KNIGHTQUEST

Only took me 4 hours for each file, and they were the .WMV's. Was a constant 5k a second which is what I usually get from TF.N, it is good I guess down here in Australia sitting on a 56k modem. But the film.... SPOILERS.



















Only thing I can critisise is that Vader doesn't get his man, or woman in this case. This ALWAYS has irritated me in any aspect of the Star Wars stories. Luke Skywalker was the LAST of the old and/or the FIRST of the new Jedi. The EU continues to disregard this and I don't like it, so I can't like it here, double standards wouldn't be right. But this is one fantastic film while I hate when Vader get's bested, but now I think about it does he?

 

Regarding conversion of wmv to VCD, I have had TMPGEnc running for 11 hours and it has only finished 2.5 minutes of the film!! It must be some problem that TMPEnc has with the wmv codec. Guess I'll wait for the hires quicktime version before getting the conversion done. I just want to hear this in all its surround sound glory!



TS

 

Are TF.N's server's having problems? I'm on a T1 line and am getting around 1k/second trying to download any of the Knightquest files, QT or .wmv.
Just wondering, I guess I've waited 2 years, I suppose I can wait another 18 hours!?!?!

 

Wow. I just have to say again how gratifying it is to read that so many people, for the most part, enjoyed the film. And thank you to all of you who are writing up entire reviews, (like Dorkmanscott for example,) I know this takes time so, thank you.

I'll try to address a few more questions:

SOUND: This is what happened. Originally I was set to get the soundtrack mixed and edited in a real THX certified theater with real pros doing the work. That was in the beggining. Flash forward 2 years and I've finally finished the movie. I call up my contact at the sound studio and guess what? Not only has the place changed management, making it almost immpossible to get it done on the sly now, but my contact found another job and was leaving two days later. Needless to say I was devastated. But it's my own damn fault for not getting this thing done on time. So I had no choice but to mix it myself. I grabbed what effects I could find from this site as well as the games and went to work. It took me about two months to edit the thing. Of course the dialog was the hardest part. And as many have noted, it still needs work. I also know the levels aren't balanced properly. I am continuing to work on this and once it's fixed, we will upload a new version, (in QT,) for those of you that want it. So think of the soundtrack as a work in progress.

SABER FIGHTS: I'm really surprised more people aren't complaining about this. This is something I thought I would get blasted for more than anything else. None of us doing the choreography are martial artists or swordsman. We just came up with routines that we thought we could pull off. I knew we were never going to reach TPM level of dazzle so we didn't even try. I figured if we could come close to the OT then we succeeded. Which by the majority of comments sounds like we did. You also have to understand a few "real world" items: 1-Do you know how tough it is to saber fight in that Vader suit? Let me tell ya, it ain't easy. 2-Forest, the guy playing Ulic Cinn, was 68 YEARS OLD when we shot that. He did all of his own stunts and fighting. I thnk he did a pretty good job. 3-Doria had never even held a sword or staff in her entire life. now in hindsight, if I were doing it over, I would prbably give the staff to Dannikk. Doria might have had an easier time with just the one blade. But hindsight is 20/20.

MISPRONOUNCIATION: As a few have specualted, we shot most of the dialog stuff in Oct of 98. Way before TPM opened. I wasn't sure of the pronounciation so I just went with what I thought was right.

STORY/DIALOG: As this was my first movie I intentionally wanted to keep it simple. I tried to make it so that people who are not immersed in Star Wars lore like we are could follow what was going on. I also tried hard to fit into official continuity without contradicting it. (Well, TOO much anyway.)Dialog has always been my weak point. It takes me FOREVER to write dialog. It's something I need to really work on.

The things I was looking to accomplish with this first movie were to: 1-see if I could work with actors and crew people who I had just met. This is how it is in Hollywood, you're working with brand new people on every picture, so I needed to see how my people skills were. 2-Find out if I truly know anything about structure and pacing. Because we all know how bad it is if a movie drags. From the replys I've gotten, I seem to have done it on this project 3-Can I make a decent action sequence. This was a real test, especially considering I had no stunt people or wire rigs and the fact that I had a bunch of actors who had never fought before doing their own stunts. Now I'm no James Cameron yet, but most people seem to be satisfied. At least no one has said they were boring. 4-Could I work with an effects supervisor. I needed to know if I could communicate what I was thinking into compelling images and have the audience be able to follow the action without getting confused.

Whew, another long post. Is anyone even still reading? I know this isn't the greatest thing ever made, I neve

 

I d/l the trailers and was curious to see the film. I see all of the feeback but no link to view the movie. What's this about a newsletter to get the link. I'm confused...someone tell me how to find the links.

 

instead of going to the coming soon directory, click on short films.

 

banshee,

Thanks for all the insight -- you'd better believe I read the whole thing! I think the "behind the scenes" look at why you chose to do certain things is fascinating. If I may offer a selfish suggestion: someday when you have spare time (yea, right! ), you ought to write a director's journal or diary or something, giving an account of how the project developed from idea to final product. I would be fascinated to read about the troubles, delays, successes and failures, and most of all, the human factor. I think many of us who've followed your film for all these years would be interested to see how the process worked.

You've pulled off a real gem of a fan film. Congratulations again.

 

Perhaps Joe should be addressing most of this stuff, but my two cents may be valuable. Will try and go through most of what has been brought up.

The2ndQuest,
A lot of good points and appreciate the great review. Yes, the story has been done before although when we shot the film it was original. Since it was pre Episode 1 by more than a year, Joe?s goal was to keep the feel and consistency of the first three films. He actually thought the double-sided light saber was going to be a first. In our inexperience, we believed the film would be released before Episode 1, but the undertaking proved otherwise.

Thanks for the VFX compliments. I agree that some shots turned out better than others. You nailed it, because over the two-year span, some weeks were better than others in my life. So the product surely represents the frame of mind I was in. Aside from the obvious fact that some of it was just difficult to pull off. Hopefully my next project will be more polished and push my skills to the next level (whatever that may be).


DorkmanScott,
As above, well delivered and clear review. You have some great observations about Vader. The ?pattycake? comment is pretty much what happened. In a wishful attempt to explain why, I bring up a few points. Mainly, we were unable to acquire talented choreography as seen in Duality. Danny, myself, and a couple others put it together with no experience (accept for beating our brothers as kids). Throw into the mix, an older man, a woman who has never twirled a pole, and me in a 60-pound suit with a cape. Personally the worst part was the helmet. Besides only having two-tinted peep holes to look through, they were thickly fogged 90% of the time. Trust me, we were happy to pull off what we did. By the end of the shoot, I hit everyone at least once with the saber, so they were probably thinking, "Take him you fool! He?s totally open!"

The opening crawl was matched to the one in ANH, perhaps not in execution but definitely in length. It?s just lengthy in general. Thanks for the amazing review.

In General,
Yes, we only had one Storm Trooper suit.
There probably will not be a sequel (but Joe may change his mind).
The blank screen before the Vader/Ulic confrontation was intentional.
EA Omega is an Easter Egg as well as H.Gibbens great Star Speeder Model.
Thanks for everyone?s support.

TS

 

Didn't realize Joe was posting. Excuse any overlap.

 

You need to post more, Tom.

 

My comments are the sames as most so I won't rehash them.

Just some words of praise:

The guy that did Vader's voice, ROCKS!

The THX thing, ROCKS!

The Space battle at the begining, ROCKS!

The fly by after the scroll, REALLY ROCKS!
(quote from my buddy: "Now that was cool")

Great work! Well worth the wait.

Sauja

 

Not a bad piece of work given what you had to work with and the time you had to do it in. It could have improvements, as Joe did mention the trooper tussle and what not, but all in all it was pretty good. Cheers.

 

I think the reason the lightsabre choreography hasn't been commented on was becuase there was so much more to the film than a lightsabre Duel. As films like Duality where heavily based around a lightsabre duel, it kind of had to be good, whereas this wasn't the only point in KnightQuest.

I was always amazed at how little direct abuse we got for the lightsabre fight in our film, having read the boards for months before, and read an entire host of posts about 'what makes a good lightsabre fight etc' I was REALLY worried about this part of the film. Nikki (like Doria) was no Jedi Knight, and Jason had only ever dreamed of fighting with a lightsabre. I have to confess we made the entire scene and 'choreography' up on the day, and I was actually chuffed at how it came out, it was certainly no beauty, but hopefully it also wasn't so bad that it made people laugh, look away, or stop the movie. It also must be said (and I'm not being sexist here folks) that having an untrained female is bound to be a little harder due to the physical nature of the art, same goes for Ulic, when I'm 68 I'll be happy if I can walk to the bathroom unadded, let alone duel out in the woods. If you look at Alec Guiness performance in Star Wars he was no Dave Macomber, Darth Vader could have eaten a roast dinner by the time he did that spin of his. But as I said KnightQuest and Star Wars where a heck of a lot more than a lightsabre fight, so we don't focus in on this. If your film is just a lightsabre duel, it had better be good, if it's more than that, I believe your audience is more 'forgiving'.

For me KnightQuest was SO much more than a lightsabre fight, so you don't tend to sweat over it so much, plus (really importantly) you built a lot of tension/drama into the scenes before and during the fights as well, again a great way to detract the critical sabre viewers eye. For me KnightQuest triumphed becuase it was pretty good in every department, the sum of the parts made for a very impressive whole. That (I think) is why you feel you have 'got away with' the duel, becuase there was so much more for us all to enjoy.


As a side note: You wrote this a year before Episode 1 came out, kudos to you, at least you got Darth Vaders Girlfriends name right, I couldn't do that even with 20/20 hindsight! Dooohhh!

 

Well, since watching, i haven't been able to blink.

Wow.

You can rest assured Digital Llama Radio #5 will be "the one about Knightquest". I'd have TONS to say here, but i wanna save it for the show. We have a half hour to fill, after all. Expect a broadcast by this weekend.

-Chris

 

Digital_LlamaCH: I'm looking forward to the show. You guys are...um...amusing.



Seriously, you dudes are pretty funny. Can't wait.

 

Knightquest was awesome. It was worth the wait. Just imagine what we all could do if we had that type of equipment at our disposal. Let's hope they do another film, but I hope it isn't a sequel.

 

Banshee/Joe -

You have definitely achieved/surpassed your goals on all counts in my opinion.

It was definitely time well spent on an incredibly ambitious project.

I'm am not sure how much film experience you had when you started, but, you blow 95% of your peers out of the water with this.

I would love to see an non-SW film come out of your talent ten times more than a sequel. I know firsthand how difficult it is to use film and to do what you have done with this film and any flaws are very easily overlooked. I hope you keep us posted on your next project no matter what it may be.

 

Banshee: First off, congrats on KQ! I loved it. Secondly, you said earlier that you had a problem with dialog, well welcome to the club my friend. That is one thing I have the hardest time writing dialog. I need to work on that as well. I'll be watching KQ at Sili Con 2001 this weekend. Again, congrats on a wonderful fan film.


Kev

 

When any of you are writing your dialogue, are you trying to make it 'believable' or make it sound like 'Star Wars' ? I had a blast writing a load of cheesy lines that only come from Star Wars films

Darth Vader: "I will hunt you down, and when I have destroyed you, I will hunt down your son - he will be turned Amidala, he will be turned..."

What's that when it's at home? No-one speaks like that! But it feels Star Wars to me, so it's fun to write. So, my question again, when you guys are writing your scripts, are you trying to make it sound everyday, or star warsey?

 

Quoting ExFilms
"I would love to see an non-SW film come out of your talent ten times more than a sequel. I know firsthand how difficult it is to use film and to do what you have done with this film and any flaws are very easily overlooked. I hope you keep us posted on your next project no matter what it may be.
"

I agree completely. Obviously the hard work paid off in this film. Just imagine what could have been done with a true movie budget!
Those responsible for KnightQuest should think of a Sci-Fi related story (non-starwars) and do a short film to send to a TV network or something. Perhaps get a series out of it. I think something based on Larry Nivens 'Ring World' would be neat. I guess it is just difficult to find people to volunteer for a project unless they have a passion for the theme. Star Wars has its fair share of passionate fans.

 

Kevin,

Thanks alot. I checked your web-site, it looks like you have your own ambitious project brewing. Good luck.

I have several original ideas I'm trying to work through at the moment: a supernatural horror film, a superhero movie with a twist, (not like Unbreakable,) a story about a young actress trying to make it in Hollywood and my personal favorite, an epic action film that takes place in Heaven and Hell. Trust me, you've never seen anything like it.

I'm leaning towards the supernatural horror film because it's something I think I could pull off on my own. The others are a little more expensive. (Well, ALOT more.)



WG2000: What's Silli Con?

 

It's a specialty polymer used primarily in waterproof sealants and breast augmentation operations

 

Cute, Daft.

Where's Benny Hill when you need him?

 

Methinks it's a sci-fi/RPG convention out in CA. Assuming I found the right one.

TAKEAPEEKEE!

 

Banshee, Sili-Con 2001 is a convention this weekend in Sunnyvale, CA. There's supposed to be a fan film showing hosted by TFN. I think Azeem is going to be there or some reps from TFN.

Kevin