Production

The idea of making a Star Wars fan film came about in December 2001. I came across The Force.net and to my wonder discovered the world of Star Wars fan films. Also on the site were precise instructions on how to make lightsaber effects using a home computer and Adobe software. So I set to work in creating a short 30 second clip of myself wielding a lightsaber - every Star Wars fans dream. Needless to say my friends were amazed and quickly ideas were surfacing regarding the making of an actual film. The initial plan was to make a 5 minute short that involved a friend and myself playing a Jedi and Sith, coming together and having a Dual. As we found found out things could never be that simple. What started as a a quick 5 minute Dual quickly evolved into a 35 minute film, and a whole lot of learning.

With no film making experience and day jobs all round we know this was not going to be easy, so we had to make sure it was going to be a fun project that we could all learn from and have an end result that in years to come we would probably laugh ourselves silly at.

The core crew of DESEK was basically two people, Ian and myself, we occasionally had a couple of hands behind the scenes but generally these were the actors in between their shots. To top it all we had actually cast ourselves as the principle Sith and Jedi, certainly on reflection this was not the right way to do it but by the time we realised the error of our ways we had done far too much to recast. Also the original premise of the film was for Ian and myself to have a dual, something two years later we actually got around to filming.

The majority of the characters made their own costumes and weapons, and the internal cockpit set was constructed in my flats spare room - basically a cardboard set, decorated with anything we could salvage and lit from behind with christmas tree lights. Film making equipment was very low tech, the most expensive being a small Canon DV camera. Our boom microphone was about as cheap as they get and attached to plastic pole inserted into crutch handle, the sound actually came out quite well considering. The other crutch was used as a makeshift steady-cam with a dumbbell weight as a stabiliser - a very cheap solution and not really very steady. Apart from indoor shoots we had no lighting and although we did make a bounce board, most of the time there was nobody left to hold it. So a very low budget production really, I don't think we spent more than £300 on it and most of that went into Petrol, DV tapes, costume and props - oh, and lunch of course.

We actually thought we would have it done in a year, pre production in the spring, production in the summer and post in the autumn - all ready for christmas 2002. How wrong we were, people were not always available when you need them and its quite amazing how little you can get done in a day of shooting - especially when you don't know what your doing. It Soon became apparent that we would have to wait until summer 2003 to continue the film and it almost came to the point of scraping it completely, me really wishing I had just gone for the 5 minute dual with Ian. Come summer 2003 we were focused on a christmas 2003 finish but the one thing we did not think of was editing. Yes, we had put together bits of scenes, done the odd lightsaber sequence but its not really until you finish shooting and start putting the whole thing together you realise what work you have ahead. Some dialogue needed re dubbing, foley, music, SFX, some scenes worked, some didn't - it was a crazy time, and to top it neither of us could get our heads around the 3D software to animate the Space scenes - we had to eventually settle for something far inferior to our vision.

Eventually come 2004 the Project was nearing completion, there were were certainly bits we were not happy with but we had stop and call it a day, it was time to move on to other things. Some of the cast came back to do a documentary on the project and we finally put together a DVD packed with extras for a christmas 2004 release. The response to the film has been far better than we expected, even from people not involved with the project. Ultimately, the making of this film has enabled a group of friends to experience the art of film making first hand, with no prior experience, and have a great deal of fun doing it.

Simon - 16th January 2005