Steven Soderbergh shared many personal stories and industry observations in a speech at the Toronto International Film Festival including that he had been attempting to complete a book which was a deep technical analysis of the original blockbuster Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Jaws was released in 1974 and would go on to break records and reshape the industry.

Soderbergh shared how influential the film was for him in his early years both formative and career.  Both The Jaws film and an accompanying book known as the The Jaws Log, by Carl Gottlieb which examines the intense problem-solving that took place on the set were like mentors for Soderbergh. To show his appreciation of the film Soderbergh set out to create his own technical manual with Jaws as it focus and on showing how films such as the iconic block buster are truly made.

“This book is not for general consumption. This is for people who are interested in films, either as moviegoers or who want to do this job. Because if you’re going to do this job, you need to understand the job. This is the job,” Soderbergh clarified, pointing out that he has dedicated about 15 years to the book as a personal project. He also joked that it will likely never be finished.

Soderbergh was in attendance at Tiff to see its presentation of his most recent picture Presence, a unique film that utilizes the spirit haunting a house as its perspective. Presence has the camera following everything its spectral protagonist sees including the unsuspecting family living with it but make no mistake, the ghost of Presence is no Casper.

Soderbergh elaborated on how he found formative stylistic inspiration as both creator and director with Jaws and the horror genre as a staple of film. He shared how he felt that this impacted the audience as well as that respecting genre foundations like horror was paramount for making good films. He also added on this segment that he felt streaming was reshaping how studios constructed films with series losing star power to carry them and films becoming more dependent on stars instead of creativity in turn.

“At the end of the day, the only solve is good shit. You got to make good shit. You’ve got to focus on that,” Soderberggh said ending on a much more positive note.