A Word from Henry Gibbens
Director of "SACRIFICES"

Sacrifices was a short that almost didn't get made. The build up to the Force Three Fan Film Festival was a mad rush, I was working on Bounty Trail and Desert Duel, doing pre-production work on Legends as well as trying to get a short opening done for the convention itself. That and I was on the organising committee for the convention.

However, I wanted to put in an entry of my own, something to counterbalance the large scale works of Bounty Trail and Dark Redemption. Part of me felt that these films would swamp the competition, but you can't play if you're not in the game.

Sacrifices was an attempt to show that combat has consequences - something that is rarely shown in the Star Wars movies. I had been working on a few ideas for six months so a lot of the planning was already done. I deliberately chose to go with a more abstract style of puppet because I wanted to concentrate on the story, rather than having to create realistic people and exacting animation.

All animation and model work was done in Lightwave. I built the puppets and environments. Most of the models came from the Star Wars Modellers Alliance and were convertede and redetailed in Lightwave by myself. The resulting clips were then assembled and edited with Premiere. Sacrifices is truly a desktop creation.

The music was a natural choice. A lot of people will recognise it from Babylon 5 - it's actually from the episode "A Sky Full Of Stars", and accompanies Sinclair's recollections of the Battle of the Line, mankind's last desparate stand against the Minbari above Earth.

This film could not have been made without the support, patience and ample coffee supplied by my wife, Beky.

The film is dedicated to a namesake that I never knew. My middle name is John, after John Price, my mother's step brother who was listed as missing in action during the Korean War - his body was never found.

Henry Gibbens

Director, Sacrifices