A project that grew larger with each passing day ...

Pre-production of Short Wars began in March 2005, two months before prinicipal photography began.

Our first step was to define the scope of the film we'd be producing. The overall producer began by re-visiting the original "Star Wars" screenplay written by George Lucas.

Our film would have to be short, and therefore we were going to have to boil the screenplay down without losing the essence of the film. It was a challenge to do this, but we were able to capture the basic themes and create a shorter version of the film that made sense. You can read the final screenplay after we had edited it down, including an opening sequence that we wrote but never shot.

Once the screenplay was ready, we had our blueprint for the short film. From there, we made a list of every character in the scenes we would be filming along with the props, costumes and locations involved.

We were fortunate in that we were able to re-use certain costumes. That saved us time in sewing or acquiring costumes. For instance, Obi-Wan's robes could also be worn by Uncle Owen. The scan crew members could likewise wear that same black pullovers worn by Grand Moff Tarkin and the TIE Fighter pilots (with minor adjustments made to differentiate among them). Above, Lora, Diana and Wade pose in front of our rack of completed costumes after the production wrapped.

We started our search for costumes by buying what we could online. We had to buy fabric and sew costumes in cases where costumes could not be purchased. For Chewbacca, we bought several swatches of faux fur and sewed them onto a T-shirt. We paired that with brown "fuzzy" sweatpants and voila! -- instant Wookie!

Once costumes were complete, we focused on props. An inexpensive set of water guns were spray-painted black to give us our array of laser blasters. A hula-hoop, some tubing and rope came together to form the cockpit window for the Millennium Falcon. Cheap toy lightsabers are readily available, so we didn't have to replicate those.

The last thing we had to build were our spaceships -- three TIE fighters and two X-Wing fighters. These we created using styrofoam, tubing and cardboard. They were flimsy but they would last long enough to be immortalized on film.

Finally, we had to consider location. We were fortunate to be able to rent the stage at a local elementary school for an afternoon.

With all these pieces in place, and with assurances that all members of cast and crew could commit to our four-hour window of opportunity, we set out to produce our short film.

How can I make a short film of my own?
We had so much fun producing Short Wars that we want to share what we learned so that you can do your own short film project. Read all about making your own short film.