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So ... some of you may remember a movie my friends and I made senior year called "Liquid vs Metal" which was basically just a lightsaber fighting movie (a right of passage for any nerd worth his salt) ...
But before there was LVM, there was "Serethrom Crystal".
The idea for making a lightsaber movie originally came from Stewart Redmond, who was the person clever enough to figure out how lightsabers could be drawn on the computer. It wasn't long after his discovery that several of us were teaming up to make our very own Star Wars movie. We drafted a script and everything!
The story was about a bunch of Jedi and Sith trying to track down the "Serethrom Crystal" which is discovered by a rogue Jedi named "Edune" who, apparently, discovers it in an old almanac in the Utah suburbs (blast not having an actual set!)
Anyway, filming this movie proved to be harder than we'd anticipated and there were many complications. Ultimately, all we ever produced was this trailer.
Not great but it was fun to make. (Remember we were only 15 or 16!)
I get a kick out of how it begins with shots of Stewart and Brigham just walking around places. An old shed and then somewhere with trees. Nothing is happening, just walking. And for all the dramatic (albeit silent) dialog, I'm pretty sure nothing was actually being said. And then that last "talking" sequence with Mike facing us at profile, that was shot that way because the other half of his face was painted for some halloween event or something. (It's funny the things you remember!) And of course when the music really gets going it's just a repeat of the same action footage we already used, except faster and even worse looking. (See, we believe in recycling!) And then that swing at the very end, with Matt facing the camera, looks so weird because it was filmed backwards (and reversed on the computer) and they only did one take and didn't think it through very carefully. And as for the "Coming Soon" well, that's just a bold-faced lie.
One of the complications we had was that, while filming, Matt broke his knee. Or rather, he tore his ACL. Stewart (our director) had decided on a whim that it would be cool for Matt to stand on a rickety old fence and swing his lightsaber around pretending to be blocking lasers, which we would add in later on the computer. Matt was supposed to jump off the fence and then we would reverse that sequence on the computer so it would look like he was jumping onto the fence and landing lithely.
But this turned out to be a bad idea and Matt lost his balance on the way down. Because the fence was so short none of us believed him that he was as hurt as he was. As seen here. (My favorite part is what Zach says)
We thought maybe he sprained his ankle or something.
Eventually I brought my car over to help him inside and we got parents involved. He had to get surgery and was on crutches for awhile. (Oddly enough, this event contributed greatly to his not graduating high school.)
His health insurer asked Matt's parents to sue my parents, since the accident happened on our property, but (being the classy and wonderful people that they are) they refused, thinking the idea was both wrong and stupid. Since it was Matt's decision to be on the fence in the first place.
Anyway, Matt and I went on to make (and complete!) Liquid vs Metal two years later. We abandoned the idea of having story and dialog (we knew we couldn't act or produce good enough sets, etc) so instead we embraced the action itself and nothing else.
Here is a trailer for LVM so you can see that we made a little progress since the days of Serethrom Crystal two years before.
And yes, that really is me with the dark hair.
But before there was LVM, there was "Serethrom Crystal".
The idea for making a lightsaber movie originally came from Stewart Redmond, who was the person clever enough to figure out how lightsabers could be drawn on the computer. It wasn't long after his discovery that several of us were teaming up to make our very own Star Wars movie. We drafted a script and everything!
The story was about a bunch of Jedi and Sith trying to track down the "Serethrom Crystal" which is discovered by a rogue Jedi named "Edune" who, apparently, discovers it in an old almanac in the Utah suburbs (blast not having an actual set!)
Anyway, filming this movie proved to be harder than we'd anticipated and there were many complications. Ultimately, all we ever produced was this trailer.
Not great but it was fun to make. (Remember we were only 15 or 16!)
I get a kick out of how it begins with shots of Stewart and Brigham just walking around places. An old shed and then somewhere with trees. Nothing is happening, just walking. And for all the dramatic (albeit silent) dialog, I'm pretty sure nothing was actually being said. And then that last "talking" sequence with Mike facing us at profile, that was shot that way because the other half of his face was painted for some halloween event or something. (It's funny the things you remember!) And of course when the music really gets going it's just a repeat of the same action footage we already used, except faster and even worse looking. (See, we believe in recycling!) And then that swing at the very end, with Matt facing the camera, looks so weird because it was filmed backwards (and reversed on the computer) and they only did one take and didn't think it through very carefully. And as for the "Coming Soon" well, that's just a bold-faced lie.
One of the complications we had was that, while filming, Matt broke his knee. Or rather, he tore his ACL. Stewart (our director) had decided on a whim that it would be cool for Matt to stand on a rickety old fence and swing his lightsaber around pretending to be blocking lasers, which we would add in later on the computer. Matt was supposed to jump off the fence and then we would reverse that sequence on the computer so it would look like he was jumping onto the fence and landing lithely.
But this turned out to be a bad idea and Matt lost his balance on the way down. Because the fence was so short none of us believed him that he was as hurt as he was. As seen here. (My favorite part is what Zach says)
We thought maybe he sprained his ankle or something.
Eventually I brought my car over to help him inside and we got parents involved. He had to get surgery and was on crutches for awhile. (Oddly enough, this event contributed greatly to his not graduating high school.)
His health insurer asked Matt's parents to sue my parents, since the accident happened on our property, but (being the classy and wonderful people that they are) they refused, thinking the idea was both wrong and stupid. Since it was Matt's decision to be on the fence in the first place.
Anyway, Matt and I went on to make (and complete!) Liquid vs Metal two years later. We abandoned the idea of having story and dialog (we knew we couldn't act or produce good enough sets, etc) so instead we embraced the action itself and nothing else.
Here is a trailer for LVM so you can see that we made a little progress since the days of Serethrom Crystal two years before.
And yes, that really is me with the dark hair.
