Background

The original Star Wars trilogy was about to be re-released in theaters and I asked my mother to Fedex my collection of vintage figures for safekeeping. Upon closer inspection, I decided to use them as actors (I don't have any friends that small nor that willing.) The first - Lando's - is from January 1997. As I explained it at the time:

This short animation sequence is a result of what happens when your combine those Kenner action figures with some late nineteen-seventies disco music.

In addition to the scanning of the backgrounds from some Star Wars books, the whole thing took about an afternoon to do. Same with the second animation - Another - which was done in March 1997. It's "story":

In recognition of the 20th anniversary of Star Wars, I have used vintage Kenner action figures to recreate one of the most dramatic moments of the trilogy.

Both of these were posted to my web site - Evan's Internet Cinema - for my friends to download. No big deal. In June 1997, things got a bit more adventurous with Kung Fu Kenobi:

About 30 seconds of mayhem, this is the short which got everyone's attention. Contains references to several other films and directors.

Not a whole lot happened for a while - my Power Macintosh 6100 was about at it's limit. I bought a Power Macintosh G3 later that year and began work on Quentin Tarantino's Star Wars.

That film got noticed by a Star Wars fansite called Jedinet which offered to host my films - the big time. Over the course of the year prior to the release of Star Wars Episode 1, I also made and posted to Jedinet Godzilla Versus Disco Lando and Kung Fu Kenobi's Big Adventure.

This attracted beaucoup press coverage and meetings with some Hollywood agents. It also brought an interesting opportunity with AtomFilms - then a rapidly growing Internet film distributor of sorts.

They thought it would be cool to have a contest associated with the release of Episode 1 whereby the general public would submit "scripts" (I use the term very loosely) that I would animate along with Jason Wishnow - whose documentary about crazed fans - Tatooine Or Bust - was making the rounds.

The winning "script" was written by Robert Fyvolent - a Hollywood entertainment lawyer - and was titled The Qui-Gon Show.

Disgruntled with the pleasant but mundane life of a Jedi knight, Qui-Gon Jinn comes home one day and realizes that all is not as it seems. He finally begins to understand the truth about his place in the universe, not to mention Hollywood. Produced by AtomFilms.

Since completion, I have met Jason and had lunch with Robert, but I have no idea who hell this John Stavopoulos character is who is credited as co-director.

These short animated sequences were my first foray into stop-motion animation. The were created by posing action figures on a handmade foamcore stage (with interchangeable blue and green backgrounds) set up on the kitchen table.

The camera setup involved attaching my composite video Sony Video8 to my Power Macintosh 6100. I then used the stop motion capture feature of Adobe Premiere to digitize individual frames and saving those to a QuickTime file. This file - in filmstrip format - is then edited in Adobe Photoshop: backgrounds are replaced with a consistent blue or green color that is replaced with the appropriate background in Adobe Premiere.

Interestingly, with the advent of FireWire and digital video, the stop motion capture feature in Premiere was eliminated. I decided to switch over to Final Cut Pro for movie editing - which was more tightly integrated with digital video.

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Screenings & Festivals