I was invited on an expenses paid trip to CA by Disney to cover the #StrangeMagicEvent and #PixarInsideOut in exchange for my posts of the trip experiences. All opinions are my own.
Image courtesy of © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
I can hardly believe that earlier this week I was at Skywalker Ranch in Marin California for a Strange Magic Press Event! It was an incredible experience. When we first arrived we went into the Skywalker Sound Building. “SKYWALKER RANCH, LOCATED 40 MINUTES NORTH OF SAN FRANCISCO, IS THE PASTORAL HOME TO LUCASFILM’S CELEBRATED AUDIO POSTPRODUCTION FACILITY, SKYWALKER SOUND.”-LucasFlim
Images courtesy of © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
“Skywalker Sound occupies the 153,000-square-foot Technical Building, which features a world-class scoring stage, six mix studios, ADR and Foley stages, 34 editing suites, and a 300-seat screening room.”-LucasFlim
I could just feel the creativity as I walked inside.
As we were waiting to head into the theater there Elijah Kelley walked in and he is sure a happy and very nice guy! He hugged each of us bloggers and took selfies with everyone. Such a nice guy.
Then we headed down to the theater that was built to George Lucas’ every specification. I was in awe that I would be watching George Lucas’ movie in his theater! Wow! And to top it off George Lucas joined us and watched the film along with us! Being able to say I watched a movie with George Lucas in his theater, Beyond Amazing!
Image courtesy of © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
The sound and quality of the movie was incredible. Another fun thing is that the 2 large statues on each side of the screen are props that were from Palpatine’s office in Star Wars. Super cool!
We then had the chance to screen the movie (which I loved) but you will have to wait until 1/23, when my review post is live, to find out all of my thoughts of the movie.
Then Elijah Kelley sang to us live and we were able to interview George Lucas (I know, so amazing right?!), Elijah Kelley and Director Gary Rydstrom. I will be posting those interviews next week so keep an eye out for those as you won’t want to miss them!
Next we were so lucky to get a tour of the grounds at Skywalker Ranch. I was blown away by how gorgeous it all was! So Gorgeous!
This is Lake Ewok.
Then we had the chance to stop by the Skywalker Ranch store and shop. Did you know that Skywalker Ranch has a vineyard? Yes they actually make 3 different types of wine and they had it for sale in the shop. If I didn’t have to fly home I would have definitely bought one of each bottle!
After shopping, we had the chance to tour the Main House. George Lucas and his family are not currently living there. The house is used for meetings and George’s assistant works there.
We were not allowed to take any images inside the house. But let me tell you, it was incredibly beautiful. My favorite part? The library. Saying it was gorgeous wouldn’t even do it justice. I was in awe. It had a beautiful winding staircase to the second floor and an incredible large stained glass ceiling. Here is a photo of the library that LucasFilm provided us with.
Image courtesy of © Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Although we couldn’t get pictures inside, we were allowed to photograph the back court yard.
We also had the chance to see some pretty incredible original props from George’s movie that are displayed inside the house. That was so very cool!
This is the view from the front of the main house. Gorgeous! I could definitely get used to a view like that.
My whole day at the Skywalker Ranch was fantastic and I will never forget it.
Strange Magic opens in theaters next week, Jan 23rd!
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