The Next Level recently bagged an interview with “Born of Hope” Director, Kate Madison (who also plays Elgarain), and leading actor Christopher Dane who plays Arathorn. Our team gave their fans a chance to ask any questions that haven’t already been answered so this is were we come in.

 

TNL:

Greetings, thank you for making this possible. Our fans as well as yours are stoked, I’m sure of this. Okay, I’m going to start this interview off by introducing myself. You might already know, but I am Davion, but everyone calls me TEG. In various parts of the web, including the Pandemic Studios community, I gave them all a chance to give me questions, and I chose the best out of those questions to start off with.

 

TNL:

On your website you mentioned that Born of Hope is "Inspired by only a couple of paragraphs written by Tolkien in the appendices of the Lord of the Rings".  What challenges did that represent for the production of this film?

 

KATE: I suppose it was like being given only a few pieces of a large jig saw puzzle and then having to fill in the rest to create a picture that makes sense, and fits into the world that Tolkien created.  All we were given were a few named characters and a few key events that happened in their lifetime, but that’s not enough to make a good story.  We needed to take these characters and build the world around them. What were they like as a person? Who were their friends and colleagues?  What events might have happened in their past, and what events might happen in our story?  With our film focusing on Gilraen and Arathorn, the parents of Aragorn, Tolkien didn’t really tell us any more than that Gilraen’s father did not approve of the marriage because of Gilraen’s age.  We therefore had to decide how the couple had met.  Did they grow up together or meet later on?  It’s a double-edged sword really.  We have the freedom to create our own story, but with the hope that Tolkien fans will like and accept it.

 

 

TNL:

How much of the film had to be only loosely based on Tolkien's work and how much was almost straight from those paragraphs?

 

KATE: The only thing that is really taken out of the paragraphs is some dialogue between Gilraen’s parents, Ivorwen and Dirhael, discussing the proposed marriage.  We debated whether to copy the dialogue word for word and decided in the end to rewrite it to say the same thing.  We thought this would be more respectful being that we were an unlicensed film.  While writing the script we did look at other Tolkien books and information on the Internet, and discovered a few other pieces that we could make use of.  For example we found something that mentioned what Ivorwen says at the birth and naming of Aragorn, which I thought was lovely to include.

 

TNL:

So, as an independent film, do you think you captured the feel of LOTR?

 

CHRIS:

It’s very hard to say... I guess that at the end of the day that’s up to the fans to decide.  But if we’re talking about the LOOK of the film, I’m pretty sure we have matched what Jackson set down in the trilogy.  I know the debate has been about whether or not he made the right choices, but it’s done now, and for most people out there, the LOTR universe is visually defined by those films.  Kate wanted Born of Hope to be seen alongside the trilogy, and therefore we had to take a lot of direction from what Jackson created... and I think we have achieved a hell of a lot on a very small budget.  But as I said it’s up to the fans to judge if we’ve done enough.

 

KATE:

I agree.  Everyone who has read the books, especially before seeing the New Line Trilogy, creates the characters and places in their own head and one person’s Frodo will look different from another person’s.  The joy of doing Born of Hope is that we are not seeing any characters that have already been created on film. Our actors could therefore take these new characters and make them their own. Obviously a film can only show one version and one idea of how things are.  Not everyone will agree I am sure, but the response we have had so far before the film is even finished shows that most people love what we are doing, and how much we have captured the feel.

 

TNL:

Do you have a lot of fun doing the battle scenes?

 

CHRIS:

I have so much fun you won’t believe it... it’s like being 12 years old again and running around in the forest playing Cowboys and Indians or Cops and Robbers.  On top of that I have my own sword that was made especially for the film by Raven Armory... and before you ask, no, I don’t get to keep it like Viggo Mortensen did.

 

KATE:

We have a lot of fighting in the film including a big battle at the climax, which we filmed about a week ago and I still have the bruises to prove it.  We have been extremely lucky to have such a dedicated team of people making it all happen.  Fight directors making sure everything looks fantastic on camera and everyone is safe doing it.  A fight team who most of the time have had to endure hours in prosthetic makeup starting often at about 4am in the bitter cold and being killed over and over, so much so that we coined the phrase “recycl-Orc”.  We have a group of Viking re-enactors who come half way across the country to be involved every time we film. All the Supporting Artists who come along, often in costumes they’ve made especially, to run and scream and basically make the whole thing come alive.  The fights would not be anything without all of these people and I hope the fans will enjoy all the action in the film. 

 

TNL:

What’s it like being an actor for independent films?

 

CHRIS:

For the actors in independent films the challenges are somehow even bigger than in the large budget productions, but the rewards are also greater.  In an independent film you sometimes have to be your own continuity person, which means that you have to make sure that you are wearing the right costume and props for the scene (as there are no money to employ someone to watch over that aspect of filming), and most of the time you need to be pretty clued into where you are in the film and what has been done before and is going to be done after.  I have been in many productions where I had to tell the crew what was going, not because they didn’t care, but because no one else had the time to check on that – you have to understand that everyone on set are doing three to four peoples work.  The reward is in the fact that you can influence the script and development of your character more than in a big budget film, and that to me is the most interesting part of film making.

 

TNL:

How exciting was it to work with the other actors and the director?

 

CHRIS:

It’s always very exciting to work on a film set.  Personally I’m interested in all aspects of the film making process, so I really enjoy working with the lighting people, sound guys and the camera operators and all the other people involved from runners to catering.  When everyone has done their jobs, and it’s finally time for the actors to do theirs, it’s always an interesting process.  Scenes that you thought you knew how to play can be turned upside down by one actor doing something different.  Your challenge as an actor is to allow the process to be alive, and to feed off what both the other actors and the director bring to the scene.  And that is always very interesting.

 

TNL:

Did you feel nervous, portraying a character that LOTR fans like?

 

CHRIS:

I think I have done enough work on the character to justify what I’m doing... but naturally I do get worried about how the fans are going to receive my interpretation of Arathorn.  Luckily many fans on our website have said that I look like I could be Viggo Mortensen’s father... maybe it’s because we share the same Scandinavian roots.

 

TNL:

What do you think of Peter Jackson's adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, and have you taken any inspiration from the films?

 

KATE:

Peter Jackson’s films introduced me to Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings, and I really enjoyed the movies. Watching all the extended editions and all the behind the scenes made me wish I had been a part of it.  When I heard about the fan film competition in 2003 just around the time of the Return of the King I thought it would be a fantastic opportunity to finally make a film, which I hadn’t really done at the time, and to make one about this new world I had just discovered.  The movies and then the books were absolutely the inspiration for Born of Hope and I really wanted to match the style and feel as much as possible.

 

CHRIS:
I really loved the trilogy... despite all the problems, different interpretations of some of the storyline and the things that were left out, I think Jackson brought the world to life and created some of the most exciting storytelling in resent cinematic history... the trilogy has taken almost three billion dollars in box-office and DVD sales - hard to argue against that.

 

TNL:

What made you opt for this particular storyline? Were there other potential storylines that you considered?

KATE:
Back in 2003 the first story idea was looking at how other areas of Middle Earth were affected by the War of the Ring, like Mirkwood. I very quickly realized that this idea was too large to attempt as it involved large amounts of Dwarves and Elves and Orcs and horses etc as you can imagine.  I put that one on the shelf and started thinking about stories that Tolkien had already written, looking back through the Appendices of the Lord of the Rings.

My next thought was to do the early part of Aragorn and Arwen's relationship, with their first meeting in the woods of Rivendell.  I would need only two or three actors and Tolkien had detailed much of their relationship.  I decided against this idea however because Viggo and Liv as Aragorn and Arwen are now so imprinted in our minds that I felt people would find it hard to believe in the actors I found to imitate them.  I therefore needed a story that people would want to see but that didn’t involve any character that we had seen in the New Line Trilogy. 

I first read the books only after the release of the Two Towers and the Dúnedain had really captured my interest and a story about these rangers of the North really appealed.  Also, as they had been cut from the movie version I did not need to compete with or replicate what had been done before.  So I decided that we could show people more of a back-story for Aragorn and where he came from.  We could also show characters on screen who had to be cut from the New Line Trilogy.   So not only are we introducing a number of new characters but we will also see the sons of Elrond and a young Halbarad who is mentioned in the books. 

TNL:

What are the difficulties of having the film 60 minutes long? How much discussion was there with regards to the length of the film?

 

KATE:
Well, anything over 45 minutes is classed as a feature film by the Internet Movie Database, but doing a feature wasn’t the original idea.  During the scripting stage the film went from being a short 20min film to a 90min feature and back to a shortish 30min, three part film.  It was very hard to decide what to do.  The fact that it was an internet film meant that we were worried about making it too long for people to sit through, we also didn’t really have a budget and a feature would cost more money and take longer to film, edit etc.  However we also had about 7 years to cover which is not easy in a short film.  Our final idea was the 30 minute film cut into three parts for easy viewing on places like youtube.  Of course that script ended up as 40 pages which roughly equates to about 40 minutes and as we started to film it grew a little more.  When we did a script reading back at the start of 2008 it lasted about one hour and twenty minutes, however until we finish at least a rough cut we won’t really know how long the final film will be as things always change in the edit.  
 

TNL:

How difficult has it been to handle the Elvish-speaking parts of the film?

 

CHRIS:
It was very difficult. I normally have a good ear for languages and accents, but for some reason Elvish doesn’t stick in my brain. Maybe it’s because most of my Elvish is in scenes we shot outdoors at minus 5... that didn’t help! On top of that even our experts didn’t always agree on the pronunciation, which meant that we as actors had to take some liberties... we’re probably going to get a lot of stick for not getting it right all the time... please remember that we tried!!!


KATE:
It was very important to me to add some Sindarin to the film. The first day we had our Elves on set it was just wonderful to see the guys dressed up and speaking Sindarin like they did it everyday.  It is said that the Dúnedain of the North spoke this or a similar language as their main tongue, but to do the whole film in another language would have been too much of a challenge.  We also had to remember that most people would be watching the film on their computer so too many subtitles could be hard to follow. We managed to get some people on board with a real knowledge of the languages that Tolkien invented.  Roman Rausch from Germany translated the lines from English into Sindarin and even created sound files of them for all the actors to listen to and learn from.  These were invaluable as it was not possible to have someone on set who really understood the language so we just had to trust that we would at least be 90% correct.  We may have to do some ADR (Additional Dialogue Recording) to the film due to planes, wind and all the usual sound issues, if this is the case we can double check all the Sindarin and get it as good as it can be.  As Chris says, we just hope people enjoy the fact that we added some of Tolkien’s other languages and that we tried to do them justice.

 

TNL:

Does the film follow Aragon's rising more, or Arathorn’s life? Which is the main focus for the story? Or is it something else entirely?

 

KATE:

We have seven years to cover in about an hour, which is a challenge and means that there are jumps in time, especially after Aragorn’s birth.  The film focuses on Arathorn, the father Aragorn never really knew, the warrior, husband, friend, father and leader of a valiant people. It is his journey rather than how Aragorn was brought up.

 

TNL:

What exactly is the conflict in the story? We realize that it is about the Dúnedain and their dwindling in the world, but who are the antagonists? Most if not all info has only revolved around the protagonists.

 

KATE:
It’s hard to know how much to say really.  We want people to have some surprises when they finally get to see the film. Basically before Sauron rediscovered the One Ring, another ring held his gaze: the ring of Barahir. This token of the linage of Kings, awoke Sauron’s vengeance to destroy the people who had almost destroyed him.  

 

“Of all the peoples of Middle-earth Sauron held none with more hatred and more fear than the Dúnedain. He spread his will amongst his servants and through the long years sought ever to discover if the Heirs of Isildur yet lived, so that he might destroy them, and the last of his greatest enemies would be lost forever.”

 

The main antagonist we see in the film is Shaknar, a cunning, trophy hunting orc who leads a relentless onslaught against the Dúnedain in service of Sauron.

 

It isn’t just the orcs causing conflict however.  Love can cause just as much pain as hate, and some of the characters in Born of Hope struggle to find the blissful happiness Gilraen and Arathorn enjoy.

 

 

TNL:

How did you first get involved in the project? What impressed you most about the way the story evolved?

 

CHRIS:
I got involved in the project in late 2005 when Kate was kind enough to audition me for the part of Arathorn. We did the test-shoot in early 2006, and from then on it has been a rollercoaster ride with a lot of different ideas for the story. The script has changed many times from a short film to the feature length film it’s going to be. I was lucky enough to be able to contribute to the script and a few scenes are in fact mine... can’t tell you what they are because that will spoil the ending!

 

TNL:

What was the most difficult part of the shoot?

 

CHRIS:
Getting up at 4 in the morning to get into makeup... when you’ve done that enough times nothing else is difficult!

KATE:
Making films is always full of highs and lows and luckily, when it’s all over, the lows are forgotten and the highs are remembered.  For me the lowest point so far was in November 2008.  We had basically been shooting every weekend for over a month and then hit a week long shoot back at the village at West Stow.  There was so much to do, the weather was freezing, the budget was going though the roof, I was sometimes pulling all nighters trying to schedule the next day’s shoot and my stress levels were at their highest.  We shot some great stuff but it was really hard work for everyone involved and I was quite relieved when it was over and we could take a well earned break.

 

TNL:

How long did you have to train for the fight scenes, and what was it like to train with weapons?

 

CHRIS:
You have to put a lot of work into creating a good fight sequence.  Let me give you an example: our Fight Director, Lewis Penfold, and myself rehearsed the big final duel between Arathorn and the super Orc Gorganog for over four days before it was put in front of the camera. And it still took more than seven hours to film – but it was so great to do it.  Most of the other fights were also rehearsed in advance, while some were worked on as other scenes were being filmed.  We were very lucky that most of our supporting artists (rangers and Orcs alike) were very skilled fighters, which meant that we could adapt the fights from rehearsals to filming on the day of shooting... there’s always something that doesn’t quite work once the costumes are on and the adrenalin is flowing.  And believe me, the sight of 20 Orcs in full makeup, costume and massive swords running straight at you will get your adrenalin going!

 

KATE:
I’ve always enjoyed stage combat, which I first trained in about six years ago and was very keen to get people who really knew what they were doing to assist with this film. As Lewis Penfold has said “People excuse bad acting, they do not excuse bad action” and this is so true.  We started doing some training with the fight team back in 2007, looking at the different fighting styles of our two main groups the rangers and the orcs. We had a few workshops over the years and some proper rehearsals before the main fights which were filmed in March 2009. Many of the main actors had very little experience in sword fighting, some had learnt it a little at drama school but there are very few opportunities to use those skills.  It was interesting to see how each actor created their own style that matched their character.  They all did very well with the challenge and very much enjoyed it.

 

 

TNL:

What was the most challenging part of directing the film and playing a part in “Born of Hope”? Do you think there is more pressure as a female director?

 

KATE:
I wear various hats on this production (director, producer, production manager, location manager, accountant, actor etc), and it is often a worry that certain jobs may suffer because of that.  Luckily however, everyone working on the project understands and everyone pulls together.  On days when I am acting I often have to just trust in the team behind camera to become my eyes as a director as there is not always time to continuously watch playback, and it can also be hard to be objective about your own performance.

 

I’m not sure that there is more pressure being a female director, I have never felt that anyone has ever looked down on me because I’m female.  Come to think of it I’m sure over half the cast and crew are female, for example, producer, director, writers, production coordinators, art dept, makeup, wardrobe and many of the fight team.  For me the pressure comes from doing so many different jobs really, especially acting in your own film.  When the project first started I wasn’t going to act in it, but as the project progressed I could see myself getting to the end of the film thinking “that’s great, that’s just the sort of film I’d love to act in...D’oh!”  So in about 2007, while we were working on the new script, I suggested to my co writers that maybe we could add in a small supporting role for me.  However as the script developed and grew so did the role, which ended up quite a key player in the story. I think the character is a very interesting and important one, but it means that I am on camera more than originally intended.

 

 

TNL:

Did you do any additional reading in Tolkien's works to learn as much as possible about Arathorn, and if so, how did that help you create the character on screen?

 

CHRIS:
As Kate explained before, there isn’t much written about Arathorn. We only know that he was the fifteenth chieftain of the Dúnedain, that he married Gilraen, had Aragorn and died at the age of 60. Therefore I chose to base my character on what we know about Aragorn, and what Jackson and Viggo brought to that character. Aragorn’s reluctance to fight and become the king had to come from somewhere, and I decided that it came from a fear to be like his father – not that he didn’t like his father, but what his father stood for: the leader of men. My Arathorn is therefore a more ‘brutal’ man if you like, he doesn’t shy away from a fight and he does make wrong decisions. Having seen both his grandfather (Arador) and his own father die because they were chieftains, it’s no wonder Aragorn doesn’t want to go down that route.

 

 

TNL:

Describe your working relationship with the other actors. What did they bring to the table that helped you more fully realize the character of Arathorn?

 

CHRIS:
Arathorn is a leader of men, and to make that come across the other actors became his men... when we were filming the fight scenes I really had a sense that these people would do anything to protect me. Another key element was brought to the table by Howard Cortlett. Howard plays Halbaron, Arathorn’s second in command, and the way he gave that character a steely stillness really complimented the complexity of Arathorn’s journey. On the other hand Beth, who plays Gilraen, brought a tenderness to her character that really contrasted Arathorn and therefore made their relationship real and rounded.

 

TNL:

What was it like to work with Kate Madison, creator, actor and director of Born of Hope?

 

CHRIS:
I’m sitting next to her, so I better get this right... I have to say that I really admire her for what she has achieved. If you haven’t been on one of the Born of Hope the shoots, you will never have an idea of the magnitude of the whole thing: at one point there were over 70 people on set... you can imagine the challenges that brings to the table. One of the biggest problems for Kate was to try to be everything at the same time - when you’re trying to direct and be in the scene at the same time that can be a real nightmare. Luckily everyone on set are trying to make the best film possible, and therefore we all chipped in and it mostly went smoothly... Kate might disagree?

 

 

TNL:

Well, as all good things bear an end, thank you for the interview. We all look forward to hearing from you soon and all of us at TNL wish you the best of luck.

 

KATE:

Thank you TEG, it’s been great talking to you, and thanks to everyone for all the support you have given us and Born of Hope, we can’t wait to show you the finished film on www.bornofhope.com