The (Unofficial) SilmFilm Organization Project©

Octoburn

Octoburn

Active Member
So, I have been in and out of activity for right at two years on the SilmFilm Project.

The last time I came back, I came to realize that one of the main reasons I have drifted out of it at times has been the organization, or ease of access to the information in regards to adaptational decisions.

So a few months ago, I decided to take the initiative and try my hand at organizing what information we have so far in a google Drive. Especially with the Beren and Luthien season upcoming, and the expectation that viewership may have a significant uptick going into this season.

SilmFilm Organization - Google Drive

drive.google.com drive.google.com

I am looking for both input and output, if you will. Input on if you feel this is the best way to organize this information. Output, because there are several things we are still in need of, but I do not possess the time to do myself. I would also like to know if anything that was officially decided in a session was later denounced, so it can be noted in the session notes. Not sure if this has happened or not, but it would be good to know if it has.

I am pretty happy with the present formula for the organization, but I also have some other plans. I want to have individual character write-ups for the main characters, including things such as adaptational decisions for those characters. But, I am unsure of how to do it. It could either be a simple google doc that contains all the characters of certain groups (Feanorians, House of Beor, for example) or, we could do a google sheets (basically a powerpoint) doing much of the same. I also want to do this with locations, including some of the original concept art we have. And possibly family trees.

The main thing that is presently needed are session notes for many of the sessions. I will post a full list of the session outlines that we do not have shortly.

MithLuin has been aware of this from the start. I believe the conclusion we came to was to allow access for editing/uploading to she and a few others. Not being included in that does not exclude you from helping. If you wish to submit anything to the project, you can send me a message here, or an email at [email protected], or obviously MithLuin or any of the other attached contributors.

I look forward to any and everyone's input and/or output!
Aurë entuluva!
 
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Below is the template I made for character files. Any suggestions on improvements are encouraged.

Character name
Citizenship:
Gender:
Titles/Aliases:
Status:
Seasons:
Significant items:
Adaptational decisions:
Biography: [divided by seasons]
 
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I am so grateful to you for doing this. I've tried to get around to tackling something like this for so long and felt so guilty for not doing it. I still plan on finishing up a show bible during the off season, but with your permission I will likely include links to what you have here for more specific information.

Octoburn said:
(RESERVED)
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That's very clever.
 
Nicholas Palazzo said:
I am so grateful to you for doing this. I've tried to get around to tackling something like this for so long and felt so guilty for not doing it. I still plan on finishing up a show bible during the off season, but with your permission I will likely include links to what you have here for more specific information.
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Absolutely. Feel free to do so. Like I said, I mostly did it for my own sanity. If I'm going to get more involved with this, I have to have this information at hand, it's how I do my own writing, and I would lose interest pretty easily again, if I cant get this more or less finished.

Nicholas Palazzo said:
That's very clever.
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Eh, pretty common practice on other boards I used to frequent. Mostly game development, where you want to have a couple (or more) of the first posts to add updates, screenshots, etc. so that people don't have to drudge through a thread to find what they're looking for.
 
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Rob Harding said:
I’m in exactly the same boat in that, as a latecomer, it’s been difficult to dive in without scouring through threads and finding indivisible links to episodes etc. This is such a fantastic portal. Welldone
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It is still very incomplete. Without at least a bit of help, it may never progress much from where it is now. It's mostly good for the episode outlines and what scripts have been done so far. I usually listen to the podcasts at work, so I rarely have time to take notes on the sessions. This thread is both for feedback, as well as in hopes that someone will step forward and help out in some of those aspects.

MithLuin has been a great asset in helping me find some of the stuff I was unable to find beforehand.
 
Octoburn said:
It is still very incomplete. Without at least a bit of help, it may never progress much from where it is now. It's mostly good for the episode outlines and what scripts have been done so far. I usually listen to the podcasts at work, so I rarely have time to take notes on the sessions. This thread is both for feedback, as well as in hopes that someone will step forward and help out in some of those aspects.

MithLuin has been a great asset in helping me find some of the stuff I was unable to find beforehand.
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One of our ongoing problems has been that so much of the information involved in this project has existed only on far-flung subforums and in the brains of those of us who have been here long enough. And any of us who do have the info are already at the upper limit of our ability to commit time to this project.

I do have a few side projects which will help not only with the content of the project, but also with the procedures we've had to set up for the sake of sanity.
 
 
David_M_R said:
(Copying over from the FAQ thread so these can be recorded somehow for the Organization folder) Season 5 scripts (doc format) are linked to from these posts:

ep 4: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/script-discussion-s05e04.4253/post-37620
ep 8: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/script-discussion-s05e08.4332/post-39331
ep 11: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/script-discussion-s05e11.4408/post-40849
ep 12: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/script-discussion-s05e12.4452/post-39040
ep 13: https://forums.signumuniversity.org/index.php?threads/script-discussion-s05e13.4485/post-41086
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Episodes 1, 4 & 8 have been in the folder for quite a while. I hadn't included 11, 12 or 13 because when I started compiling this, the sessions to review those scripts had not yet happened. Even now, they are still in a bit of an "in between" state, so I'm a bit hesitant to add them in until the writers are satisfied with them; but being a writer myself, I know we are never really satisfied with them. In fact, since Nick has access to the folders himself now, I will likely leave it to him to drop them in there when he feels it's appropriate. The purpose here is so that people who wish to catch up (or simply find something) can do so easily.
 
Okay, I added in the charts that show all the session notes that we currently have. We have a lot that do not have any notes. So if anyone would like to take a session or two (or a season or two? 😉) and get some notes together for them, it would hugely be appreciated. I feel like these notes could be the easier way to get people into the series, rather than strictly through scripts, which many people do not like reading; or binge-listening to 115+ 2-3 hour podcasts.

Also, if you know of any session notes that I missed, please let me know.

I also added to the second post a potential template for character biographies that I would like to add. Any suggestions towards the structure of those, and how we should organize them would be greatly appreciated. And again, if anyone would like to write up a few of the profiles, feel free!
 
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Octoburn said:
Episodes 1, 4 & 8 have been in the folder for quite a while. I hadn't included 11, 12 or 13 because when I started compiling this, the sessions to review those scripts had not yet happened. Even now, they are still in a bit of an "in between" state, so I'm a bit hesitant to add them in until the writers are satisfied with them; but being a writer myself, I know we are never really satisfied with them. In fact, since Nick has access to the folders himself now, I will likely leave it to him to drop them in there when he feels it's appropriate. The purpose here is so that people who wish to catch up (or simply find something) can do so easily.
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Got it covered.
 
To be fair, Episodes 4 and 8 are also in a 'draft' stage. Episode 4 has a lot of notes that need to be incorporated (particularly in the Frame and later scenes), and Episode 8 needs a lot of work in the dwarf story line. But it's fine to link to those files, as any updates will be made to those google docs.
 
I think a lot of concept art got lost withnthe old forum,at last they are not visible any longer.Does somebody still have them i wonder?
 
Octoburn said:
Below is the template I made for character files. Any suggestions on improvements are encouraged.

Character name
Citizenship:
Gender:
Titles/Aliases:
Status:
Seasons:
Significant items:
Adaptational decisions:
Biography: [divided by seasons]
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Hmmm, I think some family tree info (parents, siblings, spouse, children) would be helpful, especially in places where we have invented characters or altered Tolkien's family trees.

So, as a sample character:
Elrhûn
Citizenship: Sindar (Mithrim)
Gender: Male
Titles/Aliases: Herald (under Fingon)
Status: Alive (for now)
Seasons: 4-7
Father: Annael
Significant items:
Adaptational decisions: Rejects his father Annael after the reveal of Annael's betrayal
Biography:
Season 4: Introduced as a young elf, happily picnicking on the fields of Ard-Galen with his father and mother. Threatened by Morgoth's forces during the Dagor Aglareb, but escapes (while Annael and Rhogrin are captured).
Season 5: Joins Fingon's service, replacing his ill-fated heralds from Season 4. Reunited with his father when Annael escapes from Angband. Participates in the Siege and the Dagor Bragollach.
Season 6: Will reject Annael when his father's unwitting treachery is revealed to have played a role in the fall of Minas Tirith.
Season 7: Will die with Fingon in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad?
 
Kathrin said:
I would, if that's needed, take the job of catalogueing the visuals, sketches, maps & the like for SilmFilm. I think it could be cool to have those more easily accessible.
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That would definitely be helpful. I thought about doing locations as either slides (PowerPoints) or just as a doc containing the images and some description/discussion of what was decided with the given images. I'll leave it up to you if you want to just email or PM the images and descriptions, and I can create the files, or you can create the file and I can copy it over to the Drive folders.

MithLuin said:
Hmmm, I think some family tree info (parents, siblings, spouse, children) would be helpful, especially in places where we have invented characters or altered Tolkien's family trees.

So, as a sample character:
Elrhûn
Citizenship: Sindar (Mithrim)
Gender: Male
Titles/Aliases: Herald (under Fingon)
Status: Alive (for now)
Seasons: 4-7
Father: Annael
Significant items:
Adaptational decisions: Rejects his father Annael after the reveal of Annael's betrayal
Biography:
Season 4: Introduced as a young elf, happily picnicking on the fields of Ard-Galen with his father and mother. Threatened by Morgoth's forces during the Dagor Aglareb, but escapes (while Annael and Rhogrin are captured).
Season 5: Joins Fingon's service, replacing his ill-fated heralds from Season 4. Reunited with his father when Annael escapes from Angband. Participates in the Siege and the Dagor Bragollach.
Season 6: Will reject Annael when his father's unwitting treachery is revealed to have played a role in the fall of Minas Tirith.
Season 7: Will die with Fingon in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad?
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We can do the family stuff, but I figured if we get some elven family trees done up, they would cover it simpler than including it in the bios. Imagine some of the Noldor characters, Celebrimbor for example; he'd have like 7 uncles and dozens of other relatives listed. I just feel a visual family tree would be easier.

Isn't Elrhûn's "adaptational decision" his existence? He's one of the created characters for the show?

I'm not trying to be confrontational on either point; in the end I will do what is decided is best by the majority.
 
Octoburn said:
That would definitely be helpful. I thought about doing locations as either slides (PowerPoints) or just as a doc containing the images and some description/discussion of what was decided with the given images. I'll leave it up to you if you want to just email or PM the images and descriptions, and I can create the files, or you can create the file and I can copy it over to the Drive folders.


We can do the family stuff, but I figured if we get some elven family trees done up, they would cover it simpler than including it in the bios. Imagine some of the Noldor characters, Celebrimbor for example; he'd have like 7 uncles and dozens of other relatives listed. I just feel a visual family tree would be easier.

Isn't Elrhûn's "adaptational decision" his existence? He's one of the created characters for the show?

I'm not trying to be confrontational on either point; in the end I will do what is decided is best by the majority.
Click to expand...

Perhaps there is a way to do both. Have a character profile in a Google Doc with "Lineage" link that takes the reader to the appropriate family tree image file.
 
Octoburn said:
That would definitely be helpful. I thought about doing locations as either slides (PowerPoints) or just as a doc containing the images and some description/discussion of what was decided with the given images. I'll leave it up to you if you want to just email or PM the images and descriptions, and I can create the files, or you can create the file and I can copy it over to the Drive folders.
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I wondered what the best format for it would be too.. I'd think it would be most helpful for looking it up if you could see a list (just a bunch of named folders can do) of all the places/costumes/topics there are visualisations on and then open the respective folders and find the contents and maybe a text file summarising the discussion on it.
 
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