Black Angel (1980 film)

Last updated

Black Angel
Black Angel 1980.jpg
Digital re-release poster
Directed by Roger Christian
Written byRoger Christian
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography Roger Pratt
Edited byAlan Strachan
Music by Trevor Jones
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date
  • 21 May 1980 (1980-05-21)(United Kingdom)
Running time
25 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£25,000

Black Angel is a 1980 British short fantasy film that was shown before the theatrical release of The Empire Strikes Back in certain locales. It was the directorial debut of Star Wars art director Roger Christian. The film negative was thought to be lost until it was rediscovered in December 2011. In June 2015, it was announced that Christian was working on a feature film adaptation of Black Angel which would be partly funded through crowd-funding site Indiegogo.

Contents

Premise

Sir Maddox, a medieval knight, returns from the Crusades to find his home rife with sickness and his family gone. As he journeys through this mystical realm, he encounters a mysterious and beautiful maiden, who appears to him as he is drowning. Sir Maddox learns that the maiden is being held prisoner by a black knight and in order to free her, he must confront her captor, the Black Angel. [1]

Cast

Production

The film was shot at Eilean Donan in Scotland [2] in late 1979. The budget of £25,000 was given to Roger Christian by an Eady Scheme fund from the British government. [3]

According to Christian, the step-printing technique (in which frames are duplicated to slow action) he employed for a fight sequence influenced George Lucas to include the same method in a scene of The Empire Strikes Back . [4]

Release and rediscovery

George Lucas tied the film as a programme with The Empire Strikes Back in the United Kingdom, Australia and Scandinavia. [5] It was never released on any home media, such as VHS and DVD, and for many years the original negatives were believed to be lost.

In December 2011, the 35 mm negative was rediscovered by an archivist at Universal Studios in Los Angeles, California. [1] [6] [7] On 13 October 2013, it was screened for the first time since its original release, and became available on Netflix and the iTunes Store for streaming and download, respectively, in early 2014. [1] [7]

On 12 May 2015, the film was uploaded to YouTube with an introduction by Christian. [8]

Feature film adaptation

In June 2015 it was announced that Roger Christian was working on a feature film adaptation of the short and an Indiegogo campaign was started to raise money for the film. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Entertainment Software Rating Board</span> North American self-regulatory organization

The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a self-regulatory organization that assigns age and content ratings to consumer video games in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The ESRB was established in 1994 by the Entertainment Software Association, in response to criticism of controversial video games with excessively violent or sexual content, particularly after the 1993 congressional hearings following the releases of Mortal Kombat and Night Trap for home consoles and Doom for home computers. The industry, pressured with potential government oversight of video game ratings from these hearings, established both the IDSA and the ESRB within it to create a voluntary rating system based on the Motion Picture Association of America film rating system with additional considerations for video game interactivity.

Vanity Fair is an American monthly magazine of popular culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast in the United States.

Condé Nast is a global mass media company founded in 1909 by Condé Montrose Nast (1873–1942) and owned by Advance Publications. Its headquarters are located at One World Trade Center in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan.

<i>Ars Technica</i> Technology news website owned by Condé Nast

Ars Technica is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, science, technology policy, and video games.

<i>Bon Appétit</i> American food and entertaining magazine

Bon Appétit is a monthly American food and entertaining magazine, that typically contains recipes, entertaining ideas, restaurant recommendations, and wine reviews. Owned by Condé Nast, it is headquartered at the One World Trade Center in Manhattan, New York, and has been in publication since 1956. Bon Appétit has been recognized for increasing its online presence in recent years through the use of social media, publishing recipes on their website, and maintaining a popular YouTube channel.

Windows Ultimate Extras were optional features offered by Microsoft to users of the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista and are accessible via Windows Update. Ultimate Extras replaced the market role of Microsoft Plus!, a product sold for prior consumer releases of Microsoft Windows. According to Microsoft's Barry Goffe, the company's goal with Ultimate Extras was to delight customers who purchased the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, the most expensive retail edition of the operating system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Christian (filmmaker)</span> English director

Roger John Christian is an English set decorator, production designer and feature film director. He won an Academy Award for his work on the original Star Wars and was Oscar-nominated for his work on Alien. Christian directed the second unit on both Return of the Jedi and Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace as well as feature films including The Sender and Nostradamus. He also directed the 2000 film Battlefield Earth.

Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android has historically been developed by a consortium of developers known as the Open Handset Alliance, but its most widely used version is primarily developed by Google. It was unveiled in November 2007, with the first commercial Android device, the HTC Dream, being launched in September 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sound Burger</span> 1980s portable record player by Audio-Technica

The Sound Burger is a portable record player developed by Audio-Technica of Japan. Originally released in 1983, it was brought back in an updated form in 2022.

The Mojave Experiment was an advertising campaign conducted by Microsoft for Windows Vista in 2008. The campaign was part of Microsoft's efforts to change what it felt was an unfair negative consumer perception of the operating system. Mojave spanned a series of advertisements that consisted of individuals being shown a demonstration of Windows Vista by Microsoft; however, the operating system was rebranded in disguise as a new version of Windows codenamed "Mojave," which was not revealed during the demonstration.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metro (design language)</span> Design language introduced by Microsoft

Microsoft Design Language, previously known as Metro, is a design language created by Microsoft. This design language is focused on typography and simplified icons, absence of clutter, increased content to chrome ratio, and basic geometric shapes. Early examples of MDL principles can be found in Encarta 95 and MSN 2.0. The design language evolved in Windows Media Center and Zune and was formally introduced as Metro during the unveiling of Windows Phone 7. It has since been incorporated into several of the company's other products, including the Xbox 360 system software and the Xbox One system software, Windows 8, Windows Phone, and Outlook.com. Before the "Microsoft design language" title became official, Microsoft executive Qi Lu referred to it as the modern UI design language in his MIXX conference keynote speech. According to Microsoft, "Metro" has always been a codename and was never meant as a final product, but news websites attribute this change to trademark issues.

Condé Nast Entertainment (CNE) is a production and distribution studio with film, television, social and online video, and virtual reality content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Ver</span> Early promoter of Bitcoin (born 1979)

Roger Keith Ver is an early investor in Bitcoin, Bitcoin-related startups and an early promoter of Bitcoin, and sometimes known as Bitcoin Jesus. He now primarily promotes Bitcoin Cash as Ver sees it as fulfilling the intended and original purpose of the "Bitcoin White Paper", first published in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, in which Nakamoto referred to Bitcoin as a peer-to-peer electronic cash system.

Android Marshmallow is the sixth major version of the Android operating system developed by Google, being the successor to Android Lollipop. It was announced at Google I/O on May 28, 2015, and released the same day as a beta, before being officially released on September 29, 2015. It was succeeded by Android Nougat on August 22, 2016.

<i>Harmys Despecialized Edition</i> 2011 fan-created film preservation of the original Star Wars trilogy films

Star Wars: The Despecialized Edition, also known as Harmy's Despecialized Edition, is a fan-created film preservation of the original Star Wars trilogy films: Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983). It is a high-quality replica of the out-of-print theatrical versions, created by a team of Star Wars fans with the intention of preserving the films, culturally and historically. The project was led by Petr Harmáček, then an English teacher, from Plzeň, Czech Republic, under the online alias Harmy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Android Nougat</span> Seventh major version of the Android operating system

Android Nougat is the seventh major version and 14th original version of the Android operating system. First released as an alpha test version on March 9, 2016, it was officially released on August 22, 2016, with Nexus devices being the first to receive the update.

Condé Nast Union represents employees of the mass media company Condé Nast, who organized as a labor union in 2022.

The Sinden Light Gun is a light gun released by Sinden Technology in 2020 for the PC. It is compatible with LCD monitors and TVs without additional hardware. There are optional upgrades to the gun like a recoil system, an arcade pedal, and a holster. The gun was funded on Indiegogo and Kickstarter in 2019.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Mattise, Nathan (28 December 2012). "The Sword and Sorcery Precursor to Empire Strikes Back". Wired . Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 12 April 2014. Retrieved 4 January 2013.
  2. ↑ Verrier, Richard (16 October 2013). "Short film meant to accompany Empire Strikes Back makes a comeback". Los Angeles Times . Archived from the original on 17 April 2014. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  3. ↑ "Long-lost Scottish short now online". Visit Scotland. Retrieved 19 May 2015.
  4. ↑ Christian, Roger (12 May 2015). Black Angel (1980 short film). YouTube. Event occurs at 1:00. Retrieved 17 September 2023.
  5. ↑ Anderson, Martin (9 March 2010). "Exclusive interview: The worlds of Roger Christian". Shadowlocked. Archived from the original on 16 December 2010. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  6. ↑ Matisse, Nathan (10 September 2013). "Once-lost Star Wars-related short to screen for the first time in 33 years". Ars Technica . Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 14 September 2013. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  7. 1 2 Matisse, Nathan (20 October 2013). "Short that aired pre-Empire Strikes Back will come to Netflix, iTunes in 2014". Ars Technica . Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 20 October 2013. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  8. ↑ Machkovech, Sam (12 May 2015). "Short film that preceded theatrical Empire Strikes Back restored, on YouTube". Ars Technica . Condé Nast. Archived from the original on 13 May 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2015.
  9. ↑ Rife, Katie (2 June 2015). "The 'lost' short that played with The Empire Strikes Back is being made into a feature". The A.V. Club . Retrieved 2 June 2015.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.