberg, 55, first enrolled at Cal State Long Beach in 1965, but dropped out three years later, just shy of his degree.
The following year, his 22-minute "Amblin"--about a young man and a young woman who meet in the desert and decide to travel together, becoming friends and lovers--was shown at the Atlanta Film Festival.
That led to a contract with a Hollywood studio, so 34 years after he dropped out, Spielberg wore a $40 cap and gown his staff rented from the campus bookstore, and sat among some 500 graduates of the College of Arts.
For his return to college, Spielberg was allowed to register under a pseudonym to protect his privacy.
Only a handful of administrators and professors handling his courses knew who the man behind the false name really was.
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