More Star Wars!

I know I just did a Star Wars post the other day, but I have some photos for you, thanks to my friend, Tim Davis.

The first one leans a little more toward Star Trek than Star Wars. My friend , Tim Pace (who is a very interesting character in his own rite) used to own a van that was very science fictioney. It had "Klaatu Barada Nikto"" inscribed on the side (from The Day the Earth Stood Still), but was modeled more on the Enterprise on the inside. The dashboard was an array of switches and controls that certainly was more complicated than the space ship. The controls turned on sound effects, lights and other miscellaneous effects, and many fen enjoyed it at various SF cons.

Here it is parked on M Street in Georgetown.

This van was featured in a TV show about the Star Trek phenomenon that was done by BJo Trimble, which showed Tim Pace and Jan Cox in the van, with Tim giving orders and Jan flipping switches and turning on and off sound effects.

Here we see Tim Pace himself (seated toward the back of the photo) with the copy of R2D2 that he built.

R2 was wonderful because he was remote controlled, and could travel around on his own. It was really fun watching him "walk" around a con with a group of people. I was at one con, where some of us were helping Tim pack up everything at the end of the con. Tim walked R2 out to the parking garage, where people were arriving for a wedding celebration, and the non-science fiction people would walk up to R2 and start talking to him, and posing for photos with him while we were loading stuff into Tim's Star Trek van!

Here's a photo of Tim Davis with Bruce Rauscher.

Bruce was a science fiction con regular back at that time, and later was in John Ellis' movies Invader and Twilight of the Dogs.

Tim Pace is an interesting person. He used to own (and possibly still does) a stage lighting company called Light Works, and his equipment cases list his address as "Planet Earth." I've seen some of his home movies, and they're amazing. There are movies of The Rolling Stones, and most other large bands of the time taken from back stage! He also did lighting for science fiction conventions and Invader and Twilight of the Dogs, and stage lighting for The Bayou in DC.

Tim Davis did special effects makeup for the same two movies, and many others. When we were working on Twilight, I pointed my camera at him and told him to look mean. He pasted a mean expression on his face, and pointed a spray bottle of fake blood at me!

He's currently working on his movie, Nudist Camp Zombie Massacre, which, incidentally, stars Bruce!

Have a marvelous Monday!