Hey everybody,

This is the first five minutes of a short film I developed. There was a post on here some time ago concerning George Lucas's view on fan films and fan fiction in which he stated that he enjoyed watching them and appreciated the effort put into fan-projects of his films, but at the same time felt that the energy put into them could be better spent developing an original idea--something that could do for us the same thing Star Wars did for Lucas. I thought about it awhile and realized that it's all I've ever wanted to do is make my own Star Wars (I even sent him a fan letter as a 9-year-old begging him to help me develop a Star Wars rip-off!).

So I got this idea to try and make a science fiction film the way Star Wars used to be made, and I synthesized a lot more science fiction including Heavy Metal, Blade Runner, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and others to create something I would have as much fun watching as making. I built three car models and filmed them in front of glass and green screen (similar to Kubrick's methods), filmed cloud tank effects (also similar to Kubrick) and put together digital backgrounds to create what you see. Skyjedi made a suggestion that I read the wonderful book: ILM: The Art of Special Effects, which was a huge influence on how I went about compositing and filming my effects. I also spent time in a community college film school learning about lighting and cinematography to try and create a real film look.

Everything was shot on a Rebel T2i with the packet lenses. I recorded sound on an Zoom H4n with a Rode NTG-2 shotgun mic. All the supplementary sound effects were either self-recorded or taken from Brash's thread which supplied me with all of the Star Wars soundboards as well as other great links and resources. We have an entirety of 20 minutes fully rehearsed and an hour and a half of movie written, but unfortunately due to our schedules, jobs, and schoolwork, I'm not sure how much farther we can go as the original idea has expanded far beyond our micro-budget capabilities. However I feel if I start getting this out there I could get some grants and/or funding to bring this project to fruition. I wanted to know what you guys thought. Play like you're a big movie executive and you're watching my sneak peek and wondering if you should invest or not.

Anyway the main point of sharing this with you guys is that I know you all share my appreciation for the aesthetics of conventionally done effects. This was all done the way movies used to be done, just with the advantage of digital compositing and a digital workflow. Thanks for looking and I'll definitely post more if we shoot anything new.