After the experience of shooting and editing my first film, I immediately started brainstorming other ideas. Around that time, there was a lot of hype surrounding the Star Wars prequels. The Phantom Menace had just come out, and I spent a lot of time watching fan-made Star Wars videos on the Internet. A lot of these projects were completely ambitious, utilizing digital sets and effects. For some reason, the video that stood out the most was a stop-motion piece based on Steve Perry's novel, Shadows of the Empire. I adopted that style for my next film.
Star Whores didn't use stop-motion, but it did use action figures. In the span of a lonely night, I set up the classic John Williams soundtrack, broke out my Micro Machines, and went to work filming.
Dan was growing out of his Star Wars phase, so he donated his Micro Machines action figures. Each figure was roughly the size of a fingernail, and he also threw in his stormtrooper playset. The thing opened to reveal the interior of the Death Star, complete with the trash compactor.
The first thing I shot was the traditional opening crawl, which opened every Star Wars film. Using the same technique I implemented in Short Future, I typed up all the text using a word processor, and slowly scrolled down the screen while John Williams' score played in the background. The film's title suggests sexual connotations, but the most offensive part of the film is the actual title crawl. I always felt that the Star Wars series begged for a sexual parody, so this was like taking a step in that direction.
Most of the shooting was done on-the-fly. Inspired by some of the earlier techniques used in Star Wars, I twisted coat hangers onto the back of toy spaceships in order to allow them to fly freely. This allowed me to be able to shoot with one hand while controlling the direction of the ships. However, because I was filming everything on my own, the film still turned out incredibly shaky. I learned with my first two films that one-handed filming always equals a shaky picture. The simple fact is, you need two people to pull off this kind of work.
The camera would literally auto-focus between the action figures and my fingers, so that my hands were in almost every shot. It was virtually unwatchable. Everyone who saw the film said it looked like the filmmaker was drunk. The film's only saving grace was the music, which made it sound more authentic.
In the story, Darth Vader is resurrected and stages a large-scale assault on the ice planet Hoth. Luke Skywalker assists Han and Leia in escaping, only to come across an asteroid field. In the midst of a dogfight, the Rebels decide to unload their cargo and send C-3PO into a multicolored pin field. It was supposed to take closely after the original films, but nothing really happens aside from some dizzying camera movements and an X-Wing bouncing around the walls of my bedroom like a pinball machine.
C-3PO was actually a ballpoint pen. At one point, it could speak four phrases, but eventually the batteries wore out, so I provided all of his dialogue. He turned out to be as miserable as he was in the original films.
The stormtrooper playset was used as Vader's new weapon of mass destruction; the Stormtrooper Death Star. Ultimately, it served as the centerpiece for the third act of the film.
At the last minute, I included a sock puppet creature that chases our heroes out from their hideout. It was only a three-second shot, and it looks incredibly cheesy - but that was the point.
One of the intriguing shots occurs when the X-Wing approaches Vader's new weapon. I turned off all the lights, and used a desk lamp as the sole source of light. It worked well - until the X-Wing crashed into the desk lamp and shrouded the set in total darkness. In the next shot, the stormtrooper playset is completely open, as the result of a less-than-impressive jump cut. I later replaced this with a ho-hum digital effect.
Shooting Star Whores was very much like playing action figures with your little brother. You don't plan anything; you basically plot out the story as you progress. At a certain point, I interjected characters from other franchises, such as Squall from the Final Fantasy series of video games. In this scene, Squall, a 12" action figure, has to save the Rebels from the enclosing trash compactor. Failing in his attempt, he flees the scene. My favorite line is, "That's a small ass thing, now, isn't it?"
Once the Rebels escape the trash compactor, Luke and Vader engage in their epic battle, and then our heroes make it back out into space. Headed back to the rendezvous point, they are attacked by a mutant Sonic the Hedgehog. At this point, I was obviously running out of ideas, but this extended battle sequence lent itself to some nice digital effects. In post-production, I added some lens flares to give the battle that "outer space" look. It's pretty fun to watch, despite the incoherent nature of the footage.
Star Whores was shot in just four hours as a result of ultimate boredom and waning creativity. It doesn't look like much, proving to be one of the most agitating student films to watch. Nevertheless, it captures my passion for the Star Wars films at the time, and some of the additional special effects are a nice touch to an otherwise disaster of a movie. It's definitely a project that was more fun to make than it is to watch.