As I've mentioned before, sometime around 1999/2000 I was involved in an amateur musical film project based on J R R Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. This project was actually, believe it or not, endorsed by the Tolkien Estate. Due to creative differences the project drifted apart and nothing came of it. However, during these later years I've revisited video footage shot during the project and put together my own short films. This latest effort features Niels elley, who is an old friend of mine, and a sculptor, stone cutter and artist.
I made a big crepé hair beard and mustache for him, and used a wig actually made from real human hair. About half of it was shot on location and half in front of a green screen.
Gandalf taking a leak behind a tree (even wizards gotta go..)
Here's a real curio for you: This short clip comes from a bigger project that was never finished. Somewhere around 1999 I was part of a group of Swedish artists and musicians who worked on a musical video version of "Lord of the Rings"! For real! This was just before Peter Jackson´s mega-version of the books grabbed the world. At the end of the 1960's, Krister Gustavsson and Stefan Håkansson had written folk-rock songs based on the many poems of the books. (You can find Krister's YouTube channel HERE.) At first we got permission from the publisher Harper Collins and the Tolkien estate to do an amateur version of the story. Then New Line Cinema pulled all the worldwide rights to protect their interests. This could very well be the biggest disappointment of my life. Now I realize that our version was very humble indeed and not much different from other amateur efforts, with hand-held cams and kids for hobbits. Those of you who know the books can see that I've changed the barrow-wight fight a little bit. For those of you who don't know the story, it is as follows: The Hobbits are captured by a ghost called a barrow-wight, but rescued by Tom Bombadil, master of the Old Forest. This past weekend I found the old tape containing this particular footage, the devil went into me and I took a holiday from my other obligations to piece together a little video featuring this episode from the book "The Fellowship of the Ring". On Saturday evening I started building the barrow-wight hand and late Sunday morning it was ready to be animated. It's probably the fastest I've ever built a puppet. On Sunday evening the animation was finished and edited into the live-action footage. I wish all projects would go as easy as this one.
Here's the aluminum wire / Friendly Plastic hand armature. Nothing fancy, but it could do everything a human hand can do.
The hand armature covered with latex skins and a latex / cotton mix. It's been attached to a support rod made out of braided aluminum wire.
A pretty simple set-up as you can see. But why make things unneccesarily complicated?
The support rod was partially painted blue to be keyed out with the rest of the background.
There are a number of Tolkien fan film projects out there, and quite a bit of them on YouTube. Most of them are parodies but some are dead serious (perhaps a bit too serious for there own good). I've done a couple and am planning to do more. I'm a member of a forum on the web page "theonering.net", originally devoted to Peter Jackson's films, but now more of a stomping ground for Tolkien purists. There's a section for "fan art", including music and some home-made films. Some of us posting there have recieved quite a beating from those who believe that nothing should be produced without the approval of the Tolkien Estate. Tolkien himself stated that he'd like to approve all the art being produced based on his ideas, and now that he's gone, that job falls to the Estate. But I must say the taste and judgement of the Tolkien Estate is highly debatable. I use a by-line in my forum posts that read: "I would draw some of the great tales in fullness, and leave many only placed in the scheme, and sketched. The cycles should be linked to a majestic whole, and yet leave scope for other minds and hands, wielding paint and music and drama." Now, this is a quote from a letter that Tolkien wrote to editor Milton Waldman to convince him to publish "The Silmarillion" and "The Lord of the Rings" simultaniously. I took this quote as a postive affirmation that Tolkien would approve of at least of what some of us are attempting to do. He had, after all, the ambition to create an alternative mythology for Great Britain, that hopefully would be as appreciated and widely read (and studied) as any other real mythology. It was, however, pointed out to me on that forum that before that statement in the letter, Tolkien makes it clear he has all but abandoned this early idea for a larger, shared mythology. Thus, using that quote as a statement is a great misjustice to Tolkien's memory. The concept of that great shared mythology may not have been a reality when "The Lord of the Rings" was first published, but, by God, it certainly is now. I'd say Tolkien's ideas and imagination have grown out of the hands of any copyright holders. I'd say it falls to the love of us fans to do his work real justice, without any thoughts of any profit besides the shared joy of the finished result. I'll go so far as to say that some fan efforts help make up the perception of LOTR et al, for some of us. The fan efforts help make this a phenomenon, and I'm surprised this fact is not acknowledged. It's not any damn commerce that make a myth, but constant, honest retelling of it.
In the 60's when "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings" were absorbed by pop and hippie culture Tolkien was, as I understand it, befuddled by the great interest, the fanzines, the rock songs, the "Frodo Lives" stickers and the people trampling the flowers in the garden of his peaceful Oxford home just to take pictures of him and his wife. But as far as I know he never raised any issues of copyright infringement or claimed any "creative injury". And he very well could've, had he been inclined. The only debacle where he actually took action was against Ace Books, who published "The Lord of the Rings" in the US without telling him, using a loophole in the copyright law. In order to stop those books Tolkien addressed his most powerful ally; his fans, and asked them to boycott the Ace editions, which they did. I think that says a lot about the relationship between this author and his admirers.
A bit of a rant there, I'm afraid, but I feel strongly about all of this.
I love sculpting characters using my favorite clay in the Universe; Chavant. Mostly, my sculptures end up as puppets or masks, but I have also done sculptures that are cast as plastic figurines. For the past three months I've been really busy finishing films for both myself and others, plus I've been doing some art for books. But I decided to spend ten minutes every morning right before I go to work on creating a sculpture, made for no other redeeming reason except that it's fun to just do it. I decided to try my hand at one of my favorite characters ever; Mr Bilbo Baggins, hero of J R R Tolkien's "The Hobbit". I think the moment that best sums up Hobbit life is when Bilbo steps out to smoke his enormous pipe right in the beginning of chapter one ("early one morning in the quiet of the world"). He hears someone (Gandalf) coming up the path beside his Hobbit hole and starts to turn his head.
This sculpture was going to be quite small, but still needed some support. I made this very simple frame using tin wire and a plastic bottle cap.
The humble beginnings of Mr Baggins. I soften the Chavant with a heat gun and just slap it on to form a basic shape.
I was pretty sure I had taken a couple of photos of the sculpture in the middle stages of its creation. Obviously it wasn't so, so we'll skip right to the finished version. I added a clay pipe just for fun. It wasn't a part of the finished casting.
Here's a bunch of photos showing how the silicone mold was cast. I used DragonSkin Q from SmoothOn Inc. First I sponged on a very thin layer, just to get rid of air bubbles. I then built up a Chavant clay wall around the base, then pouring in silicone and letting it seek its level. Then the clay wall went up a little futher with more silicone, and on and on until the sculpture was covered. This way I was able to make a very sturdy, yet not overly thick, silicone mold. In the last two images you can see the clay wall removed and then the sculpture dismantled and taken out. I had to cut the mold in the back a bit using a hobby knife. I also cut the space between Bilbo's legs inside the mold in order to get the support frame out.
SmoothCast 325 (also from SmoothOn) was poured into the mold. To the right; the casting just after it came out of the mold.
The finished Bilbo figurine. The pipe was made by softening Friendly Plastic and rolling it into a long tube, then shaping it. The head of the pipe was made out of Apoxie sculpt. But if I start making any copies I'll make a pipe head that can be cast instead. The figurine was painted with acrylic airbrush colors. In some areas I painted on the color with a brush. I think this turned out quite well. Bilbo is 13 cm tall. You see, the plan is now to go on doing some other characters from the book; Gandalf, Thorin, Gollum, the Great Goblin and so on. Making Bilbo this size will allow me to make many of the other characters in scale, ending with Beorn. The Trolls and Smaug, if I ever make them, will have to be in a scale of their own. It seems my mornings will be booked for a while ahead. Roll on Gandalf..
As a huge Tolkien fan I also became an instant fan of Colin Rudd's music, since I believe it's the closest to sitting in an Middle-Earth inn and listening to a bard as we'll ever get. So I contacted him in June 2007 and asked for permission to use one of his songs, which illustrated Tolkien's "hobbit" poem "The Mewlips", to make a movie. He heartly agreed and off I was to the workshop and animation room... And I was pretty much off for a long while. All sorts of other jobs and problems to solve popped up one by one, so it's not until last week that this project was finished and posted on YouTube. Happily, Colin was happy with the result and now I'm working on the next project, "Ent Song".
The Mewlips are nasty creatures that hobbit parents scare their children with, so the kids don't wander off with foolish ideas of adventure. I had no idea how the puppets would look as I started sculpting them, but here's how they turned out.
Armatures for the puppets were made in my usual, cheap-but-sturdy way. The joints are braided aluminum wire and the "bones" are melted and shaped Friendly Plastic.
One of the mewlips has been covered in latex skin.
But his butt and back still needs to get dressed. As you can see there's some simple muscle shapes made out of foam rubber. The yellow sort is the softer one.
The boys are finished and ready to get moving.
The castle of the mewlips does not suffer any rodent-infestation, but rather an infestation of mudskippers. This tiny puppet is about 8 cm long and was animated separately on a blue screen set, so I could shrink it down when adding it to scenes with the mewlips. Had I built it in scale with the mewlip puppets it would've been pretty difficult to animate.
