LoTR fan film set for net premiere

Fans of the Lord of the Rings who have not yet had their fill of cinematic Middle-earth should make a date for Sunday 3 May at 4pm (UK time), when the internet and the Sci-Fi-London festival will simultaneously host the premiere of The Hunt for Gollum - a "film for fans by fans" knocked together for just 3,000 quid: Hunt …

[weirdcult]

Well i never

Looks good for £3K!!!!

[Jay]

Nice to see

Now if only Games Workshop would get their head out of their arse and allow the release of Damnatus we might see some original film making instead of the repeated Hollywood crap.

[David S]

Fan of a fan?

Wow. That looks like a triumph of shoestring storytelling!

Mind you, if he's going to insist on walking everywhere as slowly as that he'll never get anywhere... Not so much "Strider" as "Ambler"...

I'll get my cloak.

[Anonymous Coward]

Aragorn?

I though Gandalf went looking for the "truth about the ring"?

[Luis Ogando]

Looks Good

The trailer on the BBC website looks pretty good. And let's face it, you may end up enjoying the film instead of wondering where the hell that last 3 hours of your life went with the Jackson jobs!!

[jon]

a title

looks good but they could probably done better than using frontpage to make their website (am I just being picky?)

To save themselves a fortune in bandwidth I hope they release it on bit torrent too.

[Anonymous Coward]

From the makers of..

From the makers of 40 year old virgin :P

[Neil]

Their website

Appears to be down - not doubt it's been ElReged.

Looks bloody good though!

[Edward Miles]

This is a title... or is it?

I've been following this film for a while now. Really looking forward to seeing the finished result :)

[Blitz]

Very cool

Wow - what a great thing - the special effects look fantastic - Open Source Movies here we come?

[Paul]

Its well done

Now, anyone want to volentear to sort out there website?

[Doug Southworth]

Orcs and Dorks

God save us all...

[Anonymous Coward]

How much...

... did it really cost though?

Yes, they spent £3k, but by the sounds of it a lot of contributors didn't bill for their services - just because they were LoTR fanboiz. If they had paid for those services, it would have gone well over £3k. Independent film makers making TOTALLY ORIGINAL works don't have the luxury of cashing in on a fan base and getting tens of thousands of pounds worth of stuff for free.

I'm sure it's a really nice film, but saying it was made for £3k is just a bit misleading...

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Nice to see

Damnatus is absolutley appalling - virtually all the film is taken up with members of the Imperium discussing the chaos, an action film it is not. Shockingly badly-made as well.

[Rob]

Yay for indie film makers

This sort of thing is becoming more and more popular.

I've seen at least 2 'bedroom' productions using the Star Wars franchise, where would we be without Aftereffects and/or Final Cut Pro.

[MinionZero]

On first impressions, it looks very impressive for a fan film.

I'm a big fan of LOTRs and that certainly looks like its raising the bar on the quality of fan films in general, especially in cinematography. Didn't realize LOTR fans were making fan films but in hindsight it makes sense.

The one thing I hope is they get the acting right. The attention to detail in acting seems to be a weak link in a lot of fan films.

I really want to see this film now, but I guess I'll have to wait until next week to download it. I bet their website server gets totally hammered on Sunday. :)

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the idea of fan films...

...but I dread the acting. Most fanfilms put huge effort into visual effects, plot, etc... and then have the producers and directors act, because everyone wants to act, even though they're godawful. So you have awesome costumes, visuals... and the result is unwatchable because it's just a bunch of people standing around either reading off cue cards or giving their best impression of a Shakespearean parody.

At work now so I can't watch, but hopefully this is different. Also, hopefully they actually got real sound people, instead of spending 5000 hours on visuals and then using on-camera mics. :/

[Alan]

Also...

check out Born of Hope (bornofhope.com) too, it uses quite a few of the same props/costume and many of the cast/crew worked on both.

[Torben Mogensen]

Next up ...

If the people behind are not all burned out by now (I could well believe they are), they could try to get permission to make a film set in the first or second age. Beren and Lutien would be obvious, as the story is mentioned in LoTR, so people who have not read anything else would still recognize the names.

[b166er]

Burn Hollywood, Burn

Will the MPAA actively block promotion of this movie?

[Paul Stevenson]

Too Late :-(

Just checked online, and there's no more tickets available for the screening. If only this had been reported sooner...

[Bad Beaver]

speaking of HOPE

I hope this will be available for download, in a decent format. I'm sick and tired of these performance guzzling Flash-stream-jobs.

[ratfox]

Looks great

I'm sure the budget would be far higher if they had not had millions of fans pitching in for free

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Doug Southworth

It just doesn't get any better that Orcs and Dorks.

of course, I've been told I don't get out enough.

[Joe Futrelle]

open source movies are here!

http://sitasingstheblues.com/

a visual spectacle and huge hit by a single animator, working pretty much alone

[Aidan Whitehall]

"If you can't find him..."

"... no-one can..."

Without the big money for effects or acting talent, a compelling script is pretty much the only thing that'll lift this production out the gutter.

And if that tired old line made it into the trailer, what hope is there of that?

I'm really hoping for something good, but part of me is anticipating disappointment...

[breakfast]

What?

What is the "if it wasn't for the fans it would be really expensive" nonsense about?

Of course it would. Nobody is denying that. That is why it describes itself as a film "by fans, for fans." Why be so down on people doing something they enjoy?