Tim writes: This was it. All the sweat, toil, and (minimal) bloodshed over the last several years came to fruition as Richardson Productions held its world premiere and multiple screenings of the epic parody “The Dork of the Rings” at GenCon ’06, the country’s largest gaming convention with fantasy and sci-fi geeks from around the world in attendance.
Thursday’s sneak preview was jam-packed with squished standing room only. A very enthusiastic film reviewer from Sylvan was present, as well as a representative of the Indiana State Museum who wants the film to be screened at the museum. Both the Friday premiere and Saturday screening were completely filled, so that meant about 200 eager dorks per screening. After the premiere the cast and crew answered lots of questions and signed autographs for all their adoring dorker fans.
Some of the stars from the movie who were in attendance for the premiere included Circus-Szalewski (Scrottum), Victoria Floro (Femowen), James Flannery (Ham), Jim Hall (Arogant), Steve Christopher (Abscond the Elfis), David Kiefer (Randolf the Wizard), James Lowe (Internet Troll/Webmaster/Visual Effects), Bob Lee (Visual Effects), James Pickens (Writer/Producer/Cinematographer/Visual Effects), Michael Kouroubetes (Writer/Producer/Actor), Andy Swisher (Costume Designer/BugWrangler)Ian Strandberg (Art Coordinator/Actor), Kevin McInerney (Producer/Actor), Lu Ann Richardson (Producer) and Tim Richardson (Writer/Director/Producer).
Production Princess Trisha Miller unfortunately suffered an injured back earlier that night and lead actor Bryce Cone (Frudo) graced us with his presence Saturday night.
All the screenings began with an introduction by “Lord of the Rings” actor Kiran Shah, a celebrated little person who claims he originally auditioned to be Bryce Cone’s (Frudo) scale double but was told he was too tall. During the end credits, The Great Luke Ski’s music video for “The Theme From The Dork of the Rings” played to the delight of many Dork and Ski admirers. Luke’s website is lukeski.com where you can find his new DVD “The Ego Has Landed” and his numerous comedy and parody CDs.
Somehow (no one is claiming responsibility), our infamous co-director Jack Peterson made the scene at the end of the premiere and amazed the crowd with his total lack of knowledge about basically everything.
Good ol’ Jack…
Of course our biggest Dorkers, sister filmmakers Ashlee and Rachel Scott were on hand to do all kinds of promoting of our film and theirs, from doing interviews to helping at our booth to handing out flyers. They are the winners of our fan film contest, have a cameo in the film and contributed landscape footage. Several of their films screened at Gencon including their Dork fan film, “Middle-earth Idols” and their “Return of the King” parody. You can find our more about them at marsproductions.net. Thanks girls!
We’d also like to congratulate our fellow filmmakers The Dead Gentlemen (www.deadgentlemen.com) and Christopher Folino (www.buygamers.com) on their hilarious productions as well, which screened along side ours each night. I snagged me a copy of both “The Gamers” and “Gamers” (respectively). Thanks for the camaraderie, guys, and good luck on future endeavors. We’re very much looking forward to the final version of “Gamers 2: Dorkness Rising.”
If you weren’t able to catch us at GenCon, don’t worry, we have plenty of screenings coming up so visit our website www.dorkoftherings.com for updates. Some future screenings include:
- * IMAX in Indianapolis on Saturday, August 26 at 8:30 p.m.
- * Dragon*Con in Atlanta over Labor Day weekend,
- * and 7 screenings at Indiana University South Bend on September 23 & 24 and October 7, 8 & 9.
We’ll also be screening this fall at Ring*Con in Germany. And of course you can buy the 2-disc DVD at
www.dorkoftherings.com.
Hope to see you at a screening near you soon!
Parallel writes: I am a journalist working in the Toronto area. I had arranged to have an interview with Billy Boyd before his upcoming apperance here on the September 1st Labour Day weekend, but was told two days ago that he’s had to drop out of the show. Not sure if it’s a personal or professional committment. Too bad, I was looking forward to speaking with him.
Melissa writes: This editorial is really only tangentially related to “Lord of the Rings,” but I simply had to share it. It’s a quite touching account of a teenage boy who’s recently announced he’s homosexual. Naturally, Sir Ian McKellen is mentioned because of his positive impact on the perception of homosexuality in the modern day. It’s just… the nature of the mention that had me in stitches. To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Sir Ian’s death have been greatly exaggerated. [
The city of Aachen will swell with the music from Lord of the Rings tonight (August 18th). Sinfonieorchester Aachen will be performing the LOTR score in Germany. Follow this link for more dates and cities! [