U.S.C. Film School’s New Look Is Historic - NYTimes.com

Mr. Lucas, an architectural hobbyist, laid out the original designs for the project and donated an initial $175 million to build and support it. Industry benefactors like Warner Brothers, Fox and the Walt Disney Company have contributed another $50 million.

About $50 million still must be raised — in the face of hard times, even for Hollywood — to equip a second phase that would include a 36,000-square-foot animation building. Nonetheless school officials said that construction is fully paid for and was scheduled to be finished by August 2010.

For Mr. Lucas the grand expansion — which serves a full-time enrollment of about 1,500 graduate and undergraduate cinema students, along with thousands who take an occasional class — is all about sending a message.

“The only way you are going to get respect on a college campus, or a university campus, is to build something that is important,” Mr. Lucas said of his reasons for backing the complex. “Schools and universities mainly understand money.”

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