Bowing to the recent explosion of homemade Star Wars filmmaking, Lucasfilm said late Monday that it will create an official website with partner AtomFilms to house such material.
The success of such short works as George Lucas in Love and Troops has encouraged a legion of do-it-yourself filmmakers to tap the Star Wars vein themselves.
The new "Star Wars Fan Film Network," set to launch "later this year" as part of the AtomFilms Web site, will give selected examples of this material the official Lucas seal of approval -- potentially a groundbreaking move, considering the fact that much of this work depends on copyrighted Lucasfilm sound and video as raw material, and it's all ultimately derivative of Lucasfilm intellectual property.
Regardless, AtomFilms and Lucasfilm will allow creators of films used on the site a share in the advertising and sponsorship revenues, and will even make a library of approved audio files available for open use.
"Lucas Online is interested in supporting amateur filmmakers and engaging fans to share their passion for Star Wars," said Lucasfilm Executive Vice President Mich Chau in a statement. "By teaming up with AtomFilms we hope to create an easy-to-find, entertaining site for Star Wars fans to share their creativity and have fun."
Fan fiction not welcome
While the news indicates that the Star Wars empire is taking a few cautious steps toward an "open source" model, Lucas is far from giving away all the keys to his kingdom.
The site is very stringent about only wanting "parodies and documentaries" -- no "attempts to expand on the Star Wars universe will be accepted," ensuring that George Lucas and the company he founded remain the only sources for canonical information and stories about Star Wars and its characters.
Lucas and AtomFilms had previously partnered last winter, when the online film archive first acquired rights to show the director's
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