JRR Tolkien, while grateful for the monetary success of his books, seemed to be rather embarrassed by it all. He joked about his "ill gotten gains." Fortunately, it was not profit motive that sparked his creation, but a desire to share his vision with anyone who would listen (or read).

There is a group in Great Britain called Rickety Shack Films that has a similar desire. It is led by Chris Bouchard, who wants to share his own unique vision based on Tolkien's Middle-earth with the not-for-profit movie The Hunt for Gollum. (Check out Hunt4Gollum.com for more about the film.) I have had the privilege of corresponding with Chris by e-mail, and he has been gracious enough to answer and provide some press images, which are being used on this page.

In my first contact with the Director of the film, I asked about the copyright ramifications of this project. In a follow-up e-mail, I asked some more detailed questions about the movie project itself.

I was wondering if you would be able to answer a few question and give me permission to report on this at HollywoodJesus.com. I am most curious about the copyright issues. You may be aware that Christopher Tolkien tried to block the making of the Hobbit films. Has the Tolkien Estate been in contact with you about The Hunt for Gollum? If so, what has been the result? Also, I note that the Lord of the Rings titling you use in the trailers looks very similar to that used by New Line. Do you have permission to use their logo? Has Warner Brothers been in contact with you about any copyright issues?

No, we haven't heard from The Tolkien Estate. I doubt they [would] feel threatened by a little fan project like this. I hope not anyway. After all, it's being made purely for the love of and in tribute to the material. But it is a possibility. I'll let you know if we do hear anything.

About copyright. We are being careful here to respect the copyright of original material (where possible considering we are paying tribute to those films). To do this we are making our own original music, and the logos/fonts used are actually the "Ringbearer" original fonts which we have permission to use from the author. They are used on many LOTR fan sites around the world.

At the end of the day I see it like this; we're just a bunch of fans practicing our filmmaking skills and putting the results online. A lot of Star Wars fan films have been made without problems, and we're friends with another UK project called Born Of Hope which has approval from lead members of Weta Workshop. Their website: www.bornofhope.com. It would be a shame if the powers that be object to what we're doing but I guess we'll jump that hurdle if it comes up!

1. What made you decide that this was a story that needed to be told on film? I've been in love with Tolkien's books and Peter Jackson's films and I really was looking for a bit of Middle-earth that would be suitable to bring to life in a short film—something feasible on a low budget! Aragorn & Gandalf's hunt for Gollum seemed to fit the bill—a short chapter mentioned in the books but not fully explored, leaving room for me to develop this story with my own vision of Tolkien's magical world. Gandalf and Aragorn were my favourite characters from the books, and Gollum was a wonderful caricature in the films so it was very exciting to have an excuse to write dialogue for them and bring them back to life on screen.

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