POWER TRIP Production thread [Pennsylvania, crew and 3D animation help sought]

Greetings, all, I'm a film student at Penn State University looking at using my Star Wars fanfilm as my portfolio piece needed to progress to my junior year. So long as I retain creative control, I am allowed [and encouraged] to seek help from the film community at large, and where better to start than here? I have a 5 2/8p script completed for POWER TRIP: A Gonk Droid's Tale. Here's our pitch:

"Power Trip: A Gonk Droid?s Tale is a comedy about a gonk droid who tries to be a hero in the vein of R2-D2 and C-3PO. After a series of misadventures, GNK-1138 realizes sometimes heroism isn?t about being extraordinary, but rather about performing to the best of one?s own abilities.

Power Trip features classic Star Wars characters, from the major players like Han Solo, to supporting characters like Watto, to the fringe of the galaxy, and even Anakin Skywalker?s childhood friend, Wald. From sandcrawlers to stormtroopers, this short film by writer/director Ryan Miorelli takes us back to the classic Star Wars universe we know and love to show us what it really is to be a hero."

I'm based out of Schuylkill County, PA, and was wondering if anyone was interested in the project in the area. I'm looking at shooting in April sometime. While I've always been fairly good at the production and prop construction side of filmmaking [having done both professionally for clients including PBS and Nickelodeon], I was never good at the technical aspects, particularly G&E and camera type stuff. Is anyone interested in helping out? [We have no equipment, and, being based out of a satellite campus, will be hard-pressed to get any from the school. Ugh.]

Also, there are a few 3D shots that we'll need assistance with. The Millennium Falcon, landed, must be added to a live-action shot of a forest clearing. Also needed are establishing shots of a sandcrawler in the Dune Sea, the Dune Sea itself, Mos Espa, and the Rebel base on Yavin IV. Would anyone be able to help me out with this?

Last but not least [and I know this isn't the place to request this, but who knows who might be here?] I'd like to add that although all film characters will be shown from the waist down [to show the Gonk's point of view], it'd be great if anyone in the area has stormtrooper armor, an Imperial officer's uniform, a Chewie costume, a Han costume, or a Leia costume and would be willing to be on set for one day only in April.

Thanks for everything and sorry for the length of my post, mtFbwy!

 

Sounds fun. I'd say your best bet of getting CG help will be to have something to show, footage-wise. (Most of the freebie work that gets done, gets done because the artist would be proud to have the freebie shots on their reel. So the better-lookin' the footage, the more likely someone's gonna wanna throw their hat in.)

Good luck, sir!

 

Thanks, you raise a good point. If all stays on track, we'll be done principal photography by April.

Does anyone have any gonk sound effects ripped from Jedi Academy or The Phantom Menace? I don't have any of the Star Wars PC games at my place so I can't rip them myself. Thanks!

 

You could probably create your own pretty easily with a flanger effect in any audio software.

 

Budget or no?

 

We're still working out our budget. We intend to fundraise enough to cover the usual essentials like gas and catering, as well as some basic sets, the most complicated of which being a street of Mos Espa [making plywood facades]. It will probably be several hundred. Not a huge budget.

 

Sorry for the double post...but I've run into a snag. I was under the impression that the 501st was more than willing to do fanfilms. I even offered to comp them for gas. However, the local garrison has informed me that they can't do the fanfilm unless they have official papers straight from Lucasfilm that state that it is an approved production. How would I even begin to go about doing that? I really do need at least two stormtroopers and maybe an officer or something for the film.

 

Where are you from? I guess that's a group-specific thing because I talked to my local group and that was never an issue.
But I do know that the majority of their work is for charity but never thought it was in any way Lucasfilm related.

 

I'm from Pennsylvania. They did imply that it's kind of a local thing. Not sure why they said that...maybe I guess just to make sure it's not something that would in any way defame the Legion? I guess my producers and I are going to have to sit down and draft a letter to LFL.

 

Maybe I'm over simplifying it, but wouldn't a copy of the script solve that?

 

It would, but there'd be no way to verify that I was going to use that script for shooting, I guess? That was just a hypothesis anyway; I have no idea why we need to seek LFL approval. Next Monday I'm going to have a production meeting and figure out what we're going to do.