Thanks Nick!
My 'prepared' remarks looked like this, and I managed to more-or-less say what I intended to, though I did not use the Vairë example and probably could have said more about Tulkas and Nessa. [Brackets are for what got left out]
One of the really cool things about the Silm Film Project is that it gives us the opportunity to get to know characters who are mere names on the page in the source material. Círdan might seem rather elusive in Tolkien's stories, always being just beyond the edge of the action, but we will see him in multiple episodes across the seasons, playing a role in many events of this unfolding story. So, who is he? What is important to him? Is he happy about his role as the gatekeeper of the road to the West, or does he feel abandoned to have to stick around and wait for all the other elves to go first? We are just starting to develop his character in Season 2, and already we're giving him some wisdom and insights that his fellow travellers lack. He has a rather mystical sense of purpose, rooted in dreams from Ulmo that allows him to make some choices that will impact his role for Ages to come. It introduces themes of destiny and free will, and sets him up to be a wise elf who views the bigger picture in later conflicts. This kind of invention allows us to explore the characters and stories in a new way, and is really a lot of fun.
But if you think Círdan is obscure...we also get to have multiple seasons of Gilraen, mother of Aragorn in the Frame. Season 1 involves a 10-year old Aragorn learning the pre-history creation stories from Elrond in Rivendell as a framing device, and Season 3 will return to this Frame with Aragorn now a teenager as we delve into the rebellion of the Noldor. For Season 1, we portray Gilraen as a grieving widow who is concerned that her son is being raised a bit too elvish. Over the course of the season, Gilraen and Elrond have to learn to work together a bit towards the common goal of raising Estel (young Aragorn). While Tolkien only gave us a glimpse of her character (seriously, she's in like 3 paragraphs), under Corey's direction, we hoped to base her rather strongly on Andreth, the wise woman who debates Finrod in the Athrabeth. That was when we ran into a problem. While it is all well and good to set the tension in the frame between the young Dunedain widow and the wise old elf lord, in practical terms it becomes *very* difficult to portray her in such a way that the audience will be sympathetic to her viewpoint, rather than write her off as a bitter and suspicious helicopter mom, always ungratefully complaining about the efforts of wise Master Elrond to educate her son. And so, in an effort to make her point of view seem valid, we dialed back a lot of the bickering/complaining...which eliminated some of the tension we were aiming for. It turns out that it is tricky to find that balance without falling into cliches, or writing one character as always right all the time!
We were also challenged to avoid the pitfalls of cliched stereotypes when the Hosts requested a scene in the early days of Arda in which Nessa (the Vala of dance) would be kidnapped by Ungoliant and rescued by Tulkas. The 'damsel in distress' trope shows up in many stories, of course, and there's nothing really wrong with it (depending on how it is handled), but it happens not to be particularly...Tolkien. In Tolkien's stories, he never plays this straight, but always has the rescue orchestrated in some other way. Aredhel arranges her own escape, Lúthien rescues Beren, and Maedhros is saved by his cousin Fingon in much the same way as Sam rescues Frodo in the Tower of Cirith Ungol in Lord of the Rings. We *never* see a woman rescued from a villain's captivity by the man who loves her in any of Tolkien's stories (do we?) So....why would that happen here, in the archetypal world of the Valar in the earliest days of Middle Earth? What are we 'setting up' by telling that story? That was our challenge. We decided to meet it head on by focusing on Nessa's role and her unwavering trust (estel) in the will of Iluvatar. [That conviction happens to be what gets Tulkas' attention, so he does arrive as more-or-less an answer to prayer. But we subverted his strength by making him get hopelessly lost in the darkness and webs, and required them to work together to escape. In the end, yes, it is a stereotypical rescue on the surface, but we see that Tulkas views it as he almost missed out on the opportunity to come to Middle Earth, and Nessa saved him from that. Rather than setting up their wedding as a 'reward' for him rescuing her, it is more like a reunion of old friends who thought they would never see each other again.] Even though this sequence was an addition to the story, it did seem to fit with some of the important themes we were tying to develop in Season 1 and therefore 'fit' into the broader world we are creating.
One of the challenges of this project is keeping track of the decisions that are made, and being flexible enough to adapt everyone's story ideas to fit. The Silm Film Team doesn't always make decisions - sometimes they postpone and kick the can until later. And occasionally earlier ideas are changed as the story moves further along and earlier ideas aren't workable. But once the decisions are made, we on the Script Discussion Team do try our best to stick to the timeline and ideas they decided on...unless we really don't like them. Then we rebel and do our own thing. (Save the Lamps!) But for the most part, we work within the structure that they've set, and try to make the story fit not only the source material provided by Tolkien, but also the Silm Film sessions. As the project goes on, avoiding contradicting ourselves is going to get harder and harder. Seemingly innocuous details can catch up with you.
[For instance, when the elven Ambassadors Ingwë, Finwë and Elwë visit Valinor, we wanted to have Vairë interact with Finwë. The Hosts decided early on that Vairë would always remain silent and never speak, just weave images on her loom. So, naturally, she would make a tapestry for Finwë. So far so good. BUT, would her giving Finwë a tapestry depicting him and Míriel in Valinor impact his decision to bring the Noldor to Valinor? Or his decision to marry Míriel? The question of fate and whether or not the Valar would take a 'non-interference' role immediately arose. Keeping Vairë's action here consistent with the Valar's actions in later events seemed important. Another (fairly minor detail) was setting. Would the meeting of Finwë and Vairë take place in her workroom? And is that....in Mandos? Wait....can living elves enter the Halls of Mandos? Is there, like an ante-chamber where the living can go, but further in a 'none shall pass' doorway? We moved the meeting to Lorien, as that avoided the question of whether or not Finwë would be able to visit Míriel after her death - the answer should be 'no.' ]