Frame Characters

It's why Aragorn's almost paralyzing self-doubt works so well in the Jackson films even though it's nowhere near that dramatic in the books. Jackson and Co's choice to do this was intentional, not negligent, and it worked. Whether we agree with their choices or not, the films and their characters still hold up on their own to this day.

Ehhh....I agree that was a deliberate choice, but I really hated it. Giving Aragorn lines like 'the same weakness flows in my veins' was painful to hear.

I get your point, about taking it and running with it so that it's clear to the audience, hey, elves and men are different! But...this was *not* a decision I agree with or admire in any way. I would not like to copy that aspect of Jackson's work at all.

(I do agree with your point about story-telling in this medium, just...not the example.)
 
Or Estel walk into the cottage: "Who's this old guy?"
Gilraen: "Don't be rude, Estel. Mr. Jenkins just scrubbed your bathroom."
 
Ehhh....I agree that was a deliberate choice, but I really hated it. Giving Aragorn lines like 'the same weakness flows in my veins' was painful to hear.

I get your point, about taking it and running with it so that it's clear to the audience, hey, elves and men are different! But...this was *not* a decision I agree with or admire in any way. I would not like to copy that aspect of Jackson's work at all.

(I do agree with your point about story-telling in this medium, just...not the example.)

The beauty with our story is that there is no book precedent. We get to make it all up however we want to as long as the characters end up in the right places.
 
If we're having some support person helping Gilraen we need to decide what kind of things this person helps her with and how often. But first - are we agreed that such a person is needed, or do we think that some elves could help her out and the expression of feelings can be dealt with in talking to herself/Arathorn?
 
Hmmm, a modern American audience would see that as fairly pretentious. There's probably a way to make it work, though. These would be 'her' people, perhaps an old man who was loyal to her dead husband or something?
Two angles: a) Having additional characters, even in the background, takes away from the isolation Gilraen in particular experiences in Rivendell. If we want to make that a core part of her character, we shouldn't add any more humans. There is also not a ton of room for additional characters in the frame, and adding humans in Rivendell would seem to be begging for them to get some lines and screen time.

b) Having other humans present that can not only commiserate with Gilraen but also more easily communicate with other human communities outside of Rivendell gives us a lot more space not to paint Gilraen as a totally desperate refugee, and more of a willing houseguest. If we want to lighten up on making her seem less beholden to Elrond so that she has a better social position from which to disagree with him (i.e.-If he doesn't listen to her with regards to Estel, she really can take her ball and go home) and not seem like a total ingrate, we should do thus.

That's the major difference between having "servants" versus not having them as I see it, anyway.
 
I'm thinking about taking a swing at an actual pilot script while we are waiting for the hosts to get to the planning session for s02e01. I think that giving the Gilraen a bit more grief will allow her to be more aggressive with Elrond without it looking like she's a horrible person.
I will be shattered if we don't ever write any dialogue for this project. I dunno if we could get the project in trouble for it with the Tolkien Estate, but it's something I've had in mind when I first started raising rabble about nobody doing outlines back in December.
 
Ehhh....I agree that was a deliberate choice, but I really hated it. Giving Aragorn lines like 'the same weakness flows in my veins' was painful to hear.

I get your point, about taking it and running with it so that it's clear to the audience, hey, elves and men are different! But...this was *not* a decision I agree with or admire in any way. I would not like to copy that aspect of Jackson's work at all.

(I do agree with your point about story-telling in this medium, just...not the example.)
I never thought that point was in appropriate because I always felt like that was something Aragorn had to work out for himself at some point, just that in the book he's well past that part of his life; he made that decision about who he was before he ever meets Frodo.
 
I think we are leaning towards not adding human helpers? Some of us are clearly against adding people , and no one seems to want to fight for it. Fair enough. Any help she needs with her household is given by elves. We emphasise the moments when she meets her own people (the riders) and make her talk to herself/Arathorn. Is that ok with everyone?
 
Oh, I have forgotten about that. Are we ok so far?
Soooooort of?

Copyright law seems mostly to care about other people making money off other people's work; individual companies are variously more or less litigious, but often even when there is a clear copyright infringement, the most you ever get is a "cease and desist" notice, which is essentially a threat that the copyright holder will take you to court if you don't knock it off. Companies do it to protect their IP just in case anyone one does actually make money off something that could be construed as infringing on copyright: courts tend to be less interested in giving settlements if the copyright holder hasn't defended the copyright in the past.

Technically the whole project is pretty clearly copyright infringement, but there's little danger of getting yelled at over generally discussion and fan casting and episode outlines. The closer you get to a "finished product" of any kind, though, the likely hood increases that you'll hear from the copyright holder's lawyers, because it's in the company's best interest to establish a precedent of defending the copyright, even if the infringing party hasn't made a dime and never plans to.
 
Our exec team (Corey Olsen, Trish Lambert and Dave Kale) informed the Tolkien Estate of their plans for the SilmFilm project before it began. Talking about a film project (which is what the messageboards and podcasts are) is well within academic fair use.

Likewise, all artwork associated with this project is no different from any other Silmarillion-inspired fanart, which it is legal to produce and sell.

The scripts themselves would be more problematic, but there are scripts for the Silmarillion posted online and have been for years (like, at least 10 years), so I don't see how this would be any different from any other Tolkien-related fanfiction on the internet. I would imagine the Estate would be more interested in taking down the 10,000 Morgoth/Sauron fanfics in existence* than going after this project (even if we do write a full script). But...they haven't, so letting fanfiction be seems to be their policy.

However, if anyone does any pre-production work to actually make sets/costumes and films a scene, we will have crossed a line. Fanfilms of the Silmarillion have not gone over well with the Tolkien Estate, and they do send out cease-and-desist letters for that.

* I may have exaggerated slightly. There's over 300 such fics on AO3, though, and about 120 on ff.net, so... that's leaving out tumblr and lj.
 
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The Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope, as Lord of the Rings fanfilms, are acceptable. Silmarillion fanfilms are a different story. As ouzaru pointed out, they have to maintain their claim to the film rights and protect their interests.
 
What I mean is that for official films for The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit, Christopher Tolkien has displayed contempt for them and even declined having a say in their productions, even as a creative consultant as J.K. Rowling did when the Harry Potter films were being made; she retained the rights and approved any changes the screenwriters made. I guess Christopher Tolkien doesn't like Harry Potter either
 
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If I remember my Media Law & Policy class correctly, we can do pretty much anything we want as long as we don't make a profit off of anything we produce that has a trademark.

Both Hunt for Gollum and Born of Hope were distributed for free and therefore were not 'for profit'.
 
Storm Over Gondolin was going to be a freely-distributed fanfilm as well (IIRC), and they still got a cease and desist letter. The Tolkien Estate holds the film rights to the Silmarillion, and they aren't sharing.

http://www.legendariummedia.com/201...en-fan-filmand-video-production-diary-part-1/

http://www.superheromoviesnews.com/2013/12/storm-over-gondolin-fan-film-cancelled.html



[Though at this point, the thread has moved far afield of discussing costuming choices for the Frame characters in Season 1!]
 
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