Saturday, May 5, 2012

A great crowdfunder project

My good friend Terry is currently raising money via Crowdfunder to help him purchase a movie-accurate C-3PO suit so that he can visit hospitals and events to raise money for charity. He's working hard to raise support and is almost halfway to the target of £2,000.

We helped him make a video for him the other day. It's a bit close to the bone on copyright, but no-one's making any money from it. It's effectively a fan film, and there's millions of those on YouTube all using John Williams' soundtrack with SW sound effects so I think we'll be safe from the copyright gestapo.

I must say I really enjoyed putting it together. It's the kind of project I don't mind spending lots of time on because the end result is great fun. It's not perfect (note that I managed to forget including the 'far far away' intro at the beginning – doh!) but hopefully it gets the message across OK.

Interestingly, it took me no time at all to put together the legendary Star Wars opening crawl at the start of the video. I think it took the Industrial Light and Magic team about a week to do it for 'A New Hope' back in the seventies by using Letraset stuck to a warehouse floor and tracking a camera backwards. Man, those were the days. I made it in iMovie (which has the 'far far away' text editor pre-installed) and then rendered it out so I could edit it together with the rest of the footage in Final Cut Pro. It took me about a minute (!).

Anyhoo, I think the T-3PO project is a brilliant idea and I wish him well with the fundraising. Terry's a master of voices so I can imagine him turning up at a children's hospital in the full kit and giving the kids some really special memories.

Take a look at his blog or Crowdfunder page and if you can, please support him – he'd be grateful no matter what the amount.

Here's the video:

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