Hello there, Aedan here. After an exciting few weeks of hard work in Maker, we’re done the amazing Blue Sky project based around Star Wars. If you would like to learn more about Blue Sky projects CLICK HERE. A Blue Sky project is used to answer an inquiry question that requires deep research and has lots of learning opportunities. Each students inquiry question is different and unique. Throughout this whole project I kept coming back to a concept we learned called The Inquiry Star. The Inquiry Star is a set of steps to keep coming back to throughout the process of making your project. You don’t have to follow the steps in any certain order and you can do the same step as many times as you need to. Here’s a picture of The Inquiry Star.


We had to first brainstorm inquiry questions based on the subject Star Wars. We did lots of brainstorming and revisions of our inquiry question before it was approved. My final question was based on special effects in Star Wars. How have special effects made Star Wars more memorable and iconic? To answer my question I had to do lots of research and take many notes. I watched lots of videos on special effects to get information to answer my inquiry question. My favourite video and a video that I watched many times was called Star Wars Visual Effects. It taught me about what effects were used in Star Wars and how detailed they had to be to make the film. I also tried contacting Industrial Light And Magic for an interview about special effects, but they didn’t respond. To keep all of our research data we made a Star Wars research form. It really helped me stay more organized with my research and notes.


After lots of research we started to brainstorm what our display at the exhibition would look like. I knew that my main project was going to be a video on my IPad and I was trying to figure out what I could put in front of my project. I decided that I was going to use a poster board as the background with information and I was fixated on the idea of using the 3D printer to make figures that I could use in my video. Sadly I procrastinated and never ended up getting the 3D printing done. After generating lots of ideas, I started to make my video. Here’s a image of what I thought my project would look like at that time.


My first plan for the movie was to have three tiny clips from Star Wars showing different aspects of special effects, then compare it to my recreation of those clips. I was looking for clips from Star Wars and when I saw a ten second clip from the battle of Hoth I decided that I was going to recreate that instead. I was also going to add in a behind the scenes clip of their behind the scenes and mine. I spent a whole day making the recreation of that clip, but it turned out really good. For my setup I used flour as snow, green screen as mountain background, homemade paper model ship as T-47 Airspeeder and toy AT-AT as AT-AT. To make the clip I used stop motion, green screen, fishing string and small models. These materials were mostly what the real creators of Star Wars used. When I finished my movie I was proud of it and ready to make the poster board. For the poster board my plan was to use a colour scheme of black and red. I was going to put a mini green screen on it to show the audience how a green screen works. When I was done I thought my project was pretty good. Here’s my first Star Wars clip and poster board.

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In class all the P.L.P 8’s and 9’s walked around and critiqued each other’s work. I got some great critique including one that said my video didn’t really answer my question. I liked this critique session because it showed us what we have to fix before presenting your project to the public. I took my feedback and changed my video and poster board. My poaster board had information supporting my question and the movie was showing the difference between my clip and the real clip, and how the special effects made both clips more amusing and entertaining. I also added lots of pictures supporting my inquiry question on the board. Here is my new and improved poster board and video.

You probably can’t read the text on the poster board, so here is what it says. All of it’s supporting my inquiry question and answers it in an interesting way.

 

How have special effects made Star Wars more memorable and iconic?

 

Realistic:

Star Wars has used special effects to create a realistic world full of amazing creatures and settings. The effects made the scenarios realistic and relatable to the real world because of their quality and detail. George Lucas used detailed backgrounds, miniatures, stop motion and quick cuts to enhance the viewers experience and make his movie more realistic. The realism of the special effects in Star Wars have made it more memorable and iconic to a vast majority of audiences.

 

Relatable:
Star Wars is a very realistic movie because of the special effects. Due to this, the movie is very relatable to the real world and the viewers feel the experience as if it was happening in real life. George Lucas did a good job at making the special effects realistic even in unrealistic scenarios. Star Wars is memorable for its effective portrayal of the characters and places by making them realistic and relatable to the real world.

 

Ahead of its time:
The special effects in Star Wars were more seamless and realistic than many other movies in that era. The effects were so ahead of their time with the effective use of green screen, stop motion and lighting. Star Wars was very memorable and iconic for how effective their use of special effects was for their era.

 

Quality and attention to detail:
George Lucas made high quality effects with great attention to detail. He didn’t rush his effects and this made the film much smoother and realistic. The effects in Star Wars are very detailed for the technology and tools they had access to, which makes it very memorable for how good the quality and realism of the effects are in the movie. Star Wars quality and attention to detail has drawn many viewers. Star Wars would not be as iconic if it had lacked quality and attention to detail.

 

Visuals:
Star Wars used many stunning visuals and special effects that seem so realistic. Star Wars gained many viewers just by how visually appealing it was. Star Wars used special effects more than many other movies in that era, which made their movie very visually striking and memorable.

 

Making special effects a big part of the film:
Star Wars changed the role of special effects majorly by using them in a majority of their movie. In the era Star Wars was made special effects didn’t play a big role for movies. Special effects were there, but they were only used for some shots. Star Wars used special effects throughout their whole movie, which made it more visually striking than other movies in the past. Now most movies use special effects in a majority of their movie and it was influenced by George Lucas and Star Wars. Star Wars is known for being one of the first movies to use many special effects for one movie.

 

After finishing our final product, we got into groups of the light side or dark side for the exhibition. I got put onto the dark side. We then split into smaller project groups within the dark side. I was in the Behind The Scenes group with Lucy, Anika, Paisley and Luca. We setup the back of the library with black paper, a big green screen in the middle of our projects and a drink station. The audience could go in front of the green screen and see how it works. All of our projects were in a semicircle around the green screen. We all dressed up in black clothing and put the words Film Crew on our shirts. We used the template above. Since we were on the dark side, all the lights in the library were turned off. I brought red Christmas lights to present my project with. I think the exhibition turned out really good and I kept the audience engaged. They were all very interested in my project. I learned lots about the production of movies in this exhibition and I can’t wait until the next one.

Until next time… Aedan Loughran