StarWars.com Gets Complete Overhaul to Commemorate 30th Anniversary

While I’m on the topic and following up on my previous post, I just learned that a completely redesigned StarWars.com website will be officially launched tomorrow (May 25, 2007). The press release is reproduced below in its entirely:

San Diego and San Francisco, Calif. (May 24, 2007) – Star Wars fans can connect with the Force in ways they’ve only imagined beginning Friday, May 25, when StarWars.com launches a completely redesigned website that empowers fans to “mash-up” their homemade videos with hundreds of scenes from Star Wars movies; watch hundreds of fan-made Star Wars videos; and interact with Star Wars enthusiasts from around the world like never before.

The current StarWars.com (captured on 5/24/2007). A new home page design will be launched on 5/25/2007.

With an innovative, interactive home-page design that allows users to navigate to multiple Star Wars worlds, a new video focus, and groundbreaking “Web 2.0” features – including a unique online multi-media mixing platform from Eyespot – the new StarWars.com will unveil its redesigned website on May 25 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars Saga.

Among the most compelling features of the newly redesigned StarWars.com is the incorporation of an online video-editing tool provided by Eyespot. It allows users to add their own video shots to more than 250 scenes and music taken from all six Star Wars films and create their own Star Wars movies to share with others.

StarWars.com is also unveiling a new collection of hundreds of videos – many never before seen on the Internet – that will let fans enjoy some of the best user-generated Star Wars videos from across the web, including such cult favorites as “Chad Vader,” and five years worth of Star Wars Fan Movie Festival shorts, co-presented by AtomFilms.com. StarWars.com will also showcase extensive mini-documentaries that explore the making of the Star Wars Saga.

“Since 1977, Star Wars has been built on the idea that our fans are the reason we have been successful, and they have long shown their enormous creativity and desire to have fun and express themselves through Star Wars. Our new site brings our fans innovative tools like the Eyespot editor that let them do just that in exciting new ways,” said Jeff Ulin, Senior Director of Distribution and Online for Lucasfilm Ltd.

“Eyespot’s creative technology allows Lucasfilm to protect its intellectual property while offering a media playground for fans to have a fun and accessible experience due to our product’s extreme ease of use,” said Jim Kaskade, co-founder and CEO of Eyespot. “We couldn’t be more honored to help celebrate the 30th anniversary of this monumental movie series.”

The May 25 relaunch is just the start of a series of exciting new additions to StarWars.com. In the coming months, continually added features will give the global Star Wars fan community unprecedented new content, new games, and new ways to share the 10,000-page site, which is visited by millions of users every month.

“We want the new StarWars.com to empower fans to make and watch Star Wars videos, play games, and share their love of Star Wars like no other site on the Internet,” said Bill Gannon, Director of Online Operations for Lucasfilm Ltd.. “StarWars.com already features blogs, special in-depth sections for kids and video gaming, the Hyperspace fan site, and the comprehensive StarWarsShop.com, making it unlike any entertainment themed website.”

Innovation is nothing new to StarWars.com – the website has always been a leader in utilizing the newest Internet technologies. “In 1999, we were the first to host the online premiere of a trailer, which was the biggest online event the Internet had seen to that point, and nearly a decade later we are ensuring that StarWars.com will remain one of the most innovative and fun entertainment sites anywhere on the web,” Ulin said.

StarWars.com is the Internet’s only official 365-day-a-year entertainment destination for Star Wars fans and is produced by Lucas Online, a division of Lucasfilm Ltd., as a digital destination for entertainment, education, reference and e-commerce for Lucasfilm’s intellectual properties and businesses. To learn more about the entire StarWars.com experience, visit the website at https://www.starwars.com.

About Eyespot

Eyespot’s browser based solution fosters creativity and discovery while empowering consumers to play with copyrighted media without having to download clunky software or learn new skills. The drag and drop editing application allows anyone to upload, remix, and create new video from the community’s vast pool of popular and legally-accessible content ranging from movie, television, and music clips or from user generated content. The company has been selected as a trusted partner by many of today’s most compelling brands and media entities, including Paramount Pictures, NBA, Jive Records, Lucasfilm, Ltd., among others. Eyespot can be found on the web at https://www.eyespot.com.

——————————————————————————————–

Sponsored Links:

Visit Our Blogger/Geek/Coder/Gamer/Podcaster & SEO store featuring tech-related T-shirts and other fun stuff:

Get 18 months of Unlimited VOIP service from ViaTalk for just $199. Read Andrew Darlow’s review here.

Star Wars Fans Gather for the 30th Anniversary Celebration of the Original Star Wars Movie

I’m a Star Wars fan. Not a fanatic (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but a fan, and my resident movie reviewer and wife, known as Queen B here in the Imaging Buffet, is a super Star Wars fan (OK, maybe a fanatic-not that there’s anything wrong with that). We both stood on lines with our families in 1977 to watch Star Wars, later named “Episode IV – A New Hope,” when we were about 8 years old. 20 years later, in 1997, we enjoyed it together on the big screen.

The homepage for the 30th Anniversary “Celebration IV” event. Apparantly, even Elvis impersonators love Star Wars.

According to StarWars.com, “Star Wars opened on May 25, 1977, on just 32 theater screens in North America, including Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard,” and “To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of Star Wars, Lucasfilm Ltd. and Gen Con LLC will throw the largest party ever for fans of the saga, taking over the entire Los Angeles Convention Center in May 2007 for five days [May 24 (for Official Star Wars Fan Club members only), and May 25-May 28 (general public)] filled with live entertainment, celebrities from all six movies, special film and video presentations, an exhibit of movie props and costumes, exclusive merchandise sold at a 24-hour-a-day store, pop culture tributes, immersive events, costume contests, and scores of additional activities.

Star Wars is very important to many photographers and video professionals because it combined a powerful and compelling story with extraordinary visual effects. It also helped to fuel the growth of George Lucas’ ILM (Industrial Light and Magic), which was founded to do the first Star Wars film 30 years ago. Photoshop and ILM are linked as well. John Knoll is visual effects supervisor at ILM and together with his brother, Thomas Knoll, they deveoped Photoshop. Here is a great short video interview with John Knoll about his background and the early days of Photoshop. Other related and interesting videos can be found on that page’s “Related Content” section. For a much more detailed history of Photoshop, see this article on PhotoshopNews.com.

Though I really didn’t recognize the differences, every time my wife saw a reference to the “enhanced” original 3 Star Wars trilogy movies (Episodes IV, V, and VI), she would shake her head and ask “Why did George Lucas do that to my movies?” That’s also why three VHS copies of the original trilogy always had a special place in our home. And somehow, we’ve managed to buy Episode 4, 5 and 6 four times! This has something to do with the fact that my wife had to have the original Ewok song at the end of Return of the Jedi (Ewoks are those cute furry creatures from the forest moon of Endor). My guess is that some folks have bought Episode 4 as many as 6 or even 7 times based on the number of times it has been released on different formats and with different features.

There’s no question that Star Wars has had an effect on the world of digital imaging, science and technology. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to attend Celebration IV, but I want to congratulate George Lucus and everyone involved in the creation of the Star Wars saga for 30 years of incredible movie making. And may the Force Be With You, 30th Anniversary Attendees!

Related Links

Main Star Wars 30th Anniversary Celebration IV site
StarWars.com’s page with a link to the Celebration IV site.
Worldwide Star Wars release dates as per IMDB.
An incredible Star Wars Timeline.
Sir Steve Guide-Contains a lot of good info about the 30th Anniversary
Article: Seven Reasons to Attend Star Wars Celebration IV (LA Times)
Blogger Meet and Greet Party at Celebration IV (open to bloggers and non-bloggers)

——————————————————————————————–

Sponsored Links:

Visit Our Blogger/Geek/Coder/Gamer/Podcaster & SEO store featuring tech-related T-shirts and other fun stuff:

Get 18 months of Unlimited VOIP service from ViaTalk for just $199. Read Andrew Darlow’s review here.

Amazing 3 Cinema Display Setup

I came across a highlighted article on BoingBoing today and had to share it. This three 30″ Apple Cinema Display setup (probably attached to an Apple Mac Pro) in former Vice President Al Gore’s office is incredible. The photo appeared on Time.com.
Here is the direct link to the story and photo.