I WISH IT WAS LIFE DAY TODAY (2023)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Our latest stop-motion animation celebrates the holiday LIFE DAY from the Star Wars universe. This music video parodies the song "I Wish It Was Christmas Today" written by Horatio Sanz and Jimmy Fallon, which they orignally performed on Saturday Night Live on December 9th, 2000 along with Chris Kattan and Tracy Morgan.

We wanted to connect this music video with the rest of our stop-motion fan film series STAR WARS TOY STORIES, so we included the opening scene where two of the live-action characters from our series, Riley and Hannah, set up a Life Day holiday display for their parents using Hasbro's Holiday Edition action figures. You can see Riley and Hannah in our upcoming short film HOME SOLO: A STAR WARS TOY STORY, which is currently in production.

STAR WARS: THE TOYS AWAKEN (2018) // DIRECTOR'S CUT (2019)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

The seven-minute Director's Cut of Star Wars: The Toys Awaken includes additional footage, which was cut from the original edit to keep it within the five-minute running time limit for the Star Wars Fan Awards. The Director's Cut is being submitted to film festivals throughout 2019 and will be available for viewing online in December 2019. Follow us on social media to find out when and where screeings will be taking place and exactly when it will be published online. In the meantime, watch the original cut of the film at StarWars.com here.

HOME SOLO: A STAR WARS TOY STORY (2020) // COMING SOON

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Here's a fun little title reveal for our next fan film project, Home Solo: A Star Wars Toy Story. It will feature our series regular characters of Riley, Lucas, and Bobby along with some new faces and new toys. Of course, it will include a lot of fun stop-motion animation! We hope to submit this to the 2019 Star Wars Fan Awards.

VFX BREAKDOWN | STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A TOY STORY (2018)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Take a look behind the scenes of PixelPlex's visual effects work on Star Wars: Episode IV – A Toy Story in this all-new breakdown video. The featured work was created by PixelPlex founder Raymond Montemayor, the writer / director / producer of the award-winning fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories.

VFX BREAKDOWN | STAR WARS: THE TOYS AWAKEN (2018)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Take a look behind the scenes of PixelPlex's visual effects work on Star Wars: The Toys Awaken in this all-new breakdown video. The featured work was created by PixelPlex founder Raymond Montemayor, the writer / director / producer of the award-winning fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories.

VFX BREAKDOWN | THE ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS TOY STORY (2016)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Take a look behind the scenes of PixelPlex's visual effects work on The Rogue One: A Star Wars Toy Story in this all-new breakdown video. The featured work was created by PixelPlex founder Raymond Montemayor, the writer / director / producer of the award-winning fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES | STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A TOY STORY

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

In this video we share some behind-the-scenes footage, photos, and outtakes from Star Wars: Episode IV – A Toy Story.

BEHIND THE SCENES | 3D-PRINTED LED FILAMENT LIGHTSABERS

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Take a peek behind-the-scenes of our fourth Star Wars fan film, HOME SOLO: A STAR WARS TOY STORY. In this video we'll show you how we created lightsabers for Hasbro's HyperReal Black Series figures to obtain practical lighting effects for filming. Get an overview of our 3D models and prints, see our programmable control circuit for the LED filaments used to light the blades, and check out the painting methods we used to detail the lightsaber hilts.

OPENING CRAWL| SHADOWS OF THE EMPIRE

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

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Here is the opening crawl to Shadows of the Empire adapted from the jacket of Steve Perry's novel. We presented this video at San Diego Comic-Con 2017. Star Wars Toy Stories was fortunate to be invited to have an autograph table at Comic-Con, where this preview played along with other content from our fan film series.

THE ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS TOY STORY (2016)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

SUMMARY: Craving the attention of her busy father, a 7-year-old Star Wars fan disobeys him and starts a rebellion with his Star Wars toy collection that would have surprising consequences.
#GoRogue: This film was produced for Lucasfilm's #GoRogue #Contest 2016. The music used in this film was provided by Lucasfilm for the #GoRogue contest.

STAR WARS: EPISODE IV – A TOY STORY (2015) // SPECIAL EDITION (2020)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

We produced Star Wars: Episode IV – A Toy Story for the 2015 Star Wars Fan Film Awards, where it was selected as one of 25 finalists featured on StarWars.com and nominated for Best Visual Effects. The Special Edition edit of the film was published on June 25th, 2020.

THE STAR WARS SHOW LIVE! INTERVIEW | CELEBRATION CHICAGO 2019

APRIL 15, 2019

Writer / Director / Producer Raymond Montemayor was interviewed on The Star Wars Show LIVE! at Star Wars Celebration Chicago 2019 about his award-winning fan film Star Wars: The Toys Awaken and the fan film screening event he organized during Celebration with Jack E. Curenton and Mark W. Gray.

INTERVIEW | NEWFILMMAKERS LA FILM FESTIVAL

LOS ANGELES, CA | OCTOBER 20, 2019

Star Wars: The Toys Awaken was an Official Selection of the NewFilmmakers LA Monthly Film Festival, which took place on October 19^th, 2019. Raymond Montemayor attended the screening and was interviewed the next day by Danny De Lillo, Chair of the Board of Directors for the NFMLA, for Stage 5, a monthly series they produce in partnership with Movie Maker Magazine.

TEMPLE OF GEEK PODCAST | EPISODE 161

NOVEMBER 29, 2019

Writer / Director / Producer Raymond Montemayor had the honor of being interviewed on the Temple of Geek Podcast. He discusses his background and his inspirations for developing his fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories. Scroll down and listen to the podcast to learn about some of the challenges involved in producing Star Wars: The Toys Awaken, and some background for upcoming projects Home Solo: A Star Wars Toy Story and Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire.

THE FILM FRATERNITY PODCAST | EPISODE 016

LA JOLLA, CA | JANUARY 20, 2020

In this episode, Raymond Montemayor joins the Film Frat House to talk about his Star Wars Toy Stories, a series of Star Wars fan films, the latest of which, Star Wars: The Toys Awaken, received the Spirit of Fandom award at the 2018 Star Wars Fan Film Awards. He has been interviewed at Star Wars Celebration and featured on the Star Wars Show on YouTube. To view this episode's show notes and follow Star Wars Toy Stories on social media, visit www.filmfrat.com/show-notes.

INTERVIEW | WITH ANTHONY FERRARO OF CREATE SCI-FI

AUGUST 23, 2020

In this video, Raymond Montemayor discusses his fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories with sci-fi filmmaker Anthony Ferraro of Create Sci-Fi, goes over requirements for entering a film into the official Lucasfilm Star Wars Fan Awards, and shares tips for making fan films in general.

SD WHO CON | PANEL HOSTED BY DAVID S. DAWSON

OCTOBER 11, 2020

In this video, Raymond Montemayor discusses his fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories with writers Den Valdron and Anna Livingston during a virtual panel for SD Who Con 2020 hosted by David S. Dawson of Intellexual Entertainment.

POD SQUADRON PODCAST | EPISODE 1.05

MARCH 6, 2021

In this video, Raymond Montemayor joins the Pod Squadron podcast to discusses his fan film series Star Wars Toy Stories with @chinesepirate_, @hotnerdgirlofficial, and @mslexifer.

THE STAR WARS SHOW (12/12/2018) – STAR WARS FAN AWARDS SPECIAL

On this episode of the The Star Wars Show, Andi and Anthony present awards to the winners of the 2018 Star Wars Fan Awards. Our awards for BEST STOP MOTION and SPIRIT OF FANDOM are presented under the Best Animation category at the 3:00 mark. We also produced some stop-motion animation which appear in the Acceptance Speeches segment at the 6:56 mark. Raymond, Maliya, and Nora Montemayor also appear briefly at the end of that segment at the top center of the video at the 7:27 mark. It was another fantastic episode, which we were proud to be a part of.

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH – STAR WARS FAN AWARDS 2018

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

Lucasfilm requested winners for the Star Wars Fan Awards to each submit a short acceptance video for possible inclusion in the Star Wars Show – Star Wars Fan Awards Special episode. The folks at the Star Wars Show ended up using several clips from our video, but we would like to share the entire two-minute video because there are so many people that we would like to thank for helping us make Star Wars: The Toys Awaken.

TEASER B| STAR WARS: THE TOYS AWAKEN (2018)

A PIXELPLEX PRODUCTION

The Star Wars Toy Stories series continues with Star Wars: The Toys Awaken. This story is set between our first two fan films, Star Wars: A Toy Story and The Rogue One: A Star Wars Toy Story, on the opening day of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, December 17^th, 2015. It has just been submitted to the 2018 Star Wars Fan Awards. Check out this deleted scene from the film, and follow us on social media. Come back after 12:00 noon on Friday, November 2^nd to find out if our film has been selected as a finalist for the Audience Choice Award.

Special thanks to Paul Shipper for allowing us to use his Star Wars character art in our film.