Born of Hope is here

at last....!!!!

At 7pm tonight, Born of Hope will be released! In case you didn't know, it's the next LOTR prequel, made by our friends at Actors at Work Productions, this is an even more ambitious epic (unofficial) LOTR prequel over 6 years in the making. It tells of Aragorn's parents, and the Dunedain set 75 years before the events of The Hunt For Gollum.
Director (and actress) Kate Madison.
Quite a few of the THFG team have been involved in BOH, and of course we poached a some of them for our film too. So today is the momentus day we've all been waiting for...
Enjoy:
http://www.bornofhope.com
(online at 7pm, 1st Dec....)

Spain screening & award

The Hunt For Gollum will be showing at La Cabina in Valencia, Spain on Saturday 12th December around 1pm. Director in attendence - maybe see you there. :)
http://www.lacabina.es/

I also just got back from Geneva, where I was suprised and delighted to win the Reflet D'Or for the "Best Fiction produced for the web" category! This is the 3rd award the film has received. Thanks very much to all the kind people I met at the festival. here's a pic:

Screenings in Switzerland & Brazil

Catch The Hunt For Gollum on the big screen in Geneva at Le Festival Cinema Tous Ecrans, on 3rd & 5th November. Director Chris Bouchard will attend for a Q&A on Thursday the 5th. Link:
http://www.cinema-tout-ecran.ch/2009/index.php?rubID=34&lan=en&filmID=552

THFG is also showing in Brazil at the CineFantasy Festival, Sao Paulo between 6th & 16th November. Screenings are always free - being a non-profit film.
http://www.cinefantasy.com.br/

PS... don't forget that Born of Hope is coming next month - for those who need their next fix of Lord of the Rings.
Here's a brand new Born of Hope podcast - a new peek at what's coming and some hilarious behind the scenes action:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_n4m8RWn6Y&feature=player_embedded

The Times (UK) & New Zealand Herald coverage

The New Zealand Herald covered The Hunt For Gollum today in their article March of the fifth Gollum
They appear to be the first to ask Peter Jackson's camp if he's seen THFG, with the following answer, I quote "a spokesman for Jackson said they have chosen not to comment about the film". Of course Jackson himself is likely far too busy to watch a film like this, so I'm certainly not expecting any feedback from him. That would only generate more publicity, and we've had more than our fair share of press already. Even so I can't help but wonder what his reaction would be. I hope he would understand where we're coming from, and that this was simply a labour of love, and a chance to learn about film-making.

Also, The Times did a nice article last week: Gollum spearheads the Hollywood fan-film revolution pointing out that the film has had 3.5 million views - figures beating most big budget feature film releases.

Free screening in Cardiff

The Hunt for Gollum returns to Wales this Saturday (24th October) at the Chapter Cinema, Cardiff. I'll be attending the free screening, along with actor Arin Alldridge (Arithir) and some of the crew.

FAN-TASIA: The Hunt For Gollum + Blair Thumb (ctba)
Saturday, 24 October 2009 18:15 Cinema 2

I'm delighted to see that they're also showing Blair Thumb, a fan movie by Steve Oedekerk, writer of Bruce Almighty. I enjoyed his hilarious Thumb Wars in my student days. Should be a lot of fun.

Tickets are free (of course) and you can reserve them at the box office, although the cinema is quite small so call them to reserve.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Wales for the first time since we filmed some of the mountain scenes there. In other news, I recently got back from Canada, from the FNC in Montreal. Soph & I were very kindly received and enjoyed a panel with some other participative film-makers. In particular www.touscoprod.com seem to have a novel approach to film funding.

Also, I should tell you there's a festival screening in Geneva at the Festival Tous Ecrans on November 5th. More on that soon,

Chris

Visiting FNC in Montreal

Hey folks, it's been a while since I updated - I've been making the most of my newly found free time. :) Anyway I'm just about to head off to Canada with Soph for the Festival du Nouveau Cinema in Montreal, Canada for a screening of THFG, at something called the FNC Lab - Participative Film-making! Something a little different. Here's the blurb on the event:

Since the arrival of platforms for sharing content online, the cyberspace slogan has been: We need you! Video, text, sound, image… Anyone can produce their own content and then broadcast and promote it in just a few clicks. Home movies are everywhere, all claiming to be a hit. Needs are expanding and things are becoming more ambitious. Whether looking for additional funding or a volunteer editor, it’s becoming easier and easier to use the Net to make films collaboratively. Is this the next film revolution'

With :
Chris Bouchard (UK) | director | www.thehuntforgollum.com
Barbara Tonelli (FR) | co-founder | www.touscoprod.com
Thierry Vogler (CA) | producer/writer/director | www.5000kmdejerome.com

This panel will be followed by the screening of the film The Hunt for Gollum, directed as a participatory film by Chris Bouchard in tribute to the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Saturday 10th October, 5pm, Agora Hydro-québec (La Tanière) Montreal is the time and date, should any of your want to come, please do come and say hi.

This should be quite an interesting one, especially to get insights from other participative films - I suppose that's what this was - our buzz word was more 'collaborative'. But hey - same difference.

Meanwhile, totting up the views it seems THFG's now had around 3.5 million views. So glad it's still finding a fresh audience. And so, I've been slowly but surely prepping the next project, exploring various options - Residue, being only one of several possibilities for the next IOC feature. Whatever it is, it's likely to be ridiculously ambitious - I can gaurantee that.

Secondly I must big up some more upcoming free screenings - at the Chapter Cinema Cardiff - 24th, Oct 2009. Also it's showing down at the massive ICON film festival in Isreal on 6th & 8th October.

au revoir!

THFG at London Comiccon

Just a note to say we'll be appearing at London's Comic Con on Sunday July 19th. We'll be showing the film, and doing a panel with most of the leading figures of the film there.

C

Extended version featured on Youtube USA

On friday co-producer Spencer alerted me that we'd had over 70,000 views in 1 hour on the Youtube version of the film, which is extended in that 1 scene with Arithir was added back in. Anyway it turns out that the film was featured on this Friday's Youtube Spotlight on the USA/Worldwide homepage.



It's had over 600,000 views in the last 24 hours - crazy!

The Armchair Critic Review: The Hunt for Gollum (Independent Online Cinema, 2009)

The Armchair Critic: The Hunt for Gollum (Independent Online Cinema, 2009)

Here's another review of the film I've just been alerted to. Thanks Paula!

Inside Report - interview at SCI-FI-LONDON

The charming folks at INSIDE REPORT
did a feature on The Hunt for Gollum just before the premiere at SCI-FI-LONDON.
Check it out (includes Gareth doing his Gollum impression...) and me saying "great" far too many times.

the week of 1,000,000 views

The Hunt For Gollum crew after the premiere at SCI-FI-LONDON.

Well, it's been a hectic first week, with over 1 million views, thousands of messages from fans who appear to have enjoyed The Hunt For Gollum.

you can see the stats on www.dailymotion.com/huntforgollum
(adding the additional languages version to the HD version and you reach the total)



So it's time to sit back and reflect on releasing our baby out into the world!! It's been an emotional time. Our IMDB page and guestbook have received loads of messages. Dailymotion officially tell us that the film has "gone viral", which apparently is a first for a longform video. So how does it feel? Well it's been exhilerating, and completely unexpected. I was preparing myself for the inevitable onslaught of angry messages from diehard fans... which didn't come! Leaving me feeling almost smugly triumphant. Anyway it's time to come back down to earth and begin thinking about how to pickup a normal life again for a little while before embarking on the next crazy project.

A few interesting meetings and phonecalls have appeared, but the challenge now is to try and attract investors for the next project, which perhaps will be following Project Residue outlined:
http://www.independentonlinecinema.com

as the probable next project (but that requires considerable funding which will in itself require a lot of work). For the timebeing I'll sit back and read scripts, write scripts and see where the fancy takes me...

Chris

Going Global

A number of months ago we were contacted by two Spanish guys called Luis Ig. Bacas Riveiro and Jose Maria Urraca Mulero contacted us asking if they could subtitle the film into Spanish which we were very happy to help them do. Since then a lot more requests have flooded in and we currently have the film available on Dailymotion with subtitles in Spanish (from both Spain and Argentina), French, Portugese (from both Brazil and Portugal), German, Italian, Russian, Turkish, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, Catalan and of course English. In addition, we are awaiting subtitles in Hebrew and Chinese. Once more the global power of Tolkien cannot be underestimated.

If you know of someone who might be able to translate the subtitles into a language not mentioned and who would like to do it then get them to email brian "at" hunt4gollum.com stating which language they could help with. Obviously we'd like the film to reach as many people as possible so any help doing that would be much appreciated :-)



p.s. to view the film with Hungarian, Norwegian, Finnish, Catalan, Portugal's Portugese or Argentina's Spanish then please go to the additional languages version of the film on http://www.dailymotion.com/HuntForGollum

p.p.s if you would like to view Serbian or Croatian subtitles then leconty has posted them on the forum here here

24 hours and 200,000 views later...

http://www.thehuntforgollum.com
is finally back up online (sorry for that) and I need to sleep, maybe dream of the next project! So i'll leave you with these links somebody kindly emailed me...

(posting this really for the cast and crew to check out, have fun guys - was an awesome party!! loving you all!)

http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/news/1811402/rts_top_5_fan_films
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/8022623.stm

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103673352
US radio

Review:
http://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/reviews.php?id=8013
http://www.slashfilm.com/2009/05/03/lord-of-the-rings-fan-film-the-hunt-for-gollum-now-online/
http://www.ropeofsilicon.com/article/the-hunt-for-gollum-full-short-film-now-online
http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2009/05/03/32047-fan-film-hunt-for-gollum-watch-it-now/
http://www.starlog.com/home/daily-news/1-movies-a-television/117-the-hunt-for-gollum-begins
http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/695191/LOTR-Fan-Film-The-Hunt-For-Gollum-Premieres-This-Weekend.html
http://www.atomicmpc.com.au/News/143808,new-lord-of-the-rings-film.aspx
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/8028657.stm
BBC Northern Ireland
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2009/05/01/will-the-hunt-for-gollum-satisfy-true-fans/
http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/04/hunt-gollum.html
http://londonist.com/2009/04/arts_ahead_whats_on_in_london_29_ap.php
http://fancinematoday.com/
http://forbiddenplanet.co.uk/blog/?p=12760
http://www.demonews.de/kurznachrichten/index.php?shortnews=20380
http://www.moviereporter.net/news/6967-the-hunt-for-gollum-ein-prequel-von-fans
http://www.jatekok.hu/hirek.php?tabla=hirek_200905&id=32
http://www.vivacinema.it/articolo/the-hunt-for-gollum-e-uscito/8595/
http://blog.screenweek.it/2009/05/the-hunt-for-gollum-finalmente-on-line-42514.php
http://www.badtaste.it/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7772&Itemid=63
http://www.sffchronicles.co.uk/forum/50268-the-hunt-for-gollum.html
http://www.filmtotaal.nl/artikel.php?id=13734
http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/05/04/kultur/film/ringenes_herre/tolkien/peter_jackson/6042321/
http://www.elbakin.net/film/news/9935-The-Hunt-for-Gollum-est-en-ligne
http://www.fantasymundo.com/noticias/10353/hunt_for_gollum_online
http://www.allocine.fr/article/fichearticle_gen_carticle=18458491.html
http://www.gamona.de/kino-dvd/der-hobbit,die-jagd-nach-gollum-fanprojekt-ist-fertig:news,1469439.html
http://www.fantasy.fr/articles/view/9288/un-extrait-pour-the-hunt-for-gollum
http://www.mymovies.it/cinemanews/2009/6424/
http://www.omelete.com.br/cine/100019395/O_Senhor_dos_Aneis.aspx
http://www.elbenwald.de/news.php?news=n3358_Trailer-zum-Herr-der-Ringe-Fan-Film--The-Hunt-for-Gollum.html
http://www.rumors.it/notizie/29358/articolo.htm
http://www.new.divirta-se.uai.com.br/html/sessao_8/2009/04/30/ficha_cinema/id_sessao=8&id_noticia=10650/ficha_cinema.shtml
http://blog.screenweek.it/2009/04/fan-film-su-gollum-online-gratuitamente-fra-pochi-giorni-42225.php
http://www.corriere.it/spettacoli/09_aprile_25/grandesso_e09aca00-31b2-11de-98f0-00144f02aabc.shtml
http://epocanegocios.globo.com/Revista/Common/0,,EMI69923-16353,00-FAS+DE+O+SENHOR+DOS+ANEIS+GRAVAM+INICIO+INEDITO+DA+SAGA+COM+R+MIL.html
http://www.ecrans.fr/L-ecole-des-fan-films,7029.htm
http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/blog/2009/04/25/the-hunt-for-gollum-video-teaser/
The Guardian Guide
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/may/03/fan-films-hunt-for-gollum
The Observer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/movie/129688/hunt-for-gollum
http://www.highlandersbooks.com/2009/05/03/newsflash-the-hunt-for-gollum/
http://www.themorningstarr.co.uk/2009/05/03/the-hunt-for-gollum/
http://www.sfx.co.uk/page/sfx?entry=the_hunt_for_gollum_to

Working Player Link... on Dailymotion

Our servers died.... ouch! so go to Dailymotion to watch the film directly here:

http://www.dailymotion.com/huntforgollum

WATCH THE FILM!!!

Watch the Film... (4pm Sunday)

To watch the film... after 4pm GMT on Sunday 3rd of May (that's probably before midday in the USA of course) direct your browser towards...

www.thehuntforgollum.com
(sorry about website problems, go below if so.... - we're trying to fix it!!!!

OR

www.dailymotion.com/huntforgollum

It will be go live at or around 4pm - and will be released with subtitles in over 7 languages (French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish... and more...)
Have fun, we did. :)
Chris
NB: if you're computer can't handle the "HD" version be sure to click "MENU" and then "High Quality" so you still get a reasonably good picture quality.

4 days to go...

On 3rd of May The Hunt For Gollum will be live and online for FREE streaming at
www.thehuntforgollum.com

Release Time:
Our awesome web-guy David Rendo will be putting the film online at 4pm (GMT) on our site - just as we sit down to watch it at the public premiere at SCI-FI-LONDON.

We'll also put out our documentary, some cool clips, the soundtrack and info on our next project...

So - how does it feel? Exciting - relieving - but I'm most looking forward to celebrating with all the talented people I've met on this journey when we have our premiere and party. A year ago we were on location filming an Orc battle, and a year before that I was writing out the script. So it's been a pretty intense time (can't count how many all night editing sessions!) and I for one am looking forward to a little break before I start the next project... which may (I can reveal) be something related to the concept of Human Residue
It will be an original feature film which we're hoping to do with the same kick-ass team, but this time we'll be looking for industry funding to get it off the ground as a low budget feature. We'll see where that goes...

Anyway after a long journey and an amazing experience of film-making, I can release my first real film to the world... The Hunt For Gollum. And take cover...! The main thing - it was a hell of a ride - let's see what we can do next...

Premiere at SCI-FI-LONDON!

So, tickets are now available for the world premiere at SCI-FI-LONDON on May 3rd! These will be free to the public (non profit film remember!) at a first come first served basis. They've now got their page up so you can reserve your ticketsright now:

RESERVE PREMIERE TICKETS!
http://www.sci-fi-london.com/competition/gollum.php

Release Date is here!

hey folks, well Gollum and I would like to announce that on 3rd May 2009 you will be able to watch The Hunt For Gollum online in HD!



RELEASE DATE:
SUNDAY 3rd MAY 2009!!!

We'll be streaming the film (which now runs at well over 40 minutes) in HD and have some very exciting news to come about the festival it's launching at. Also the work the team are doing on visual effects, sound, music and editing is very spectacular indeed and i take my hat off to my team who are pulling out all the stops to meet our deadlines for this release date. Well over 100 volunteers are now working on the film and it's a pretty unusual thing, which I am very lucky to be directing.

I write this from the madness of post-production, which i'd probably best get back to without further ado. :)

Meanwhile here's a fellow who we might be seeing a little more of in this adventure...



Chris