Growing up a fan of anything (music, films, sports) there is probably the strong chance you would one day like to write about that thing that makes the world shine brighter for you.

For me it was movies. As a child of the early 1980s there were no brighter and shinier films than those directed and in due course produced or presented by Steven Spielberg.

I'm sure I'm not alone in coming clean that as a kid a lot of my free time was spent reading about Spielberg's films ( I thank you Starlog magazine and all those inspirational Kerry O'Quinn editorials) and of course watching them. I would hoover up whatever articles I could ' behind the scenes pieces, special effects reports, interviews. Anything. I'd even dwell over the ads for the movies in the back of the London Evening Standard newspaper that my dad brought home from work each day.

In that pre-video age the best way to revisit a film once its time at the cinema had passed was to listen to the soundtrack. Part of me still thinks is the best way ' just let the movie hang magically in your memory and imagination.

If someone had told me as a twelve year old hooked on Indiana Jones and ET that one day I would have the chance to write and have published a book about Spielberg's films I would not have believed them. Well, thanks to some good luck, maybe a little divine intervention and even luckier timing, it happened. In the spring of 2000 British publisher Pocket Essentials displayed faith in my proposal and commissioned me to write such a book. I could not believe it. This was a major moment and proof, more than anything , that staying true to one's dreams meant that one day they would stay true to you.

In the s ummer of 2000 I began writing the book. I had about six months to complete the project. I would work on it in little bursts - a few concentrated days here and there. I also had to watch each movie again, with a notebook on my lap, taking note of interesting dialogue, camera placement, the rhythms of the edits, little quirks and points of interest. I had just 40,000 words or so to communicate not only my enthusiasm for the subject but to be all embracing and hopefully incisive about the director's movies. Importantly it was not a biography and that was one of the reasons the project appealed to me. My job was to sit down and pick out the common themes, motifs and images that seemed to me to hold true across the range of Spielberg's films. Of course, as this approach suggests it doesn't matter how varied the settings and 'look' of these films are they are all telling the same story. This is true of pretty much most storytellers, whether they are film directors, writer, painters, songwriters. People have complained a little that Spielberg has resisted offering commentaries about his films. I accept his point as I understand it ' why should he nail the film's meaning down to just one thing ' Sure, my book is about the elements that link the films, which suggests an effort to understand what Spielberg wanted to communicate, but at the same time every audience member brings their own life experience, knowledge of other stories and of course outlook on life to every movie they watch. In a way the director's commentaries on DVD's exploit the audience's fear of making up their own mind sometimes. A human being made a movie. Chances are the human being watching it has as valid an opinion on the film's meaning as the person who crafted it.

As a massive Spielberg fan the line I had to walk was between venting my sheer joy at his films, and I do mean all of them, whilst not appearing to be so much of a fan that any critical faculty goes out of the window. For those who have read the book I'd be interested to hear what you think. The other thing you're trying to do when you write a book like this is walk the line between saying something new and fresh which at the same time acknowledges, in this case, the vast body of interviews and response to Spielberg's films over the years. The archivist in me very much enjoyed compiling the reference listing at the back of the book and whilst it is far from exhaustive I hope it has led some readers down interesting roads of enquiry. And even better, maybe led them to check out the work of other directors. Writing and thinking about film is fun.

As will be evident to those who have read the book there is no interview with Spielberg. In an ideal world it would be terrific to have such an opportunity but in some ways maybe meeting your heroes is a tricky pursuit. Just what would you say ' Maybe if I ever get to a place where I feel I should attempt an exhaustive biography of the man then I'll see if I can get that interview. Really, though, I am completely satisfied with the way the book is. It's a great format to work to. It's how I think about movies and I am sure it is how many others do too. Stories are important, vital. The approach I took was simply to respond to how the films were designed. I'm not so interested in how they may or may not reflect social concerns. I don't think that approach necessarily encourages people to think about the medium of film as an art in and of itself. I guess my approach is really inspired by my former film tutor at university. Check out the book he wrote some years ago, Film as Film by V.F. Perkins.

One of the other enjoyable things about putting the book together was having the chance to acknowledge other writers in the reference section. For those unfamiliar with his writing on Spielberg, try and hunt out Henry Sheehan's articles. He did a great two part article in Film Comment back in late 1991, early 1992 and has had a rticles published since.

Since the book was published, before AI was even released, there has been much Spielberg filmmaking to catch up on and anticipate. Minority Report is up next and looks like a harsh kind of film. You watch, though. I feel pretty sure the other, softer Spielberg will be in there somewhere and I suspect it will come in the relationship between the characters played by Cruise and Samantha Moreton. And then, at Christmas, it's time for Catch Me If You Can. Will this be something of a revisiting of a past movie, The Sugarland Express ' I think, in part, it will. The 60s setting is certainly unique for the director. One of the most telling of the many images already available online of the film's shoot was one of the first showing Leonardo DiCaprio in a suit. My immediate thought was of Charlie Chaplin. DiCaprio had a truly old time appearance and more importantly the look of someone kind of lost. I appreciate this was a behind the scenes shot. Nonetheless, the classic Spielberg lost boy motif flashed across my mind. Will Hanks' character be akin to Captain Tanner in The Sugarland Express, keen to understand the life and mind of the kid he is after '

There are few directors out there whose work seems to elicit such excitement. Way back when Hook was being made, Dustin Hoffman summed it up saying something along the lines of how exci ted he was simply to wonder what the film would look like. For a director to spark such undistilled enthusiasm and anticipation simply of a film's look, let alone its characters and broader themes, is astonishing. It's this fascination that Spielberg's movies fill people with that I have tried celebrate through my little book. As a filmmaker myself, Spielberg's films, unsurprisingly, encourage me and simply floor me every time I watch one of them.

I hope you enjoy my book if you get the chance to read it.

The book is The Pocket Essentials: Steven Spielberg, published in 2001

It is currently available free with HOTDOG movie magazine in the UK.In June 2002, look out for James' new book, The Pocket Essentials: George Lucas

Check out the Pocket Essentials website at www.pocketessentials.com.