Star Wars Fans Promote Justice to Win a Custom Crafted Saber
As winter approaches and we become consumed with thoughts of the holiday season, we're reminiscing back to late summer when several enthusiastic Star Wars aficionados poured their time, money and creative prowess into a rescue video competition.
Faithful IJM Canada supporter Rob Petkau is a creative genius who combined his passion for Star Wars with an niche business. Enter 'Genesis Custom Sabers', a company that designs and produces replicas of the iconic Jedi weapon of choice. In August of this year, Rob launched a contest to win one of his expensive, one-of-a-kind pieces.
Participants were challenged to create a fictitious video depicting a rescue. Contestants were also required to creatively promote IJM Canada in the film to raise awareness and honour the work IJM does in rescuing and protecting the vulnerable from violence. The videos were uploaded to a contest platform where viewers could vote, and the film with the most votes was dubbed the winner.
There were many excellent entries, but a few stood out above the rest for their innovation, quality, and all-round entertainment value. Our first runner-up, Jonathan Summit, shared his story with us below:
We came on the scene of FX Lightsabers this past year after a friend told us about seeing them on YouTube and were instantly hooked! I continued to research this phenomenon and discovered Genesis Custom Sabers! My son and I began delving in to creating our own light sabers with the help of Rob of Genesis Custom Sabers and other saber-smiths from the TCSS (The Custom Saber Shop) forums!
My son was browsing the Genesis Custom Sabers page one day and discovered the #theforce4justice light saber rescue video contest to help support IJM. He emailed me immediately and I went to check out the contest and what IJM was all about. After watching Rob’s video, going to the [IJM Canada] website, and reading the stories, we were definitely in! Having children of my own, —especially my daughter—I couldn’t possibly fathom the idea of a young girl like her enduring these despicable atrocities.This was also just the opportunity for my son’s friend, a budding new cinematographer, to display his talents for a great cause. It [was also] an opportunity [for me] as a graphic artist to donate a ‘#theforce4justice’ t-shirt design I created for IJM to use in their awareness and funding campaign.
Watch Jonathan's video here:
[Entering the video contest] turned out to be quite the family project as my wife helped with costume design and my son, daughter, and myself were the primary characters in the film. We also used the FX Lightsabers we made in the film! After about 2 weeks of planning, scripting, costume design and practicing, we were off to our shooting location.It was an awesome memorable experience for myself, my kids, and their friends. Our family also became supporting sponsors of IJM Canada as a result! We plan to make more light saber stunt films in the near future and will always put IJM Canada in the forefront of our credits link descriptions.
We’re so grateful to Jonathan and his family for sharing their justice journey with us! Take a look at some of the other amazing videos below:
The Build Off – Reznov Dragovich
The Rescue of the Jedi – Michael Armendariz
The Tree – by Jason Wentzel
The Rescued Senator - by Jacob Reed
Little Sister Rescue – by Pascual Chen
From Within – by Josh Astles
Stop Motion Rescue – by Francois Ven Der Merwe
