Yesterday was “May the Fourth Be With You” a fan-created Star Wars holiday that seems to get bigger every year. In conjunction with this, Milynn Sarley released a very funny “Star Wars Infomercials” video that I was asked to be in.
This video short was directed by Sean Becker (The Guild, Holliston, The Jeff Lewis 5 Minute Comedy Hour) and the production designer was Greg Aronowitz (of many, many credits - read his BarnyardFX blog). They contacted me saying they wanted to use me in my Nien Nunb costume. Milynn asked me to bring a suit for wardrobe, but she provided the spangly shirt and imperial bolo tie.
Production Designer Greg Aronowitz with me in costume on the set of “Star Wars Infomercials” (photo by Doug Luberts)
I love how the final video turned out, and it was a blast to be on set with Bonnie Burton, Adrienne Curry, Grant Imahara and the crew - many of whom were crewmates of mine from The Guild and other projects. Because of the shooting order, I was actually listed second on the call sheet (the first listed on a call sheet are usually the main cast), so I tried my best to be a diva on set around the crew.
This was actually shot almost a year ago but it took a while to finish, between the busy schedules of Milynn and Sean (who edited the short as well, and shortly after shooting this was tapped to direct most of the second season of Holliston). Nien Nunb’s mouth moves, but note that Greg built the costume for me for cosplay, so it’s designed for ease of use and comfort for long days at scifi conventions. So the movement was somewhat limited, and from what I can tell, they used my audio from a take we did with my head off.
Back home in Northern California, sacgeeks.com had a May the Fourth event going in West Sacramento and I put some of my EmpireStrikesBath collection on display.
It was a great event, with an incredible turnout. I spent a lot of time talking to people about the collection. Here the hard-to-impress Jerry Montoya (who brought his son Malachi) looks impressed by one of my extremely rare pieces. Or at least engaged.
There were lots of comments by visitors to my table, and the most commented on collectible was the Landspeeder Soap Dish, visible on the right in this picture:
There were lots of visitors in costumes which was really cool, especially the kids who were dressed up. But probably my favorite was Princess Jango, who was dressed as Jango Fett and his wife had a Princess Leia wig which he threw on. So I asked him to pose with a bubble bath bottle representing each character. Only on Star Wars Day!
Photos by Doug Luberts
