Shot in November of 2009 by Terry Sorge with special appearances by members of the Florida Garrison’s Squad 7 and Makaze, the following video is a wonderful example of the reactions we receive while serving for the 501st Legion.
It took almost all day to shoot over an hour of footage on Jacksonville Beach. In the end, only a little over a minute and a half made the final cut. Terry Sorge (aka Grunt) had this to say about his experience planning and producing the video:
I wanted to come up with a little something for the Garrison that showed us in a natural environment, the fellowship we all share, the fun we have in costume and the professionalism we entail when we interact with the public…which as people watching can tell by this video, can be overwhelming.
The reactions of the crowd on the beach, once in contact with the characters, are genuine and not staged. (The jumping up and down part was staged, however.) We had to have a few handlers to hold the crowds back as we had the characters on the beach for the shoot.
Spikes, the Stormtrooper seen diving into the ocean on the surfboard, lost his hand plates and an ammo pouch in the surf during the shot. Only his ammo pouch was recovered.
Catfish, the Stormtrooper who goes to grab the camera at the end, did that shot all unrehearsed and it looked so well that I went with it and laid the camera down as if I was “knocked down” and we were able to use it for the clip.
There were no physical storyboards for this shoot, just the images that he had in his mind. Terry shot the video based solely on the music.
Overall, I think this video is a great example of why we in the 501st Legion do what we do. Great job to everyone involved!
HAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You guys crack me up!
Poor Catfish, for loosing parts 🙁 I know how much effort the guys put into even the small part like those.
Next time he should get all the way up on the board 😉
Spikes was the one who lost his handplates, not Catfish. Catfish crabbed the camera at the end…
Also Boba Fett was the Florida Garrison’s very own Executive Officer Lance Tomkins (aka Irishfett).
If you look at the frozen video before you play it.. I’m on the right with the orange pauldron and Spikes is to the left with a black pauldron holding the surfboard. If you look carefully, you can see he doesn’t have his handplates.
It was a very fun project to work on.
Very funny. I take it that was hubby playing Jango Fett? Mark A
Nope. I am not to sure who Boba Fett was, but he looks amazing. My husband would love to have a Boba Fett costume, but it’s one of the hardest costumes to pull off.
The Boba Fett was our own Lance from Tallahassee.
He got there late, and took a long time getting dressed up, so we re-shot the walk up scene with him drifting off before we got to the crowd. You can see it in the tide – how far the water is away from us when he’s in the scene, and how close it is after he walked away…