I had some trouble coming up with an idea for this movie, and I don’t think I can adequately articulate an “a-ha!” moment. Focusing on Tolkien’s work seemed a natural for me; I’ve read LOTR probably 30 times or more, and my engagement with that particular text has had a lot to do with my choices to enter and remain in English education. I sat down late one night a couple weeks ago and pounded out a script, which tends to be my best practice for these (I know others–many of my students–find success starting with images). The script Kevin reprinted above underwent some editing before it was finished, and I suspect that the overall movie could use even more tightening up. I was very conscious of trying to keep it down to just a few minutes, but found that difficult. I’d actually like to expand it back somewhat to give a little more examples of how my own thinking has been influenced by Tolkien, but that’s another story for another day.

I had fun gathering and putting together images for the movie, too. Many were simply culled from websites (so probably not the best example in terms of being a good documentarian), while a few came from digging through closets. I especially like my yearbook photo, with myself identified through 10-year-old eyes as “me.” It was great, too, to look at my old, battered copies of the books from the 70s; I never read any other edition until the movie tie-in books came out. It was actually quite difficult not to simply start reading again, too.

I had played with talking a little about the images that close the movie, too, as they are created in a way that seems interesting and ties in with my project’s theme. The last image, of the pond and bridge, was taken by Wil Wheaton (yes, Wesley from Star Trek: The Next Generation–he’s a terrific blogger), and it’s in the Huntington Library grounds in Pasadena. The image just before that, which looks like a miniature of the scene, is actually a product of a Photoshop technique mimicking the effects of tilt-shift photography. So the “miniature” is actually the same picture, just put through some technological whiz-bangery. I thought that the effect was similar to the idea I was trying to engage–that the reality and fantasy schism is a construct, and fantasy only works because it’s so, well, real. Anyway, it’s my favorite image in the movie, as it gently dissolves from “fake” to “real” at the close of things.