My Star Wars film in Dragon*Con

     My spoof short film, Star Wars: Blasted Behavior has been accepted to the 2011 Dragon*Con Film Festival (a huge Sci-Fi & Fantasy convention) in Atlanta, Georgia.  I would like to go, but unfortunately I can't seem to get a hotel room for this event, being held over the Labour Day weekend.

     Blasted Behavior has been doing well.  My wife and I wrote it together in one day, and three weeks later, with the help of many of our talented friends, we shot it in one day, too.  We did it primarily to enter the 2008 Atom Films Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge.  After rushing to get it edited in time, we uploaded it to their website on the final deadline date. Unfortunately, due to so many others uploading at the same time, their system couldn't handle it and my film was one of many that simply didn't get there. We re-submitted the following year and were thrilled that Blasted Behavior was one of the finalist films in 2009 (George Lucas was one of the judges).

     In our spoof, the main characters from the original Star Wars Trilogy find themselves in a group therapy session. Unfortunately, these characters have unresolved "issues" and before you know it tempers flare and the lightsabers ignite.

     To prepare, I watched the original 1977 Star Wars film and muted the sound so I could study how George Lucas framed his dialogue and lightsaber fights in order to duplicate the look for my spoof.  Then I went out and bought a blue plaid shirt, like Lucas', to wear while I was directing.

     Kevin Robinson played Luke Skywalker with eerie attention to detail, and Erik Buchanan braved the full Darth Vader armour with grace. Both men are fight choreographers who put together a terrific lightsaber battle for this film that they should be proud of.

     Our film's music was scored by Graeme Wearmouth, who duplicated the famous John Williams Star Wars opening and end credit music, and expertly incorporated the main theme into the lightsaber fight. In 2008, it was unclear if there was a limit to how much of John Williams' music we could reproduce, but when we re-submitted in 2009, we found that we were only allowed to use two 59-second sequences. So Graeme had to go back and re-score to comply with the new rules. Although he was understandably not happy, he captured John Williams' essence amazingly well.

     Everyone, cast and crew, worked every hard in all aspects of the production and I am grateful to each and every one of them.  Last year Blasted Behavior won "Best Foreign Sci-Fi Short" in the New York International Independent Film Festival and now it is about to be screened at Dragon*Con.

     I am thrilled and proud.... now if only I could find a hotel room.

Filming Star Wars: Blasted Behavior