He attended Bellarmine College Preparatory and then the University of California, Santa Cruz, from which he received his bachelor's degree in 1991.

[1] He moved to Los Angeles, and began a collaboration with Doug Liman, who was then a graduate student at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts.

Todd McCarthy characterized the effects of the camerawork and editing: "Soderbergh has given the film tremendous texture as well as a vibrant immediacy through constant handheld operating, mostly using available light, and manipulating the look both in shooting and in the lab.

Stephen Mirrione's editing, which gives Traffic a beautifully modulated overall shape, is characterized on a moment-to-moment basis by jump cuts and jagged rhythms.

Overall result is far too stylized to call the approach verite, but pic looks far more caught-on-the-run, and therefore far less staged, than all but a few other American films.