A Crazy Couple of Months

Well it really has been a crazy few months. Star Wars Begins' popularity peaked in mid March with 2.5 million views. At one point my videos were getting 180,000 views per day. Things have leveled off now but I am still pushing to get more fans to watch it. Just spreading the Star Wars love. The reviews in the New York Times and FHM helped, as did the radio interview with BBC Radio 4's The Film Programme. I have now created a Facebook page for short updates on the latest Star Wars Begins News. For instance, Star Wars Begins has been entered into the Florida SuperCon Geek Film Fest and the Berlin Internet Film Festival, Webcuts.

Some big reviews have started coming in:

East Valley Tribune - Nerdvana

Topless Robot

Mister Honk.de

Collider.com - On the front page!

Some other comments from Youtube.com:

Thank you, jambedavdar. This was almost like seeing the movie again for the first time.

I love the concept of a real-time documentary for the ultimate fanatics. I just spent a couple of hours watching through this one. Excellent job and thank you very much!

Best documentary i`ve EVER seen! And it`s not even an official one but a Fan made. MY god it was great. Scenes in it i`ve never seen before, dialogs i`ve never heard before. THANK YOU!

Really great and entertaining. Even long time Star Wars lovers like myself will find something new here. I can't even imagine how much time and energy went into making these. I haven't watched the Ep. V and VI versions yet, so I guess I know what I'm doing now...

And from Twitter:

The best Youtube documentary about the making of Star Wars you'll ever see.

Star Wars, But From a Different Angle

'Star Wars Begins'. An epic 2 hour, fan-made documentary. Amazing work.

Star Wars Fan-Made Documentary Awesomeness “Star Wars Begins / Return To Jedi / Building Empire

Star Wars, como nunca la viste – Star Wars Begins

INCREDIBLE fan-made making-of doc for STAR WARS: 2+ hours, unseen footage, bloopers, interviews...

Amazing Fan Made STAR WARS Documentary: That's because he's crafted a truly amazing doc on the making of SW

Can't imagine how many hrs work you put into all 3 films. This is the sort of entertainment I was hoping would be on the blu-ray!

Star Wars Begins is essentially the entirety of #StarWars, but with all shit you've never heard or seen before.

The saga is complete. #starwars begins, a must view for every star wars fan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iBJYWZkhTg . Excellent job JD:) - Adywan

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Thanks so much for all the kind comments. It really makes it all worth it.

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-STAR WARS BEGINS- IS COMPLETE!!!!
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Film Details
Video: PAL 16:9 MPEG2 SL DVD (I may do a DL DVD later)
(Also released as a DiVX Download)
Audio: AC3 Audio
Duration: 2hrs 18mins (Main Feature)

Background

Inspired by a love of the film 'Star Wars' and the idea that audio commentaries could be expanded, Jambe Davdar set out to make what he calls "the ultimate audio/visual commentary". He started the project in February 2007 and finished, four years later, in late January 2011. It was initially released to in late Jan 2011 those who contributed to the project and finally to everyone else in Feb 2011.

Software Used
Final Cut Pro 4.5
DVD Studio Pro 3
A.Pack
Photoshop CS
Cinematize
MPEG Streamclip

Project Details
Star Wars Begins is an unofficial commentary to Star Wars, offering an insight into the development and creation of film. The documentary combines video from the movie itself with seen and unseen behind the scenes footage, rare audio from the cast and crew, alternate angles, bloopers, reconstructed scenes, text facts and more to give an in-depth look at the process which brought the film to the big screen.

DVD Special Features
Restored Music Sequences
Concept Crawl
Trailer

SOME GOOD NEWS

My videos have now reached 900,000 views on youtube. I would love to reach one million! I would be grateful if you could post the following on facebook, twitter (copy me in - @jamieswb) and any forums you are members of to help me reach my target:

Great TESB and ROTJ fan-made documentaries by @jamieswb. If you're a Star Wars fan these are essential viewing #starwarshttp://www.youtube.com/user/jambedavdar?feature=mhum

Also....

I would be grateful if somebody could send me the NTSC Miami versions of my films please. The first person that does will receive an early copy of Star Wars Begins before it's released in a few weeks. - EDIT - Many thanks, a kind soul have come forward and offered to send me the discs.

Thanks

JD

Interesting Interest

Last week I noticed that Nathan Hamill, son of Mark, tweeted that he was going to take a look at my projects. So I contacted him and this morning have spend a couple of hours burning both the original and Miami versions to send out to him. I will keep you posted on his feedback. Wouldn't it be cool if the discs got as far as his father.

DRIVE RECOVERED

Great news! The drive is recovered and the project is back on track. It cost me £700 to for the recovery, so I hope it's worth it. Things have been going well so far implementing some of my ideas into the timeline. There are a few dead spots but that happened with both 'Building Empire' and 'Returning to Jedi'. I am sure I will come up with something.

Please do still donate if you are able!

Recent Interest

I've had recent interest from Kyle Newman, the Director of Fanboys. He tweeted that he loved my docos so of course, I got in touch. After a short exchange, I've sent him DVD copies of both the original and Miami Underground Film Festival versions. Driven by this interested, theforce.net also posted an entire news page for Building Empire. Given that it's Empire's 30th anniversary, it's getting quite a bit of interest.

Drive Sent Away for Recovery

I've sent the knackered disk drive away to see if the data can be recovered. I am awaiting news. Lets collectively cross our fingers. In the meantime I have been watching the low res render of the project (which I made only days before the crash) and making notes. The interest from Kyle Newman and TheForce.net has given me new motivation to get this done. Lets just hope the drive is salvageable. Otherwise it may take me another few years to get it made!