Friday 9 November 2007

New High Quality Teaser

We've just uploaded a high quality version of the teaser trailer.

* Watch Teaser Trailer (High Q) (Stage6, divx format)

or view medium quality below:

Sunday 4 November 2007

Movie Stills - first look


Here's our first batch of imagery taken directly from the footage. These are all real locations in Snowdonia, N Wales.


The production is ready to go into the second phase. We're planning to shoot the remainging scenes in the new year. Currently storyboarding and location hunting.

We're currently looking for talented people to join the team. Particularly looking for costume designers, and production people.

We aim to make this a professional quality, cinematic production and to release online for free download. This project is in no way affiliated with New Line Cinema, Peter Jackson or Tolkien but we thank them. Feel free to get in touch on chrisbouchard1*@*gmail.com

Saturday 13 October 2007

Teaser Trailer 1

Here's our first proper little teaser for The Hunt for Gollum. Hope you like it, it shows some of the beautiful locations we shot at and some hints at our hero.



High Quality Versions:

Divx Version [High]

Quicktime [Medium]

I hope to post another trailer showing a lot more action in the near future. Any comments more than welcome!

Monday 3 September 2007

North Wales Shoot Complete


We've just got back from North Wales, filming key hunting scenes for the past 3 days. It's been a fantastic shoot and we've got around half of the film in the sack featuring Strider, Gollum and a taste of some Orcs. We were camping near Cadair Idris(interactive map) which is incredibly beautiful, stark, mountainous and forested just like Middle Earth. The moody Welsh weather was kind for the first two days although the last day we all got completely soaked climbing the mountain. Actually this made the shots look even better.

I must thank our amazing cast and multi-talented crew: Adrian Webster, Matthew Cunningham, Sam Price, Kate Robinson, Gareth Brough, Adam Dymond, Luke McNally, Natalie Flindall and Stoffer Roberts.
Next up - we'll be logging through the footage before filming the remaining scenes over the next few months. Filming stills to come soon.

Tuesday 14 August 2007

Costume Making Clip

We spent the weekend on my rooftop making some of the costumes for the film including Orc armour, costume, helmets...etc Here's a clip:

Wednesday 25 July 2007

First TH4G Flier


Wow!! Carlos Avina (from our friends the Born of Hope team) just emailed me with his design for this beautiful flier for the film... Thanks Carlos!

4 weeks to go...

..until the shoot! It's going to be great, but actually pretty daunting. I've been working on preproduction and script for the past 4 months but in the final run up there's loads to do: costume finalising, Ranger casting, storyboarding, wig fitting, props, more locations... Fear not though, it's all in hand. :)

A few words on the story

A new chapter in the Lord of the Rings saga, created by fan's of Tolkien. This short film is set in Middle Earth and depicts events leading up to the Fellowship of the Ring. Synopsis: The Ring of Power has been taken from Gollum by Bilbo of the Shire. The heir of Isildur sets out to find him before he falls into the hands of the enemy and reveals the location of the Ring...




Here's a brief synopsis of the film's story in TH4G (and pics of some locations!)

It's technically a PREQUEL although our story is based carefully on Tolkien's appendices to The Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit. We're creating a serious, epic and cinematic tribute to the Tolkien and also the film trilogy. Our story takes place after The Hobbit but before The Fellowship Of The Ring and follows a young Ranger of Arnor (although one of great lineage) in his journey to find the creature.

A PREQUEL to The Fellowship of the Ring


By the way, these are pictures of where we'll be filming in September: Snowdonia, N Wales, UK
"Gollum has ventured out of his cave deep beneath the Misty Mountains. He's searching for one thing. The Ring, which was taken from him by Bilbo who tricked him but also named his homeland; The Shire. Many evil things are being drawn towards Mordor and Gollum inevitably is drawn towards the black land. The heir of Isildur sets out to find him before the creature can be captured by the enemy and reveal the location of the Ring...

Next I'll do a post on the cast I guess.

Tuesday 24 July 2007

Making Orcs 1

I spent last Saturday with Luke McNally (special effects designer) making casts for the Orc masks. We took casts of the faces of our Orc actors so that Luke can custom design the prosthetic masks to fit their faces exactly. Here's a video of the process. was a lot of fun.


What they might look like...

Logo Teaser

Here's a little teaser, basically just a logo test. It was really satisfying to create this using the LOTR Ringbearer font and some music I composed a while back. It's exciting to see a little flavour of what might be to come.


This entire clip was made in Sony Vegas 6 (apart from the music of course). It took about 2 hours to make.
Next up I'll post on the story, the cast, the locations and there's even a behind the scenes video of us making our first orcs this weekend...

Monday 23 July 2007

Welcome to the blog

I've just created this blog for my new film project, which for now I will be calling THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM. So, what's this film about? It's a short (not going to bite off too much this time). It's a Lord of the Rings fan film. Yep, that means it's set in middle earth with similar character, but tells a new part of the saga (and luckily there's plenty Peter Jackson left out for us to tell).

And as for story, I'm not going to say too much just now but it takes place in between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, and follows one of the Rangers of the North...

Fear not guys my main project Human Residue is still pushing ahead, but as it's now deep in post production, this gives me a chance to get back out on set and shoot something else while the warmth of summer is still with us. Secondly, it's always good to take a break from a project and Residue has been so overwhelming for the past 2 years that I really need something new to get excited about Then I can come back to editing Residue with fresh eyes.

Meanwhile check out the website for fellow LOTR fan film Born of Hope who are kindly collaborating with me on this project. It's really exciting to be working with Kate and some of her team.

Enjoy the blog, I aim to keep it up to date with all the info of the film production over the coming months.
Peace
Chris