Sith Apprentice - News and Updates

UPDATE: August 23, 2010 - And coming back up from the depths of "time" to post some news - it seems TIME magazine decided to do an online piece on "The Top 10 Star Wars Fan Films", and Sith Apprentice came in at #8 on their list! I was interviewed on camera for the piece, and you can see me very briefly in it right here.

Crave Video SUCKS! UPDATE: January 20, 2006 - Well, it finally happened - we caught someone ripping off one of my films.
Last week, I got a Google Alert on "Sith Apprentice" letting me know that it was mentioned on a site called Crave Online. Turns out they didn't just reference it - they'd lifted the streaming file from Atomfilms and were running it on their own site. Of course, that's a complete copyright violation, as only Atomfilms has a license to host the film, as part of the official contest... I told the guys at Atomfilms about it, and the film disappeared from Crave - and I thought that was that. Then it reappeared on their site over the weekend, and stayed there until last night - which was when the Lucasfilm lawyers joined in and sent letters to their hosting company as well... needless to say, they yanked the film pretty damn fast after that, although they tried to claim they hadn't been notified before... yeesh...
Hopefully that'll be the end of it... hate to be them if it's not... :)

SWFFA Best DarkSide UPDATE: January 2, 2006 - One year ago tonight, I thought we were going to do something completely different for the 2005 Official Star Wars Fan Film Awards - and then the brain fart hit and we were off an running with a new idea that became Sith Apprentice. I find it hard to believe that it's already been a whole year, or that Sith Apprentice has become as popular as it apparently is - we were ranked the #1 comedy on Atomfilms again last week, and are at #2 this week. They've also redone the main Star Wars collection page at Atomfilms, listing what they call the best Dark Side films, and Sith Apprentice leads the way at the top of the list. We're even double-listed on the page, as The Jedi Hunter is featured again as well.
Still, we couldn't have done any of this without all the help we got, so here's to Lowell, Denny, Bob, Kristen, Heather, Patrick, Robert, Brandon, John, Sarah, Jim, Ziggy, Amy, Trey, Stephen, Christine, Tom, Brian, James, Jeff, the MOB guys (Bones, Andy, Ben & John), everyone who voted for us last year, and anyone I left out...
Don't look for us in the 2006 contest, though - finishing American Scary will be taking all my free time early this year... but for 2007? 30th Anniversary of Star Wars and all that? Time will tell...

SWFFA Characters UPDATE: November 1, 2005 - Well, Episode III came out on DVD today, and Sith Apprentice returned to the rankings over at Atomfilms - it's now listed as the #3 Comedy on the site! They've also revamped the main SWFFA page with details on the 2006 Contest (I'm pretty sure we'll be sitting that one out, due to promoting American Scary) and they've added Robert as The Emperor to their "SWFFA Characters" section on the main page...
The Star Wars episode of The Apprentice is scheduled to run November 10 - still looks like there won't be any reference on-air to Sith Apprentice, but ya never know...

UPDATE: September 21, 2005 - Y'know, I probably should have seen this one coming, but I didn't... apparently the real Apprentice show is going to be doing a take on the Sith Apprentice theme this season, with a Star Wars-themed episode set to air in November around the time the DVD is released. Here's the info released on StarWars.com

Now as far as I can tell, there won't be any clips of Sith Apprentice aired in the episode - I just talked with Steve Sansweet at Lucasfilm, and while he said the promotion was probably inspired by our short, they won't be referencing it - a call to Atomfilms backed that up, as they didn't know a thing about it... although they're probably going to promote the film with it when it does!

Anyway, that's all I know for now... you can click on the image for a much larger version of the flyer StarWars.com sent out to promote the show...

UPDATE: August 8, 2005 - I'll be appearing at Conglomeration, a SF convention in Louisville, Kentucky this weekend as one of their guests of honor. Of course, this will include showings of Sith Apprentice, as well as a bunch of other films of mine, as well as some of the better ones from TheForce.Net and Atomfilms. I'm also supposed to run the Official Babylon 5 music videos, and will probably do some kind of preview presentation on American Scary as well. I haven't seen a schedule yet, but hoperfully that'llbe on their website soon.

UPDATE: July 8, 2005 - No real news this time, just a general update - for starters, Sith Apprentice has been in the #1 Comedy position on Atomfilms for the last six weeks, which I find incredible... I knew we'd turned out something pretty good, but its longevity on the charts has really surprised me...
I also just learned from Atomfilms that the short has been downloaded over half a million times now... actually just shy of 510,000 as of today... boggles the mind... :)

UPDATE: May 31, 2005 - Sith Apprentice is at the #2 Comedy position on Atomfilms this week - it's staying up there longer than any of my other films so far...

Dreamwatch cover This was an unexpected surprise - the June issue of Dreamwatch just hit the stands, and on page 28 they pick their Webwatch Movie of the Month - it's Sith Apprentice! They wrote: The annual competition for Star Wars fanfilms has thrown up some interesting contenders, but our money's on Sith Apprentice. Who will prove they're up for the job? You can see a larger version of what they printed if you click on the image to the right... thanks go to Patty for pointing this out!

There's also a lengthy interview with me up now at the Renderosity Art Community website - I blather on about Sith Apprentice, fanfilms, my career, digital production, and a bunch of other I-can't-believe-anyone-would-be-interested topics... :)

SF Chronicle UPDATE: May 26, 2005 - Sith Apprentice is back at the #1 Comedy position on Atomfilms this week!

I've updated the press page with the text of the article that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle, as well as an image of the paper, since they ran such a huge picture (nearly the full width of the paper!) from Sith Apprentice for it - thanks to Benny Evangelista for sending copies!

The NPR thing last week ended up being very short - the host was more interested in the other guest, and had obviously not seen the film. Oh well - it was more publicity... :) You can find the link to listen to the segment here - they get to me about 18 minutes into the segment.

UPDATE: May 18, 2005 - Over at Atomfilms, Sith Apprentice was the #1 comedy for the last two weeks - it slipped to #3 this week... ah well... but in other news, Revenge of the Sith opens tonight! I'll be with the gang at the midnight show here in Knoxville - I'm still waiting to hear back from Regal Cinemas corporate office, but there's a good chance we may be showing Sith Apprentice in the theater we're at before the movie starts...

I got a phone call from a producer at National Public Radio yesterday, and as a result of that, I'll be on NPR's Talk of the Nation tomorrow afternoon around 3pm talking about Sith Apprentice, fanfilms, and other Star Wars-y things... check your local listings to see if your local stations carry it - if not, the show should be archived here later in the day tomorrow.

That article from the San Francisco Chronicle has gotten out all over the place - I've found reprints of it in papers from Boston, San Diego, Kansas City, Albuquerque, Wichita Falls, Vero Beach, Boulder, Orlando, and even the local paper as well...

UPDATE: May 9, 2005 - The article in the San Francisco Chronicle ran today - Sith Apprentice leads off the article, and two of the three images accompanying the article are ours... I also just found online another mention of the film here from an Entertainment Weekly writer - there's a video report that goes along with the story that can be watched here...

Sith Appprentice #1 at AtomFilms UPDATE: May 5, 2005 - Lots has been happening lately... for starters, Sith Apprentice is currently the #1 Comedy on Atomfilms!

I've done several interviews about the film - this short one ran in Australia, and there should be another article in Monday's San Francisco Chronicle... the film has also gotten press mentions all over the place, such as this C|Net article, and this one in the Baltimore Sun. The film was also featured on last Monday's Attack of the Show on G4TechTV - hopefully I'll get that segment online soon, but for now, it looks like it's online here.

Now this isn't directly related to Sith Apprentice, but I'm going to post it here as well, since this section is obviously getting more traffic right now - the weirdest news of late is that Crazy Watto is going to be screening at the Cannes Film Market during the Cannes Film Festival!

Yes, you read that right...

Watto at Cannes It's still a bit surreal right now, but the people at Cannes decided it would be fun to run some Star Wars fan films during the festival, since they're premiering Revenge of the Sith there, and they gave Lucasfilm and Atomfilms a list of the ones they'd like to show - Crazy Watto was on that list! It's screening Thursday, May 19th at 11:43am in the Short Film Corner, along with Pink Five, One Season More, Christmas Tauntauns, and several others...

I've also added a bunch of pictures that we took at Celebration III, mostly from the awards ceremony, although there's a few from around the con as well. You can either click on the "Behind the Scenes" tag over on the left, or go directly there now.

UPDATE: April 25, 2005 - Holy crap!
I'm finally back from Indianapolis, and even though it's late in being posted here (since I had no net access on the trip), Sith Apprentice picked up the Audience Choice Award in this year's Star Wars Fan Film Awards! And what was even better, the presenters of the award were our good friends Trey Stokes and Amy Earhart (of the Pink Five series), which made it even more special...
I'm swamped with catching up at work right now, but I'll have lots of photographs and other posts about the convention in the next day of so... but for now, there's a great article with interviews from all the award-winning filmmakers up at StarWars.com right now, and I must give a VERY BIG THANKS to everyone who voted for us!

Congratulations to all the winners:
* Best Original Song - Timithy Edward Smith's One Season More
* Best Original Concept - Robert Bunch's Star Wars: Elements
* Best Crossover Spoof - Wayne Barnes' Anakin Dynamite
* Best Comedy - Robert Reeves' Cheap Seats
* Pioneer Award - Warwick Davis' Return of the Ewok
* Best Animation - Tetsuro Sakai's Walk in a Bamboo Bush
* Spirit of Fandom - Mark Rusciano's Boba
* Audience Choice Award - John Hudgens' Sith Apprentice
* George Lucas Select Award - Barry Curtis & Troy Metcalf's For the Love of the Film

Sith Appprentice Buttons UPDATE: April 20, 2005 - Last post before I head out for Indianapolis in the morning... we should have quite a group at the awards ceremony Friday night - I'll be there, along with Lowell Cunningham, Denny Humbard, Bob Bean, Kristen Caron, Trey Stokes & Amy Earhart - should be fun...
Also, if you're at CIII and find me at the right time, I'll have a pile of Sith Apprentice and VaderDance buttons (pictured above) with me to give away - I've only got a limited number, so keep an eye out for us - and wish us luck!

Sith Appprentice at AtomFilms UPDATE: April 12, 2005 - Dropped by the Atomfilms main page this morning, and what did I see? Sith Apprentice is now the #2 comedy on the site! Woohoo!

I also spent about a half-hour on the phone last night with a reporter from the Syndey Morning Herald who's doing a story on the contest - I think it went okay. Seems they get the American version of The Apprentice down there, and he thought our version was funny. The story should be up in a few days, and I'll post links when I have them. There should also be some kind of profile on this year's finalists that'll be posted on StarWars.com in a few days - I spent this morning answering a bunch of questions for them...

Week and a half until the awards ceremony now... I got confirmation this morning that I will be on a panel at Celebration III discussing the fanfilm contest and the films with several other prior award-winning filmmakers. That panel is next Friday at 11am, but I don't know specifially *where* at the convention yet... more as I know it...

UPDATE: April 7, 2005 - Had a nice surprise for my birthday yesterday - Film Threat got around to reviewing all the entries in this year's contest, and gave Sith Apprentice a glowing review - 4.5 out of 5 stars! Click here to read it - and thanks, Rory!

UPDATE: April 5, 2005 - A lot happened over the weekend - we appear to have gotten the audio problems fixed on the Atomfilms stream, so that's definitely a load off my mind...

The Knoxville News-Sentinel did a good writeup on the film in last Friday's Weekend section of the paper - you can read that article here.

I was on WBIR's Live at Five yesterday to get one last plug out there for the film before the voting ends today - you can watch the segment here.
And on that note, VOTING ENDS TODAY! If you want to vote for us, please, do that now! Here endeth the plugs.

UPDATE: March 31, 2005 - I'd like to address an issue several people have brought up, and that's the sound mix on the film. Something's gone wrong in between here and Atomfilms, and I'm trying to get this corrected as soon as I can. Trust me, the mix on the film is NOT the muddled mess you're hearing streamed from Atomfilms - I put a lot of time and effort into every aspect of this, including the sound mix, which on the master and the DVDs is quite clear... I hope this doesn't screw things up too much, as it's been brought up a LOT in the reviews...

UPDATE: March 29, 2005 - And we're off! the films all went live at Atomfilms this morning, and you can finally watch Sith Apprentice here. Watch, enjoy, and (of course) vote for Sith Apprentice to get the Audience Choice Award here!
There's a press release from Lucasfilm on the contest here, and most of the same info is now on StarWars.com here as well.

UPDATE: March 14, 2005 - I got the letter from Atomfilms over the weekend - Sith Apprentice is in the contest! I've got to make one minor change, but everything's a go - the film should be online with all the other finalists March 29th at Atomfilms...

UPDATE: March 5, 2005 - The movie is DONE! I finished it up around 4:30am Friday morning, and sent it out overnight to Atomfilms Friday, so they'll have it first thing Monday morning - well before the noon Tuesday deadline... :) that'll at least give me one last day to get a backup to them, if by some chance they *don't* get the package Monday... I also put it up on Atomfilms' FTP site as another backup for the entry, so hopefully I've got all the bases covered...

The final runtime comes to 12:15... it flows pretty quickly at that length - while there's several gags and lines I'm sorry I had to cut, it would have just been filler material - I think everything that's in the movie now really works...

I've also finished the updated poster for the film, and have updated the main page accordingly - if you didn't see it there, tho, clock on the tiny poster image to the right for a nice big version...

And now we wait on Atomfilms... hopefully we'll hear something by this next weekend... I hope... :)

UPDATE: February 25, 2005 - Finally got the page redesign up and running, as well as getting everything running off a new account, so I don't blow up my old one with the added traffic... :) I also added a bunch of production photographs, as well as a few more screenshots...special thanks to James Garner, who sent me some of his shots from the Chattacon shoot...

The movie's essentially edited now, and *most* of effects are done... It's going to be tight, but I think I'm going to make the submission deadline... the MOB Studio guys gave me the music for the lightsaber duel yesterday, and it rocks... I'm waiting on the rest of the cues from them now, so this weekend will be for rotoscoping two final shots, tweaking sound effects, and finishing one last major effect shot for a certain sequence...

I'm also planning on doing a few pick-up shots and looping this weekend with Robert and Patrick... mainly to clean up a few things, and improve the pacing just a touch...

Marriott Lobby UPDATE: February 15, 2005 - We had our major shoot this last weekend at the Knoxville Marriott, where we shot all the boardroom stuff, as well as the second half of the lightsaber duel... as you can see from the picture to the right, the lobby is *very* cool looking - it made a great backdrop for the duel's conclusion... It was a long day, but we got some great stuff in the can, and finished it off with pizza down on campus afterwards...

Sunday, thanks to Patrick McCray's offer, we shot at Webb School's auditorium for certain sequences that take place in front of an audience... for those who haven't read the script, I don't want to spoil any of this before you see it, but the stage area gave us another batch of great stuff...

And now I frantically start editing, so I can get a rough cut off the the music guys by the weekend, so they can get cracking on their parts...

UPDATE: February 6, 2005 - Bob and Kristen came up for the day Saturday, and we shot all of the bluescreen shots for the film involing Vader and Maul, since we won't have access to any of our locations for another week... this way, I won't be so slammed once we *do* get all that stuff shot, and it'll give me something to work on this week, so I don't feel like I'm twiddling my thumbs doing nothing here, especially since that dealine is fast approaching... :)

Unfortunately, I'm not going to tell you *what* we were shooting against bluescreen, as this is one gag I *really don't want to spoil for anyone... I think it's one people are going to be talking about... or at least, I hope... we'll see... Bob joked that we might try to see if Lucasfilm wants us to do that section live at Celebration III... that would be fun, but let me get the film MADE and in the contest first.... :)

UPDATE: January 24, 2005 - Shot various bits and pieces at the Read House in Chattanooga last weekend - many of us were already going to be there for Chattacon that weekend, so it was a natural... Patrick rode down with me and we shot the first part of the lightsaber duel between Vader and Dooku there as well... I would have liked to have gotten more footage shot, but I'm amazed we got as much done as we did, especially as we were trying to shoot around a science fiction convention *in-progress*, while not disrupting anyone else, or getting them in our shots either...

I also want to throw out a thanks to my old convention pal Jim Williams, who donned the JarJar costume for the night, so we could get that big goofball in there as well...