Hello again everyone!!! Gamgee here, with yet another thrilling Tolkien adventure! Our last winner was Morden! Way to go my friend!!! The answers were:
1) H’ni Ilúvataro, or Eruhini
2) Barliman
3) Éowyn
Here are the questions for today:
1) “Whose Sindarin name means “iron-eminent one”?”
2) “tootbonglm” (Scrambled Tolkien person, place or thing)
3) “One that you cannot slay with arrows,….” (Who said this?)
As usual, Mail me with your answers, the 1st person to mail all 3 correct answers in on letter will be posted here next time!….Gamgee
Month: June 2000
It turns out that Bo Hansson is not a forgotten name in music at all. Plenty of people wrote to say that they had his album on vinyl; however people found his music on CD at Amazon and at CDNow. Opinions on it were varied:
“It is a mixed bag, some tracks work and some tracks are grimly awful.
The cover was very strange, but this was the 70’s and we were all wearing lurex socks at the time. The decade that style forgot.”
Other people liked it a lot more:
“I think Bo Hansson wanted to explore LOTR in a very personal way, and in this aspect he certainly succeeds. The tracks range from themes from The Old Forest to The Grey Havens, yet Hansson seem to have focused on a somewhat nostalgic take on the books. Whenever I put on this record I get the ‘You can never go home again-ish’ feeling that Tolkien illustrates in the latter part of ‘The Return of the King’ with the ‘Scouring of the Shire’ and Frodo’s leave. The burden of the ring is also heavily evident in the musical landscape, though without being dreary or too melancholic. All in all this record is an obscure gem not to be forgotten when Tolkien derrived music is discussed. It has achieved cult status in various circles, but aside from that it gets (maybe too,) little notice.”
Thanks to Sam and Aelinwen for that.
DW sent me a clip on realaudio, thanks for that, and Sam gave the URL of the Bo Hansson website
More people put in a plug for Blind Guardian. Whether you envisage LOTR with a heavy metal backing is a matter of taste. Stranger had this to say:
“If to talk about Tolkien related music – yes, Blind Guardian is great (my favourite band), but yes, you’re right, there are more good Tolkien music. For example, check out Classical Swords . There you can find “Lord Of The Rings” album of classical music in mp3’s, rated as film music (actually, as written, some compositions are really using music from Bakshi’s film). Or a Russian Blind Guardian-style band called “Shadow Host”. In their last album “Downfall” they have the song called “Galadriel” (you even can hear elven speech there! 🙂 ). Even Enya has a piano composition (I dont’t actually remember its name, something like “Lothlorien”). And there are much more. So there is no lack of Tolkien music now. :)”
For those preferring something more classical, there’s this suggestion from Elrond320:
“I read on the webpage about “Tolkien-inspired music” and thought you might also be interested in learning about a five movement wind symphony by Johann de Meij called The Lord of the Rings. Its five movements are:
I. Gandalf
II. Lothlorien
III. Smeagol
IV. The Mines of Moria (Journey in the Dark)
V. Hobbits
The music is very good and will appeal to classical listeners and probably all Tolkien fans in general. The themes are well done; bright brass fanfares for Gandalf, haunting drum beats for Moria and a playful march for the hobbits. I don’t know of any recordings on the web, but I found the mp3’s on Napster. Enjoy!”
Thanks again to Orjan, who sent us the URLs to Summoning:
The Official Summoning Homepage They have lots of the songs and poems on their site, along with cool pictures.
Then you have to scroll down till you find Summoning. When you’re on the Summoning page, press ‘Soundsamples’.. and vòila…
Don’t all write to me with your suggestions for who’d do a great LOTR soundtrack please, I don’t have Peter Jackson’s ear on this. If I did I’d put forward Phillip Feeney’s name. He wrote the score for the ballet ‘Dracula’ that’s currently touring NZ. It’s been a hit in the UK and here, and is about to get to Australia. Very wonderful, very dark. Don’t miss it.
TheOneRing.net brings you the first exclusive interview with Indie ANCANAR dircetor Sam R. Balcomb.
Sam and I recently spoke via Internet regarding his project and his plans to involve the fans!
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
One of the first memories of my life was my father reading from The Hobbit & LOTR to me once a night every night before bedtime. That had a tremendous effect on me in many ways. The most profound being that I fell in love with storytelling from the get go. Since then I’ve always looked for ways to take the stories that I love and share that experience with others.
So you’ve been a Tolkien fan since then?
Absolutely! I can’t read his work now without being drawn back to those times. It’s perfect, really, since Tolkien’s work connects with the inner-five-year-old in us all — that we’re taken to distant lands, mighty kinds and terrible monsters. Some of us lose that perspective as we get older. Tolkien reminds us that we can still dream.
What other filmwork have you done?
We’re having a major update at Ancanar.com later today — I think there’s some info on my previous work to be posted. But since you asked I wrote/directed an indie flick in Boston three years ago called Under Oath. I’ve done work for Kodak, and right now I’m also working on a commercial for KCRW, an LA radio station.
When did the Ancanar project start to take form?
Ancanar was a story that I wrote a few years back after reading the Silmarillion. I fell in love with the book — a hundred movies could be made from that thing… But after Elessar was (abruptly) canned, I took it out and blew off the dust. I liked what I saw, so I took the next two months to write a shooting script. I showed to my producer Raiya Corsiglia and she flipped. It was a go from then. Ancanar is on a much larger scale than Elessar, but we are willing to make it the kind of movie Tolkien fans can be proud of.
Can you tell us a bit of the Storyline?
Here’s what I can tell you: Ancanar is a young woodsman, the heir to the Rammoth household. He is obsessed with the Elves, and grudges the fact that they live in eternal bliss while his father ails on his deathbed. Through a series of events he learns of a hidden Elves city closeby in the mountains. To speak of it warrants death, but he chooses to find this city, somehow, and restore his family name. That’s all I can say right now… and that it might involve one of Shelob’s ancestors…
How many people to do you have working with you on the project?
We have a fantastic crew so far, and more are on the way. There are about twenty people on what we call the “primary crew,” not counting pre-production staff. Once the crew list is finalized you can see all the bios and pics of each member on our site.
Why did you decide to get the fans so involved?
Because they really deserve it. Especially Tolkien fans. When something has impacted your life the way his stories have, you want to become a part of them. Film is a fantastic storytelling medium, a way to really be enveloped into a world. We wanted to have a forum for people to become a part of the process — and for those who don’t know the first thing about filmmaking, here they get a chance.
What stage are you at with the production?
We’re location scouting right now — that place in the trailer where I was sitting, that was one of the locations. And now that the site is set up we’re going to begin the casting process soon, so everyone can watch. We’ll post the sessions, along with Quicktime clips of the screen tests. We’re also hiring our makeup FX team, who will be making the prosthetic masks and so forth. Today I’m going out with our sound guy to test microphone quality out in the forest.
Any other details about the project you can give us?
Well, we’re very excited about the DragonCon convention, where I’ll be doing a live tele-conference call, along with airing the 5-minute version of our trailer. Also, I warn people ahead of time — there are lots of secret hidden pages on our site that will be added and deleted constantly. They’re hard to find, but have cool stuff on them. We’re very sneaky.
Besides being on a smaller scale than Peter Jackson’s film, what are the other major differences between the two projects?
The major difference is that Jackson’s LOTR is a story we all know and love. With Ancanar, Tolkien fans can enjoy watching a story that they won’t know the ending to.
What do you hope to get from the fans?
All through this process we want the fans to speak out as much as possible and let us know how they want to interact with us. We’ve gotten a tremendous response so far, and I thank everyone who’s participated. But we won’t shy away from problems — our motto is that if there’s a glitch in production, people are going to hear about it; why not hear about it from us? Overall we want fans to enjoy the ride as much as we are, voice their opinion, and learn more about Hollywood. We hope that we can keep professor Tolkien’s spirit alive in what we do.
How will you be using the internet to promote the film?
The Net gives us opportunity to reach people across the globe, and it’s not something to underestimate. Blair Witch blew open the venue for web-based promotion. It showed the studios that you don’t need their help to get people excited about a good film. Expect lots of chats with the cast and crew, contests, Quicktime, streaming, and the most interactivity possible with the production.
Any other forms of off-line promotion in the pipeline?
We’re waiting until we’re a bit more down the line in terms of production to start major off-line promotion (TV, magazines, etc). Since this is an internet event we want to establish our internet fanbase, which is, to us, the most important.
Do you have distributors yet?
Only in the LA area. As production moves on we have plans to broaden the distribution circle as widely as possible. We’d love for everyone to see this in a theater, but if they can’t, we’ll ship Ancanar to their door.
Winona Kent, webmaster from The Compleat Sean Bean has sent us two articles for you to ponder over and enjoy:
The first is an article about ‘Essex Boys’ the latest movie staring Sean Bean (Boromir).
Click to Enlarge
Click to Enlarge
USA Today has scored an interview with Ian Holm (Bilbo), in it he talks about his acting techniques and a bit on LOTR:
Ian Holm on the business of acting
LOS ANGELES – (AP) Ask Ian Holm how he goes about the business of acting, and he sputters a bit – not the reaction you might expect from a performer with such a stellar stage and screen resume. [More]
…. well, if they had their way, that’s what the headlines might have read at any rate. In an email from Ringer Macbeth, an article he quoted from Canadian newspaper and website, The Globe and Mail, has this little gem… “The Beatles were desperate to do a movie of the book, with Paul playing Frodo, Ringo as Sam, John as Gollum and George as Gandalf.”
*Tookish refrains from making any bad puns