EXCLUSIVE UPDATE RINGERS is Ready for the World (Almost)!
Greetings — Cliff Broadway ‘Quickbeam’ here. The time has come to celebrate, for we have completed the first rough cut of RINGERS: LORD OF THE FANS.
The camera crew has put away the equipment and bright lights. We worked through an intense period of post-production to bring the film together in the best possible way, with music cues, motion graphics, animated segments, and a ton of extra visuals.
Thanks to the hard work of director Carlene Cordova and editor Arnaud Gerardy, RINGERS is a complete feature film that now runs just over an hour and half. However, we have not locked down the “final cut” just yet! It is still subject to changes (as we have learned something watching Peter Jackson assemble and re-edit his films right up the last possible minute — Carlene & Arnaud understand how THAT feels). Our film was cultivated from over 150 total hours of footage — from our extended trips to 16 major cities on 3 continents. Great numbers!
We are very proud of our work — it is a “feel good” movie that really feels good. It will stands as a celebration of over five decades of people being in love with one piece of literature (and subsequent movies). We anticipate a world premiere for RINGERS in January 2005 at an upcoming film festival. Please check out website and sign up for our newsletter for the latest announcements.
They were about three foot six tall, kept well out of the way of the Big People, lived in holes in the ground, had a simple technology fashioned with long, clever fingers … and, it can now be revealed, hung on in the real world until almost historical times. In an astonishing case of life imitating art, the remains of hobbits just like these have actually been unearthed in a cave in a hillside overlooking a river valley, in a remote and unspoiled part of Middle-earth. All that seems to be missing is the brass doorknob and (so far) confirmation of hairy feet.
In the 28th October issue of the science magazine Nature (www.nature.com/nature) an international team of researchers describe remains of an entirely unexpected party – a skeleton of a tiny, human-like creature that lived on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia, discovered there in September 2003 by researchers from the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology in Jakarta.
Founded by seafaring individuals of the ancient prehuman species Homo erectus that settled there almost a million years ago, these ancient colonists – marooned and isolated — evolved their own way, shrinking, until by 18,000 years ago, they had reached the size of hobbits. “I would have been less surprised if someone had uncovered an alien,” says Dr Peter Brown, from the University of New England in Armidale, New South Wales, an anthropologist involved in the research.
As Charles Darwin discovered in the Galapagos Islands during the voyage of HMS Beagle, creatures confined to islands for long periods evolve away from their mainland forebears, becoming very distinctive. Sometimes they become much larger or smaller than those on the mainland. The island of Malta in the Mediterranean once had tiny elephants that could look eye to eye with giant swans. In a similar way, Flores was a looking-glass world of dwarf elephants, giant Komodo dragons, rats the size of retrievers … and little people, no more than a metre tall and with heads the size of grapefruits. These people made sophisticated stone tools which the researchers think they used to hunt the elephants, if not to fend off the dragons – until a volcanic eruption 12,000 years ago seems to have snuffed out this Lost World.
One of the remarkable things about the discovery is how recently the creatures lived. We are usually accustomed to thinking that extinct relatives of humanity all lived many thousands, or even millions of years ago, but to have a distinct species of the human family alive 18,000 years ago is unprecedented. At that time, modern humans (Homo sapiens) had been present in Indonesia for 20,000 years or so, yet they do not seem to have mixed with the strange indigenes of Flores.
Or did they? Persistent and extremely detailed folk-tales from Flores speak of encounters with a tribe of little people called ebu gogo that lived on the island until as recently as a century ago. Says team geochronologist Dr Bert Roberts of the University of Wollongong, in Australia, the researchers thought these stories “no better than leprechaun stories — until we unearthed the Hobbit.” Who knows what a search of the remaining rainforest on Flores or elsewhere might turn up? Explorers have been searching Sumatra for the orang pendek, a mythical hairy biped. Dr Michael Morwood of the University of New England, is co-director of the Flores excavation, working closely with his Indonesian counterpart R. P. Soejono of the Indonesian Centre for Archaeology. Next year they plan to explore caves on the island of Sulawesi, known, like Flores, for its unusual, endemic fauna. What next? Elves? Dwarves? ….. Balrogs?
Erica writes: I’m involved with a Los Angeles-based non-profit organization called CoachArt that provides free lessons in the arts and athletics for underpriviliged children with life-threatening illnesses. Sean Astin has donated a unique heart-shaped ceramic plate that he decorated with his own design, as an autographed Lord of the Rings photo.
Sean’s package will be part of a fundraiser called Art for the Heart, a silent auction benefit on November 4 from 6-9 p.m. at Christie’s Los Angeles. Tickets to the event are $150 per person. The evening will include a reception and over 40 unique packages designed by celebrities and athletes including Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Elisabeth Shue, Sean Astin, the USC and UCLA football teams, Pedro Martinez of the Boston Red Sox, Martin Sheen and more! Tickets may be purchased by calling CoachArt at (310)203-2850 or online at Stubhub.com. Click on “Exclusive Events,” then “Art for the Heart tickets and Celebrity Auction.” Several packages that will be available only through bidding online can be found on this Web site. All proceeds will benefit the children of CoachArt.
Please consider posting this opportunity on your Web site so that Sean’s fans may have the chance to bid on this unique package, as well as help thousands of ill children in the Los Angeles area. Please e-mail me at erica@coachart.org if you have any questions. Thank you!
True-Hearted Easterling writes: I have just returned from the superb Lord of the Rings conference held at Marquette University in Milwaukee this past Friday and Saturday. The conference commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Lord of the Rings and paid tribute to Dr. Richard E. Blackwelder, who donated his large private Tolkien collection to Marquette in 1982.
The biggest names in Lord of the Rings academic research were among the 21 presenters, including Tom Shippey, who sang his old school song for a group of us Saturday night while we were sharing drinks and conversation; John Garth, who signed his book Tolkien and the Great War for me and was presented with a Mythopoeic Society Award at Saturday night’s banquet sponsored by Beyond Bree; and Michael Foster, who expressed a sentiment I share when he noted in his presentation that, despite the faults and virtues of The Lord of the Rings movie, it has brought a lot of new readers to the books.
S. Gary Hunnewell, an independent Tolkien scholar and collector, stayed on the same hotel floor that I did and had a sign on his room door written in Elvish that, according to him, read “Speak Beer and Enter.” Although he was not a presenter but just a “regular” attendee, Ted Nasmith graciously signed copies of the beautiful new Silmarillion containing his artwork at every break throughout the two days.
This conference was about the smoothest I’ve ever attended. I honestly can not find one thing to complain about. The facilities were good, there were plenty of refreshments, the presentations were outstanding and kept to schedule, and the total attendance was small enough (250 paid registrations) that it was very easy to have a conversation with any of the presenters that you wanted.
The conference proceedings are scheduled to be published in 2005, and I would recommend that every fan of Tolkien read them when they are available. I also recommend that anyone who can get to Marquette’s Haggerty Museum of Art to see “The Invented Worlds of J.R.R. Tolkien: Drawings and Original Manuscripts from the Marquette University Collection,” which will be on exhibit until January 30, 2005. The original handwritten text and artwork from Mr. Bliss alone is worth the trip.
Cat writes: I just thought I would write up an little report about the event I went to this weekend. Master of the Ring. I had been looking forward to this event for an long time and although there was no huge guests accounced I like talks and workshops and it promised to be by the fan for the fans.I started to go wrong the very first day Jed had pulled out no accouncement had been made even on the forum he was just missing from the website.
I got to the event on the saturday early to help out and was given an job all the stewards and p.a’s were not told about anything that was going on that day or what to do we were given the same programme as the normal ticket buyer. After this the people who oragaised the event disappeared I rarely saw them and was left to wonder at times why an 15 year old was left by herself at times to deal with passes and money.
All the guests were great as normal but all looked worn out. Craig Parker seemed to be holding the show together and on the saturday while we were all queuing up for the autography session to start he came out to tell us what was going on even though many people had to ask the people on the door what was going on and of course they did not know.
I heard any reports of the hotel rooms being dirty and a lot of disappointed people. From the promised workshops and sessions only one was there that of an costume workshop done on saturday by an fan on stage.
To be honest the main reason I’m writing this is as an warning to other fans these people are doing an event called Ring Fest in the u.s please don’t go you will be wasting your money.
The folks from Kevin Wallace Ltd write: Kevin Wallace, producer of the eagerly anticipated stage version of THE LORD OF THE RINGS, is the latest guest at the Balcony on the West End series of interviews at the Theatre Museum, London.
Hosted by Paul Webb, the interview runs from 6 to 7pm on Friday November 12.
There will be a question and answer session with the audience in the last 20 minutes, as well as an informal drink at the Theatre Museum’s pay bar afterwards.
November 12 will be a fascinating first-opportunity to hear about the creation of what promises to be 2005’s mega musical – an insight into the process of turning the much-loved Tolkien trilogy of novels into an epic theatrical event.
This first live forum with the producer of THE LORD OF THE RINGS has already attracted considerable attention – a must for Tolkien fans – and marks the last of the 2004 Balcony on the West End season.
