Words: Bonnie Burton

At this year’s Star Wars Fan Movie Awards presented by Lucasfilm and Atom at Celebration V in Orlando, Florida, Star Wars ’70s Animation won the Spirit of Fandom Award.

Starwars.com chats with California-based filmmaker John Kolesar about his award-winning film.

What is your background in film? Did you study it in college? Did you make films as a youngster/teen?

No film background. I made this Star Wars film back in the ’70s with the help of my younger brother Jim and friend Anthony. I also made a few other stop-frame animated films using clay animation, modified plastic models and other fun stuff.

What prompted you to make a Star Wars fan film? How has George Lucas and his films influenced your work?

We were creative kids, and my parents let us use their video camera. Once the Star Wars figures and ships started appearing in stores, I guess we thought it would be fun to make a film using those things. I read all the sci-fi magazines back then, and found the “making of” and special effects articles fascinating.

What is the backstory regarding your film? Where did you get your idea for your film?

We had quite a collection of figures. Our film is loosely based on a few scenes from Star Wars. We added some characters, modified some scenes, added new ones, etc.

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Words: Bonnie Burton

At this year’s Star Wars Fan Movie Awards presented by Lucasfilm and Atom at Celebration V in Orlando, Florida, The Unconscious Sith won George Lucas Selects Award.

Starwars.com chats with Texas-based filmmaker Adam White about his award-winning film.

What is your background in film? Did you study it in college? Did you make films as a youngster/teen?

I have been making movies my whole life. I studied film in college, my degree was called Media Production at the University of Houston. I now work as a freelance video editor and I write and make short films as often as my schedule allows.

What prompted you to make a Star Wars fan film? How has George Lucas and his films influenced your work?

I have been a huge Star Wars fan for as long as I can remember. My first memory of being at a movie was seeing Star Wars at a drive-in. I’m guessing it was the summer of 1978 for the first re-release as I had Star Wars figures in the station wagon with me. George Lucas’ films have been a huge influence on me, particularly the fun and lighthearted tone of many of his films. I have found that many of my films have tried to emulate this aspect of his films.

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Words: Bonnie Burton

At this year’s Star Wars Fan Movie Awards presented by Lucasfilm and Atom at Celebration V in Orlando, Florida, The Solo Adventures won Best Animated Feature.

Starwars.com chats with Florida-based filmmaker Jeff Scheetz about his award-winning film, The Solo Adventures.

What is your background in film? Did you study it in college? Did you make films as a youngster/teen?

I grew up making Super 8 movies in my backyard with Star Wars action figures. I vowed to one day become a visual effects artist. I was an early adopter of CGI on the Video Toaster and my first job was on Babylon 5, then Star Trek Voyager. In 2000, my wife Anne and I opened an animation school at Universal Studios Orlando called The Digital Animation & Visual Effects School. We have been training visual effects artists and animators for 10 years. Our grads have worked on Avatar, Battlestar, Kung Fu Panda, and at Disney, DreamWorks, Sony and ILM!

What prompted you to make a Star Wars fan film? How has George Lucas and his films influenced your work?

We produce four films a year as part of our curriculum. The instructors write and direct and the students work on the films as they would if this were a production studio. We have made 33 films in 10 years. It was inevitable that we would eventually make a fan film, the questions was when. The answer came with the news that Celebration V was coming to home town Orlando.

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Words: Bonnie Burton

At this year’s Star Wars Fan Movie Awards presented by Lucasfilm and Atom at Celebration V in Orlando, Florida, Chronicles of a Young Skywalker won Best Action Heroes Award.

Starwars.com chats with Hawaii-based filmmaker Blake Cousins about his award-winning film.

What is your background in film? Did you study it in college? Did you make films as a youngster/teen?

Brent and I are known as the Cousins Brothers Productions. We have been making films for over two years. We broke into theaters with our blockbuster hit The Night Marchers series breaking box office records in the state of Hawaii! We also won the John Carpenter Award for our movie Slaughter Day in the Video Review Magazine Shoot off! Our most recent film is an apocalyptic horror called The Rising Dead — it’s a zombie movie that takes place at the end of the world, currently being distributed by York Entertainment.

What prompted you to make a Star Wars fan film? How has George Lucas and his films influenced your work?

With Brent’s 3-year-old boy Cameron Cousins, we decided that he loved Star Wars so much that we would test his skills with a lightsaber. Turned out he was fantastic, so we went ahead and did three feature shorts of Chronicles of Young Skywalker! Growing up in the 1970’s and watching Star Wars for the first time it changed our life in a way that would lead us down the road to making film!

What is the backstory regarding your film? Where did you get your idea for your film?

We came up with the concept of what would young Luke Skywalker and a teenage Han Solo do if confronted by a dark Sith? It turned out to be a real adventure! Having a 100-year-old sugar plantation in our backyard on the Hamakua Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii would be a perfect back drop for our film!

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Words: Bonnie Burton

At this year’s Star Wars Fan Movie Awards presented by Lucasfilm and Atom at Celebration V in Orlando, Florida, Renaissance (Redux) won Audience Choice Award.

Renaissance (Redux) is produced entirely by Chilean people, shot in Chilean locations and inspired by George Lucas’ Star Wars. Using only a video camera and domestic computers, the Estudio 19 and Droi-D crew intended to demonstrate that science fiction is possible in countries like Chile, without exorbitant budgets. Starwars.com chats with Chile-based filmmaker Inti Carrizo-Ortiz about his award-winning film.

What is your background in film? Did you study it in college? Did you make films as a youngster/teen?

I went to film school here in Chile, at the ARCOS Institute of Art and Communications; but I made my first serious short film at age 17, using two old VCRs and a Mono cassette radio for editing. So I guess I took an early major in “Making Movies with Nothing at All;” a philosophy I stubbornly maintained during film school and beyond, and of course, with Renaissance (Redux). When the story is right, imagination is always the biggest budget asset.

What prompted you to make a Star Wars fan film? How has George Lucas and his films influenced your work?

Star Wars is what got me into movies; and movies is what keeps me going. It has been such a huge inspiration, I just needed to do something about it — to give something back, no matter how little, to that wonderful universe of crazy old wizards and men twisted and evil. And soon I discovered I wasn’t alone.

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