01
THE FILM
The purpose of making a film has always been to tell an important story
The first concepts for what would become Fallen Star came about in early 2023. The story was conceived as telling the origins to a certain character we had hinted at in a pervious project, with a darker tone and going so far as to say terrifying at times, while also bringing in a Star Wars concept that's never been tried in a film project before. This film would explore religion concepts, personal loss and grief. The main character of Rokari was there from day one as this lost woman who can't remember who she is and is rescued by Koda, an outcast living away from society. Rokari would reawaken Koda and this quest to discover who Rokari is and what happened to Koda would drive the narrative of Fallen Star.
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Karia was conceived to be the foil for Koda. She was everything Koda disliked, yet there was an unspoken respect between the two. Karia would be seen as the type of Jedii we were more used to seeing, while her Padawan Korr would be a harsh, calculating character who truly believed the Jedii deserved to be viewed as gods. Basically the two would create an uncomfortable environment where you couldn't look to them and expect the Jedii to be the heroes. Their motivations are more clouded and what this leads to is Koda trying to protect Rokari from them.
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If Fallen Star was to explore the concepts of gods and religion in the Star Wars universe then we had to bring in the actual gods, The Ones. Early on it was decided that exploring these characters from existing legends material was going to be key to showing the difference between the Jedii and Gods. The design of these characters and their world was carefully done to fit existing ideas of what they are like, but also blending it into our own vision of them.
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By September 2023 the script for Fallen Star was complete, taking a heavy focus on deep emotional relationships mixed with mysteries to make the audience guess and wonder. Nothing is truly clear cut, which makes for the best of stories. These characters develop a life of their own and it's always such an honor when you see them jump from the page to the screen.
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02
THE FACTS
It takes a team to make a film
To say that bringing Fallen Star to life would be challenging would be an understatement. Parish Productions is a small independent film studio with limited resources. But it's in this kind of environment that we come up with new and better ways to bring our dreams to life. That starts with an amazingly talented cast of actors that had the range of skills to bring these characters to life. Then you mix in the makeup and costume design team and you end up with magic. But the biggest difference with this project was stepping outside any of our comfort zones and trying an entirely different way of filming, using virtual production. Filming began on May 3rd, 2024. Below are some interesting facts about our time on set.
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- Abby Wolfe was the first actor cast in the project, and very much willed the project along into existence in the early days.
- The cast went through 5 months of fight training and rehearsals.
- The Virtual Production studio was built in a two bay garage, utilizing overhead changeable lighting, green screens and a system of HTC VIVE trackers and sensors.
- When not on camera, cast members would be preparing food and taking on other behind the scenes responsibilities.
- Besides bumps and bruises, no injuries occurred.
- Filming days ranged from 9hrs on the lightest day to 15hrs long on the busiest day
- The camera rig consists of a Canon C200 cinema camera with a 24-70mm F2.8 lens. Attached to the rig was a Atomos Ninja V+ recorder, a Rode NTG Shotgun mic, and HTC VIVE Tracker. Video footage was transmitted live to and from a computer so that the team could see in live time what was happening in the virtual world and how that fit with the live action shot. This was a complete homemade design
- Over 4TB of live footage was recorded during filming, with another 4TB of virtual rendered environment footage.
- Filming wrapped on May 7th.
03
THE MYTHOLOGY
Making the galaxy your own
As with previous Star Wars Fan Films from Parish Productions, Fallen Star is set in a timeline of its own, giving huge freedoms to do and create whatever we want without having to fight with the idea of if it fits into canon. We create our own canon. Fallen Star is set roughly 10,000 years before The Phantom Menace, with the Jedii order being more of a cult then the Jedi order we will come to know. When our story begins, we find the Jedii are treated as gods by the people of the galaxy and are more religious figures then warriors of peace.
The Jedii order was less organized then the future Jedi order, with temples scattered on almost every known world. Each temple would have a Jedii Guardian and Padawan watching over it, while the people looked up to them as gods because of their powers. This created a strong feeling that the ordinary people of the galaxy were just that, ordinary, and below the Jedii. However this doesn't mean that some in the order didn't still cling to the beliefs of defending and protecting. Merely that the order viewed itself in a much less selfless light.
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Outside our known dimension, the beings known as The Ones existed. They consisted of the The Father, Son and Daughter. These beings were comprised of the Force and lived on a special world on their own. Very little is known about The Ones besides the fact that they represent the force. The Son is the dark side, the daughter is the light and the father is the balance between the two. They have the ability to transform into creatures and no mortal is threat to them. In fact no one is quite sure what would happen if a mortal was to enter their world and live there.
Rumors swirled across the galaxy after a ship was badly damaged in a anomaly in deep space. The stories said that the Jedii on the ship lost their connection to the force and couldn't function as normal beings. When they regained their power, the Jedii sawt to hide this from the rest of the galaxy by killing all the witnesses. However it is said that one Jedii refused to go along with the planned and instead killed the threatening Jedii to protect the innocent crew. Only the one Jedii and their Padawan survived. Even with this however, the Jedii council quickly covered up this matter. The rouge Jedii was cut off from the force and cast out, while the ships crew mysteriously disappeared soon after. Or at least that's what people say...
