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LoTR Fan Film — The Hunt For Gollum
stevedcc writes "This weekend sees the release of The Hunt for Gollum, a Lord of the Rings fan-film. It'll be available on the web for free. The BBC are running an article about the making of the film, with a budget of £3,000 (spent mostly on costumes and make-up). There were 160 contributors involved, many over the internet." I hope it lives up to the trailer (linked from the BBC story); the finished film is approximately 40 minutes.
memoryhole supplies links to YouTube for both the full trailer and a second trailer. Reader jowifi adds a link to NPR's story on the film, writing, "NPR discussed the legality of this type of creation with EFF lawyer Fred Von Lohman, who said it's not clear if such a production violates the copyright for Tolkien's work."
I'm a bit skeptical of the movie. I guess the reason I loved the movie series was the basis on the books (given it wasn't 100% accurately followed). With no great input from J.R.R., it will be interesting to see what direction this goes in.
Think about all the things that made the trilogy great: soundtrack, acting, special effects, etc... I for one, loved the soundtrack. Just a small aspect that added to the movie, but made it great.
Release date is May 3 2009 at 16:00 GMT.
Better known as 318230.
Looks like tim is trolling just a bit.
Though, in general, LotR should be public domain. It's a definite part of our cultural heritage, and these sort of copyright issues are about as insulting as someone claiming copyright on the Shakespeare Canon.
I'm so there, Precious. *glee*
You want to know how to help your kids? LEAVE THEM THE F*&K ALONE. --George Carlin
"NPR discussed the legality of this type of creation with EFF lawyer Fred Von Lohman, who said it's not clear if such a production violates the copyright for Tolkien's work."
It's as clear as a pane of glass.
The character is recognizably Tolkien's creation.
The universe he inhabits. The voices. The dialog. The languages.
The maps. The character designs.
The story.
The film can't honestly be described as anything other than a derivative work.
Some of that budget should have went to preparing for a slashdot post ... it's slashdotted :p
I'm anxious to see the trailer
*DrugCheese rants*
That the technology revolution has almost overtaken feature films. The trailer looks almost as good as the real thing. Pretty soon it will be hard to tell fan fiction from the real thing. Hell, some of the fan fiction might end up being better than the real thing.
Than won't Hollywood and the RIAA be in a bind.
The character is recognizably Tolkien's creation.
...The character designs.
The universe he inhabits. The voices. The languages.
The film can't honestly be described as anything other than a derivative work.
None of those things are covered by copyright, and thus cannot be a derivative work. Some of them could be covered by trademark, but that is an entirely different matter.
The dialog. The maps. The story.
These are covered by copyright, but they are not being used (maybe the maps are I don't know). It is a fan-flick: a new story with new dialog based on the characters and word created by Tolkien.
Well, looks like it's been ./ed. Way to go folks!
DNA -- National Dyslexic Association
Please cease existing. Thanks.
www.boredoftherings.co.uk/
... if they hire Lindsay Lohan.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Gandalf for President!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Of course it's a story! No shit it's a "story"! Everything on Slashdot is written by someone, and someone ends up reading it. Everything could be termed a story.
For real: why are people/who are the people tagging tags as "story"?
They don't sue you for downloading "stuff". They sue you for allegedly* downloading their movies that you supposedly don't watch, and apparently don't buy the DVDs for (or, you know, rent).
I'm sure they would have a MUCH bigger issue with everybody just downloading completely free movies - then they get neither direct money, nor anything valid to complain about - but they'd also have a much bigger problem formulating laws to deal with that sort of thing.
Thankfully, for them, yea olde pirate LIKES the hollywood blockbuster type movie far too much for them to switch to downloading only free content (at which point they wouldn't be pirates anymore anyway).
* (IANAL and most certainly not yours) I do stress allegedly as their evidence is usually pathetically weak from a legal viewpoint.
That was kind of Tolkien's idea with the bundle of notes that formed what was published as the Silmarillion, but it wasn't true for Lord of the Rings and by the time the Silmarillion was in a state that Tolkien thought he could refine it into a publishable state the English myth idea had been abandoned.
Hope its better than the last LOTR fan flick...
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
For fucks sake. Read the summary ... read the article and go to the site. Everything is legit.
Just enjoy the fucking movie. Or not, just shut up about it. I just heard of it, watched the trailers and am actually pretty excited about it.
What? Just because it doesn't have hollywood's seal of approval you assume it's crap? Take your copyright "expertise" to another thread. I wanna see nerds fight over their knowledge of the Tolkien world.
Fucking fun sponge.
.
The trailer looks good.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.
Either BBC is wrong or the production house is now inflating the price. Either way I'm sold already and plan to watch.
http://www.bornofhope.com/Welcome.html
It's too bad more rights-holders aren't this permissive with their properties. Remember what Games Workshop did to DAMNATUS?
Adjust the volume on the media player on the BBC-page ;)
FRA: STFU GTFO
Unless you're abbreviating Lord of Transforming Rings, it should be LotR. If you're going to show prepositions as lower case, you should do the same for articles.
Utilizing the synergization of benchmark e-solutions to pre-workaround action items!
Somehow I don't think Tolkien minds derivative works or even blatent "infringement" of his copyrights at this point - copyrights which ought to have expired long ago, incidentally. That is, "expired long ago" as in decades ago.
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE (pronounced /ËtÉ'lkiËn/[1]) (3 January 1892 â" 2 September 1973)
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
It always bothers me when they come up with these arbitrarily low estimates for how much was spent on these productions. 3000 pounds? I can only assume they didn't actually have to pay anyone's salary.
It's nice when people are willing to work for free for the sake of the project, whether it be because they're passionate about it or they believe that they can move onto something greater because of it. But the reality is that most people need to earn a living and you can't get away with this sort of thing too long.
Major studios certainly throw away money on crap, and doubtless celebrities are overpaid. Under regular circumstances, however, a movie of this nature would cost far more than 3000 pounds. I just find such claims a bit disingenuous but more and more people seem to have this belief that everything should be free. Perhaps once we abandon currency that will be true, but it isn't yet.
It probably does violate the "rights" of a dead man.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Total rip off of the Requiem for a Dream on trailer one... how is that not illegal ?
FWIW, I researched this heavily for my book about fan films. For the studios, efforts like these are the equivalent of the 12-year-old next door taking your Maserati out for a joyride; even if it comes back without a scratch, you're still going to be furious--but what can they really do?
In most cases, rights holders have ignored the growing popularity of fan films, sometimes willingly since they are generally tribute films that provide a no-cost way to keep fans interested in a franchise during times of drought (witness the rise of high-profile Star Trek fan productions in recent years).
At the same time, studios are in business to make money, and prosecuting a fan film case is a poor financial move all around. First, going after your fans is bad PR (ask Lars from Metallica). More importantly, however, the cost of mounting a case against a typical fan filmmaker is far more than you could ever hope to gain from a court decision or settlement.
As an aside, coincidence or not, in recent years, most studios that have used cease and desist letters to shut down fan films that "compete" with their feature films have produced lousy movies. Fox canned a UK-based Max Payne fan flick in spring, 2008, and look how awful that feature turned out to be. Similarly, the folks behind the upcoming GI Joe movie have been shutting down related fan films for YEARS--and now look at the huge negative reaction across the web to the first GI Joe trailer. When a studio is afraid of a fan film, it seems to be indicative of a weak property.
Nonetheless, studios are going to have to find better ways deal with fan films. Lucasfilm was pretty canny in "accepting" them by creating its annual fan film contest--by creating strict entry rules, it created a way to control the content going into fan productions without having to send lawyers after every teenager with a video camera.
One of the things I talk about in the book is that the studios should try to cultivate these amateur filmmakers, not merely to help spread the word by creating flicks about fledgling properties, but also as a revenue source--sell 'em permission, official sound effects, visual effect clips to be edited into a fan film, and so forth.
With the technological point of entry so low now that anyone with a computer and a camera can "make a movie," it's a next step waiting to happen. It might shave the "outlaw" feel off an otherwise semi-pro production like "Hunt for Gollum," but officially ratified fan films are probably the next big step for the hobby.
Clive Young
the reason for a generation of hippie children called things like Pippin Galadriel Moonchild
People have been giving their children weird names all the time; it's quite a Neverending Story.
Really, someone should put an Ende to it.