Philip Hartshorn Archives

Poster by Ginger Anne London

On Thursday evening, my brother and I sat in the clammy bedroom of his Latham, NY apartment and mulled over the final edits of Wings Over Arda: The First Age, which had in the last six months undergone an assiduous metamorphosis from a disconnected reel of raw footage to a coherent, colorful, mellifluous chunk of mostly-edited data. The sound effects had all been dropped in, the music had been finalized (as of the previous night), and the color grading had been completed after hours of sedentary work. The film was to have a private premiere (with invited guests, friends and family of the cast) in two days. Travel plans had been made by cast members and family in Manhattan, Boston and Rochester. 36 gigabytes worth of special effects, which would need compression to 1.5 or so, had yet to be delivered to us. Philip sat on the phone with Jack, our special effects expert and camera operator, uttering intermittent “Oh”s and “yeah”s as my chest did cartwheels. “There’s no way I’m rescheduling the premiere again,” I thought. It turned out Jack’s computer had taken longer than expected to export the effects. He came through, like I knew he would, but by the time the effects were done and the film exported in its entirety, we had about twelve hours to figure out how we were going to show it. The DVD-making process, for whatever reason, failed.

While getting dinner with cast members/musicians, less than two hours before the film was to premiere, I received a call from my brother, and there came the first time I’ve ever answered my cell phone in a restaurant. It was just like I’d imagined: the dismayed stares from the wait staff, the attempts of my companions to shield their faces, all of it. The call itself lasted roughly nine seconds. My brother had only one sentence for me, a sentence which came out as a single word: “GotthemovieworkingbutSeedwon’tworkgottafigureitoutseeya.” Seed is my brother’s short film, which was set to screen before Wings.

I arrived at the Key Auditorium with friends at my heels and half the cast already present. The congratulations began and I made sure my handshakes and hugs were firm, despite not knowing whether our planned double-feature would even be happening. When I finally entered the theatre, a still frame from Seed‘s Gung-Fu action finale was spread across the screen, and my brother worked away on his Mac computer, which he’d MacGuyver’d to the theatre’s projector system. Deep breaths were taken by all. Anna and Laura, who had come with me to dinner, took turns laying hands on my shoulders and insisting that I’d been worrying about nothing. The cartwheels inside wouldn’t stop, however, until the end credits rolled.

The initial response to the premiere-version of the film was what I’d hoped for. Nearly the entire cast was able to attend. Audience members who knew the source material expressed support of my adaptation, and those who had never even heard of it claimed they were able to follow the story with no trouble. My father even breached his usual 9PM bedtime to attend.

It wasn’t until midway through the laughter-coated cast party, during which we watched the behind-the-scenes featurettes I edited together, that I realized what this project really was. Amid my sadness about such a fun, thought-consuming project reaching its inevitable end, I forgot to look around the room. Once I did, I realized that more than half of the attendees, now some of my closest friends, had been strangers to me a year earlier. Working on this film did more for me (and hopefully others) than I ever anticipated. As I move into the DVD-burning process and flirt with the idea of film festivals, I can only hope the adventure will continue.

Thanks to DG for letting me host the film diary here.

Click here to see Tolkien Gateway’s article on the film

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After some grueling work, the film finally has a release date. There will be a premiere event at Siena College on February 26th, 2011, at 7PM. Screened before the film will be a short movie by my brother.

Without further ado, here’s the new, longer trailer, which includes some story bits. Don’t mind the parts that look a tad garbled; it’s what happens when you try to smush a widescreen HD film into the tiny Youtube box. Enjoy.

All music is original:

“Alamenë” – Jennifer Wicks

“Riverflow” – Dizzi Dulcimer

“Battle for the Silmaril” – Philip Hartshorn

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Stephanie Tribu-Cromme as Idril.

Today, we had our first “guinea pig” viewing of the film. Since my brother and I have been cooped up in the basement – er, editing studio – working on the film, we’ve begun to lose all sense of objectivity. A mutual friend not versed in the works of Tolkien nor the specifics of our film project took a look at the mostly-edited second cut of the film, which contains no music, and which still needs audio work, special effects and minor cutting.

Since the last entry, we’ve been gathering the final pieces of the puzzle and editing our second cut, which far surpasses the first in terms of coherence, sound and pacing. Our biggest struggles now involve audio, as most of the film was shot outdoors (wind! waterfalls! kids shouting!) and some of the already-difficult dialogue is hard to hear. In addition to editing, we’ve been working on the main musical themes of the film, and we’ve ordered the DVD packaging and sleeves. I also edited together a gag reel and a second behind-the-scenes featurette.

The DVD sleeve.

In writing the film, I made an early decision not to dumb down the dialogue. The characters speak as they would in their world. The details of the conflict and the goals of each character, however, are explicitly defined at the outset of the story and kept on top of the film’s list of priorities. Going into today’s viewing, I wanted to make sure the level of audience confusion was at a bare minimum, though part of the idea is that you’re thrown into the midst of a conflict. We start out playing catch-up with the characters, and an inherent sense of urgency remains throughout. Even when the characters attempt to slow down, the story does not allow them to.

The viewing was, I think, a success. Our subject enjoyed the film and was not confused about the conflict. “The locations were phenomenal,” he said upon my asking his favorite part of the film as a whole, “The costumes were amazing, and it was obvious a lot of time was put into everything. It didn’t look like something you just whipped up. It looked like a professional film.” He told me he had a hard time keeping up with character names, but if that was his biggest complaint, I’m happy. My brother mentioned not remembering anyone’s name the first time he saw The Lord of the Rings (having not read the books previously). Tolkien’s properly-named people and locations lend themselves more to text, but as long as you remember who they are in the story, we’ve succeeded.

—Richard Hartshorn

“Wings Over Arda” Facebook fan page

Tolkien Gateway article

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A trial poster by Ginger Anne London, featuring the WOA logo by Philip Hartshorn

Sometimes you see a big-budget Hollywood film and you notice something in the background that shouldn’t be there, or someone’s hand is in a different spot after a lightning-fast cut, or all of a sudden Steven Baldwin is wearing a different shirt. Y’know, the gargantuan flubs that don’t take anything away from the story but become brief distractions. I’m proud to say that after several eight, ten and thirteen-hour days of nearly nonstop editing, Wings Over Arda: The First Age does not have… many of those.

The rough cut of the film is finished. Clocking in at 63 minutes (not counting the closing credits), it’s a massive file which will be exported in HD (1080 P) for Blu-Ray discs, as well as standard definition for DVDs. Basement-bound for a week, my brother and I sifted through the various hours of footage, culling the most powerful takes from the ocean of decent, mediocre, and just plain bad. I applied my final script revision during the last two hours of edits, and we had to employ some serious editing magic to get certain scenes to look the way we desired. I ended up cutting one full scene I didn’t need, but other than that, every bit of work we put into the shooting period shows up in some way, shape or form in the film. Next, the film will go into fine-tuned edits, further audio work, and special effects, while others compose/prepare/donate the musical score.

Here’s a little taste of what other members of the cast and crew were up to, besides waiting patiently, whilst Philip and I sat in the basement with our muscles atrophying.

Ginger Anne London, who plays Glorfindel in the film, is proficient in Graphic Design and put together the little gem seen above, featuring the characters of Dior (Philip Hartshorn), Caranthir (Samuel Aguirre) and Voronwë (Jennifer Wicks). I like to call it “People With Hoods.”

Jen with the “Arda Buddies.”

Jen, our costume expert and one of the film’s leads, used the remainder of our costume materials to create the “Arda Buddies” (or “Arda Pals,” I’m not sure which I like better), plush dolls modeled after Jen and myself. Yes, there is a plush doll of me, and Wings Over Arda officially has, to use the parlance of our times, “swag.” I was rather surprised to wake up and see the below photo after naively thinking Jen was joking about making these.

Anna Pauline Kenzie

Music is being done by several talented folks. We’ve received musical contributions from the likes of Andrew Busone (my cousin, guitarist/singer/pianist/drummer extraordinaire); VCFA’s own Red Heart the Ticker; and even a few from musicians who saw our project’s fan page and expressed interest. The main theme/leitmotif of the film is currently being composed by the amazing Anna Pauline Kenzie, an operatic singer and stage actress who also appears in the film as Elwing. Additional tunes are being put together by my brother Philip, who plays the piano and excels at the Finale music program.

Everyone has been pretty well occupied over the past week, and in the spirit of the time of year, given a certain writer/director plenty to be thankful for.

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The following is the first teaser trailer for Wings Over Arda: The First Age, put together from the raw HD footage. Our aim was to focus on locations and faces without giving too much (well, anything, really) away. We started editing the film itself last night, and I think the result is going to be something very special.

Here’s a closer look at the film’s current logo, created by my brother, Philip.

The image includes, from left to right, Voronwë (Jennifer Wicks), Tuor (myself, looking a bit more devil may care than usual), Dior (Philip Hartshorn), Celegorm (Juan Carlos Tapia), Caranthir (Samuel Aguirre), and Curufin (Jonathan Duncan).

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