Keeping souvenir's from film sets (Starwars, Circa 1977)

[PaulClements]

I regularly work with a gaffer who told me a few months ago about how he worked on the first starwars movie way back when.

When the film wrapped he had a box of tie fighters and xwings. Like many who worked on the original he thought the film was ridiculous and would never succeed.

He took the box home and gave them too his kids who subsequently played them too death, smashing them to pieces before they were dumped in the trash and buried somewhere in the UK countryside.

So next time you work on a film you think sucks and you get too keep a souvenir, wait until after it's released and flops before giving them to the kids.

Anyone care to hazard a guess as to how much a box of original spaceships from starwars is worth today? I wouldn't!

Paul

 

[jimhare]

I had part of the original script to The Matrix. I did the "follow the white rabbit" screen stuff. At the time it looked like a low budget feature with the guy from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

I was also on set, running it on the day. I was hiding behind the wall from Keanu Reeves.

If I had any idea what I was working on I would have paid more attention, put my hand up for many other things, and I would know where the script fragment is!!!

I do have the original program I wrote for white rabbit. I still bring it up from time to time and smile.

Jim in Sydney

 

[Ace]

I had part of the original script to The Matrix. I did the "follow the white rabbit" screen stuff. At the time it looked like a low budget feature with the guy from Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure.

I was also on set, running it on the day. I was hiding behind the wall from Keanu Reeves.

If I had any idea what I was working on I would have paid more attention, put my hand up for many other things, and I would know where the script fragment is!!!

I do have the original program I wrote for white rabbit. I still bring it up from time to time and smile.

Jim in Sydney

Sweet, were you at Animal Logic?

 

[jimhare]

Hey Ace,

No, I was independent. I was actually brought in by the guys facilitating the screens and playback.

The original script had Neo trying to type on the keyboard, but instead of they keys he pressed, up came the rabbit text.

I wrote the code to do it in 3 minutes using Director. I would have spent 5 minutes if I knew how important it was.

In the end they didn't cut it that way so I wouldn't have been needed.

Thank God for early drafts!

Jim

 

[Bruce Allen]

Does the Kazakhstan flag from Borat count?

I'm more proud about sticking a blurry copy of my face in the end song montage sequence though

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

 

[Petr Dvorak]

I... Like many who worked on the original he thought the film was ridiculous and would never succeed.
...

funny from the first time I saw first production shots from Tunis desert in some UK women mag, back then I knew that its something very very different ... but I must wait till 1984 when the first copy od SW came to Prague ... iron curtain times, wtf :mad2:

but 15 years old I was on a set of Amadeus

 

[Gavin Greenwalt]

Does the Kazakhstan flag from Borat count?

I'm more proud about sticking a blurry copy of my face in the end song montage sequence though

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com

Hahaha... oh the joys and challenges of sneaking one's Facebook profile pic into the backgrounds of things.

If they could just get photo releases signed in a timely manner we wouldn't have to.

 

[Eren Ozkural]

Kept my security pass from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Couldn't exactly run off with a minotaur stand in/maquette...

 

[PaulClements]

Kept my security pass from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Couldn't exactly run off with a minotaur stand in/maquette...

I was quite tempted to run off with the small scale version of the great hall, but my coat wasn't big enough.

Paul

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

...Not to derail the thread, but lately various productions have been making it a habit of keeping my RED Drive/RAM AC adapters and cables as souvenirs. :emote_headwall:

 

[Eirik Tyrihjel]

...Not to derail the thread, but lately various productions have been making it a habit of keeping my RED Drive/RAM AC adapters and cables as souvenirs. :emote_headwall:

Same here, not to mention some of the lemo cables and CF card reader.

Back to Star Wars, my old boss - an art department multi talent: Per Mørk (my first boss in film back when I started out.) worked as Norwegian Construction Manager on Star Wars Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back on Finse in Norway in 1979/80. He was the first guy up there (the location) the summer before filming and the last guy to leave.

He told me that the American Crew forgot a full size, fully clothed doll of a frozen Mark Hamill, he took care of the frozen Mark Hamill figure for about a decade. At some point he had to abandon a storage area he had been using, and the finely crafted full size doll with costumes (Most likely manufactured by Industial Light & Magic - to their standards) went into a dumpster and off to a garbage dump, and was never seen again....

I bet that particular item could have gotten a pretty good price on ebay today.

*Per Mørk is sadly no longer with us, so I am sure he doesn´t mind that I name him, he was not credited on the end credits, but he has later rightly been credited on the IMBD.com site, and he proudly wore his Star Wars jacket with his name and title emborided on - alongside a "Brotherhood of Jedi Knights" label.