BURBANK, CA - AlphaDogs (www.alphadogs.tv) recently completed work on a new Star Wars fan movie, titled
Hearts of Kyber. Directed by Chet Abbott, the story follows three young padawans who seek to find kyber crystals in a remote cave. Highly trained in light saber combat, they encounter their missing Jedi master during their quest.
“The crystal cave and the humanoid characters got us amped as hell,” says Abbott. “It only took five days to shoot, but the process of both creative and financial delivery put this short film into over a year in the making.”
Sean Williams, VP of design at AlphaDogs oversaw all the VFX for the film.
“There were so many make up fixes we thought were just going to be beyond repair, but Sean was able to not just fix those problems, but also make the planet and lightsaber VFX look fantastic,” says Abbott.
Williams completed the bulk of the work in After Effects - that included around 50 shots. While most were of the usual ‘fix it in post’ variety, many others called for design creativity, including sequences that involved enhancing location shots to sell the notion that the action is taking place on another planet.
“The trick was to be budget and time conscious while developing solutions for the minimal amount of compositing work necessary to bring maximum effect,” Williams explains. “The director was fantastic in communicating his ideas while being very receptive to my input. Hearts of Kyber was a fun challenge and I can’t wait to see the film in its entirety.”
Abbott chose to work with AlphaDogs after they came highly recommended by a colleague. “It was great working with the AlphaDogs team,” says Abbott. “They were flexible with our schedule, and easy to work with. Plus they love Star Wars! They are a fun and creative group who were able to carry out our vision. Would recommend them in a heartbeat to fellow filmmakers.”
Abbott hopes audiences will enjoy the movie’s characters and storytelling while becoming submerged into the short, but big world built in Hearts of Kyber.
“Star Wars movies are hard to pull off,” says Abbott. “Any other world building in a short amount of time is tricky, but we feel confident in the final product and feel we’ve become better filmmakers from this experience. We could not have done it without our creative team in all phases of production.”
Hearts of Kyber will be available on YouTube and will premiere later this year in selected locations.