Glowing swords are entertaining whether you're a Star Wars fan or not. Being able to actually FIGHT with these things is amazing, and lightsaber toys are still some of the most popular film merchandise on the planet. After fighting with an array of them in our backyard and garage, we can see why. And we're being professionals! Working with an Australian supplier of high quality, combat ready lightsabers, we've made a collection of promo videos from home since the pandemic began.
'To the Light' was our first work. We wanted to create a mini-narrative, and establish our own character into the Star Wars universe. Andrew plays a young Jedi in a post-order-66 galaxy. But there's a bit of our own Orthodox Christian inspiration here too. The film's narration was inspired by a quote from Saint Porphyrios, "we do not shoot the darkness, we turn on the light". It's a thought echoed by other Christian writers and early Church Fathers. We do not defeat darkness in the world (or in our own lives) by attacking it, but by looking towards the Light of Christ. It's a slightly shifted focus. We look towards the Light and the Light expels the darkness, because on our own, we can't do it.
The epic soundtrack was written by our good friend Luke Standridge. He's a genius really, and a professional, so we weren't sure if he'd be interested in scoring an unpaid (we were given lightsabers for these films) short job of making a new Star Wars track. But Luke was keen and pulled out the stops! It doesn't sound like just any piece of music, but like a song that was missing from John Williams own original work on the series! Capping it all off is the stunning violin moment at the end. Luke's friend Kyle Aaron played and recorded that, and it made the whole thing come together perfectly. We still listen to the music sometimes and just think 'wow'!
So, having established the look, feel, and universe of our own Jedi Knight, we have been making a series of product videos! All shot either in our garage, or in our garden at night, with a total crew of two brothers. We're using an old potters wheel for the product shots, and a sort of 'fog in a can' for the atmosphere, as well as a very old fog machine that works incredibly slowly and minimally but spits out juuuuust enough fog to create a sci-fi world! Enjoy!
Our first collection to capture were the Z sabers series. They're durable and a tremendous amount of fun! 'To the Light' and the 'Z Series' videos were filmed concurrently.
After our client enjoyed our work on 'Z', we were given the 'X Series' of sabers. These are slightly more 'upmarket' and are clear copies of ones that exist in the movies. They're each unique, so we made a video for every model.
The first video we did for the X series was for the two 'Chariot' sabers, as we felt that the other two had more of a story element to them. When we had completed the 'Chariot' video, we were ready to make a couple of product video that had more of the atmosphere of the Star Wars universe.
Andrew spent time watching clips from the movies, as well as Star Wars shows and games, to mirror the movements typically associated with these weapons. He practiced, and now looks like a complete pro. The movement of the 'Apollo Twin' powering up, is an exact copy of Darth Maul's preparation stance in the movies and Clone Wars series, the final shot of the Praxeum is the same pose Luke Skywalker holds in the original Star Wars movie poster and the lighting itself mirrors the character loading screens of the Battlefront II video game.
The 'Apollo Twin' saver is based on Darth Maul's weapon from the movies. It's a villainous tool. The Praxeum' however is based on the weapon used by the hero, Luke Skywalker. We chose to make the 'Apollo Twin' video first, thus ending our own 'Z series' filmmaking journey with the 'Praxeum'. It's kind of like the work of Orthodox Christian iconographers, who paint all the dark colours of the icon first, before gradually progressing through to the light. The journey of the artist thus mirrors the journey of the soul in the Christian life, travelling away from darkness 'To the Light' of Christ.
Listen to Luke's stunning soundtrack here: