About the Project
In the fall of 2017, my mom emailed me a Toys R Us ad for a Power Wheels-esque Star Wars landspeeder and said, “Do you wish you were a kid again???” I replied, “I NEED THIS! MAX NEEDS THIS!!!” I may be too big to fit in this vehicle, but I can live vicariously through my dog!
My dad modified the landspeeder to be controlled via remote (tutorial coming soon!). Once that part of the project was complete, he shipped the landspeeder to me, and my mom flew out to help with the video shoot.
I shot the video on a combination of my phone and digital camera and edited the footage in Premiere.
For the portraits, I took inspiration from the early 80s Star Wars toy packaging. I had a ton of Star Wars action figures as a kid, and my parents thoughtfully saved the card backs. I loved poring over all the available action figures featured on that bright yellow background.
Behind the Scenes
I shot Max’s portraits against a homemade “green screen” and edited in Photoshop. I recreated the Star Wars logo and silver border in Illustrator.
My mom’s dog Munchkin starred as Chewbacca and an Ewok. My brother conducted her photo shoots. For Munchkin’s landspeeder shoot, he set his camera on a tripod and took several photos of Munchkin in both costumes on opposite sides of the vehicle. Then I composited the images in Photoshop. I decided to place Chewie and the Ewok on Endor. I found a forest photo I had taken on a trip to New Zealand and added some motion blur to make it look like the characters are zipping through the Endor forest.
The portraits have been used on a variety of products, including my 2018 Christmas cards, stickers, magnets and posters.
