To Defend and Uphold

Over the past month or so, the leader of my kin in LotRO has produced a short movie about our kin, using game footage and a combination of music from the game and music by David Arkenstone. The video is called To Defend and Uphold and is available for download here. He put a lot of work into making this video, and I am super proud of him, because the end product is very well done. I am also proud to have worked alongside the group of wonderful people who participated in its making.

From the perspective of one the actresses in the film, I can say that it was pretty neat to be a part of such a process. Some shots in the film took scarcely more than a minute of screen time but took well over an hour to capture. There are many reasons for this. Sometimes we had to wait for the appropriate time of day in-game (because there is a day/night cycle in this game) in order to get the film sequence to look right, or to show a sense of time passing. Other times, some npc or other would wander into the middle of a scene, or add a line or two of his/her own. Another issue we had (that wasn't too difficult to work around) is that we couldn't always coordinate via voice because some players weren't equipped to do so, so it was a little tricky sometimes to cue actors in a timely fashion, so re-takes were sometimes necessary. Of course, there were also times where we had to choreograph several actions simultaneously, such as for the fight scenes. Sometimes also we had to redo things to fit all of us into the shot.

All in all, it was a pretty fun experience, working alongside my friends to help produce something high quality and entertaining to watch. For some scenes, we had passersby watching with amusement and/or curiosity, because a lot of what we were doing was role-playing rather than game-playing. There were several times when we'd be taking and re-taking shots, or standing around apparently idly (all in the same outfit), and once in a while, one of us would randomly move over, or reposition ourselves somehow, but behind the scenes, we were working out how to stand, who would say what when and how we'd be cuing people, and discussing various other ideas for how things ought to go. There were some very interesting role-play scenes going on (where some of our characters would be acting parts of non-Guardsmen), that we might do a few times over, in which case I think people could probably gather what we were doing. It was probably also interesting to watch as we'd be doing something in uniform and one guy without an outfit would be wandering around facing us, strafing side to side or some other peculiar action (that'd be our cameraman). Or we'd be acting out a scene over and over, each time with the cameraman standing in a different spot.

We had our fair share of outtakes too, which were hilarious for those involved. We may put on a serious front sometimes, but behind the scenes we are often fooling around and laughing. I had a lot of fun participating in this project, and I hope you enjoy the show!