Concerning Hobbits

It's that time of the year. Illuminated Christmas trees, Christmas songs, and of course Christmas movies. You already know one of my favorites is Jingle All the Way. It's a must see for me every year in December along with a few others. With much controversy, Gremlins is another. I don't want to hear it, Gremlins IS a Christmas movie. Do a quick internet search for Gremlins + Best Christmas Movie. You will see endless results of compiled lists with Gremlins occupying a worthy spot. Most of them are underrated Christmas movie lists. So there, I'm not alone. So Gremlins, Jingle All the Way, and in the end the pinnacle of the holiday cinema tradition.... Home Alone. I always save that for Christmas Eve.

But a new tradition has been created this past decade. The tradition of a Lord of the Rings film being released right before Christmas. Of course we're years after the last release of the trilogy, but I always like to the time to watch them in December. I did that this past weekend this year. And let me tell you it blows me away every time. They really are the three greatest movies ever made in terms of it all.

The story is simply unbelievable. The tale of the entire journey is so deep and time consuming that by the end you are as much of a part of this Fellowship as any other character. And for me it just drags me in. I've seen Return of the King probably 5-6 times so far since its release, and I still have tears when the Hobbits are told that they are to bow to no one, then bowed to by the entire kingdom. It's all so powerful and moving.

This time however, my Ring craving was not satisfied by the movies. So I have decided to re-watch all my DVD extras. Which if you own the Extended box-sets you know are about 3 hours+ in length in each of the three films. I'm about halfway through it all now and you just get so amazed by how much work goes involve into every scene. An entire set of a city was build for just about 2-3 minutes of actual film time. Seems ridiculous, but that's also why the film is so well-made.

It really inspires me to do the best I can for my films. This January, myself and my two lovely colleagues will start production on short four minute documentary movie that is being co-produced by CBC and the NFB. CBC being Canada's major television network, and the NFB the National Film Board, one of Canada's big production agency. We were selected among applicants from communications programs in Montreal and Ottawa from a written submitted pitch. So this is very exciting. We will get to attend a three day workshop hosted by industry professional who will guide and assist us in making our movie alongsides the other selected participants.

So this is another terrific opportunity to get real experience, and to have a piece of work with a CBC and NFB production credit. Which at our young age is pretty surreal. We'll get to see our documentary on TV later this year which will be quite a thrill.

So while we're not making a Lord of the Rings, we still have alot of work to do to make this the best possible product. And watching these extra's certainly are giving me alot of creative ideas and inspiration for the kind of technical aspects of shooting we could attempt. I certainly will be keeping you updated as we enter pre-production in January and throughout the whole process leading into May.