Phil Peel

Phew! I’ve finally completed the latest draft of my Jack the Ripper Screenplay.  I’d completed the script over a year ago, but it needed massive revision. …and I’d got completely stuck on it for a long time.  I had re-written the ending to make it more dramatic and ended up with Act 1 and 2 which didn’t mesh with Act 3.  I’ve attempted to solve it before, but just got stuck as it was so complicated.

So over many months I’ve tried a variety of computer programs to help me analyse it. Excel charts, Mind maps, Power Structure, Scrivener, Phil Gladwin’s Screenwriting Goldmine , Blake Snyder ‘s Beat Sheet. etc. etc. nothing worked.

So after a break of several months to give me some distance from the storyline, I eventually reverted to pencil and paper and it’s worked. The solution was to cut most of my favourite scenes. Now the storyline make sense!  But I now have to transfer the scribbles on over 100 script pages and type them back into the script.

I don’t know why this has annoyed me so much, but a few days ago I found out that a well loved local pub "The Hobbit" that has been the meeting place for a whole generation of Southampton students and young pubgoers, has been threatened by a Hollywood production company, the Saul Zaentz Company. So I’ve done some research.

For heavens sake. It’s been called The Hobbit for 20 years. It started about 1989, long before the film was a twinkle in Peter Jackson eye, and long before  CGI existed.

I sent the news out to a few friends, and liked a little Facebook protest page. but have been amazed that the news has been taken up first by the local newspaper, then local, national and international news and TV.  and the page now has 35,000 likes. So obviously others share my anger.

Even the Daily Mail has taken up the cause.   Ok.. Maybe it sometimes gets things right.

Apparently even  Tolkien’s son had problems with Hollywood.

In 2008 The Tolkien Trust, representing the interests of the family of Lord of the Rings author J.R. R. Tolkien threatened  to sue New Line Cinema in Los Angeles for £75 million, claiming that the Trust has not received "even one penny" from the highly successful (£3 billion-earning) trilogy of Lord of the Ring films. The film studio is accused of "insatiable greed" and of engaging in the "infamous practice of creative ‘Hollywood accounting’". Presumably as a means of negotiating an amicable settlement, the Trust was reportedly threatening to block production of the long-awaited prequel, The Hobbit.

The Tolkien Trust is hardly a money grabbing commercial enterprise. It has traditionally supported a wide spectrum of charitable causes and concerns throughout the world including: emergency and disaster relief, overseas aid and development, healthcare charities, environmental causes, education and the arts.

The case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum 

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In 2009 The Tolkien Trust (a UK registered charity), New Line Cinema, and HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.announced that they have resolved the lawsuit relating to the "Lord of the Rings" films.  The precise terms of the settlement are confidential.

Commenting on the settlement, Christopher Tolkien said: "The Trustees regret that legal action was necessary, but are glad that this dispute has been settled on satisfactory terms that will allow the Tolkien Trust properly to pursue its charitable objectives. The Trustees acknowledge that New Line may now proceed with its proposed films of ‘The Hobbit.’"

Warner Bros.’ President & Chief Operating Officer Alan Horn said: "We deeply value the contributions of the Tolkien novels to the success of our films and are pleased to have put this litigation behind us. We all look forward to a mutually productive and beneficial relationship in the future."

The "Lord of the Rings" films produced by New Line are among the most successful films ever created and were released in 2001, 2002 and 2003, respectively

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=58922

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Note Alan Horn’s comment "We deeply value the contributions of the Tolkien novels to the success of our films" …yes but not enough to actually pay for it until their next profit making film "The Hobbit is threatened

Incidentally  Tolkien believed he had invented the the word " Hobbit" when he began writing The Hobbit , but it was revealed years after his death that the word predated Tolkien’s usage, It appears in the Denham Tracts, edited by James Hardy, (London: Folklore Society, 1895), vol. 2, the second part of a two-volume set compiled from Denham’s publications between 1846 and 1859

The text contains a long list of sprites and bogies, based on an older list, the Discovery of Witchcraft, dated 1584, with many additions and a few repetitions. The term hobbit is listed in the context of boggleboes, bogies, redmen, portunes, grants, hobbits, hobgoblins, brown-men, cowies, dunnies

 In 2008 The Saul Zaentz Company registered  UK Trade Mark 2462911, THE HOBBIT, registered in Class 43 for
"services for providing food and drink; temporary accommodation, services for providing food and drink; temporary accommodations; bar services; cafés; cafeterias; tavern services; tea rooms; wine bars; tourist inns; resort hotels; retirement homes; pubs; hotels; motels; providing campground facilities; restaurants; rental of tents; rental of meeting rooms; serving food and drinks; providing facilities for concerts, convention fairs and exhibitions; boarding for animals; catering of food and drink; brew-pub services; child care; providing reviews of restaurants".

This registration (and its Community trade mark counterpart here) would seem to cover pubs trading as The Hobbit, apart from the minor matter of the pub having publicly used the name for 15 years before the registration (Just to make it clear I’m being ironic here in the use of minor) 

The Saul Zaentz company also own  Community Trade Mark E3759231, HOBBIT, registered for a large number of items in Classes 3 and 29  as well as the following products in Class 32:
"Beers; mineral and aerated waters and other non-alcoholic drinks; fruit drinks and fruit juices; syrups and other preparations for making beverages; aerated fruit juices, aerated water, ale, aloe vera drinks, beer, colas (soft drink), drinking water, flavored waters, fruit drinks, fruit flavored soft drinks, fruit juice concentrates, fruit juices, fruit-flavored drinks, isotonic drinks, lemonade, malt liquor (beer or ale); mineral water, non-alcoholic malt beverage, non-alcoholic beer, non-alcoholic cocktail mixes, non-alcoholic fruit extracts used in the preparation of beverages, non-alcoholized wines, quinine water, seltzer water, smoothies (beverages), soft drinks in carbonated, low calories and/or non-carbonated form; soft drinks flavored with tea, sports drinks, spring water, stout, sweet cider, tomato juice (beverage), vegetable juice (beverage)".  

This was filed on 23 December 2003, published on 26 September 2005 and registered on 8 June 2005,  but apparently if they haven’t actually used the Trade Mark, then an application  can be made for revocation based on five years’ non-use.

Maybe someone should make a film about little folk threatened by Big Corporation.  ..coming to a cinema near you. 

Thanks to the IPKat weblog   http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2012/03/giant-hobbit-threat-to-student-drinkers.html

There’s an interesting cut price zoom/focus lever come onto the market. But why would you want one?

One of the reasons for shooting with a HDSLR is the cinematic narrow depth of field, which replicates the look of a 35mm film camera. But control of the narrow depth of field on a feature film shoot has been the responsibility of the highly skilled and experienced focus puller, whose full time job is to keep the point of focus precisely on that part of the subject required at that moment of the scene.

A modern HDSLR can give us the narrow depth of field, but that more often than not results in out of focus shots. For example, a close up of face usually requires sharp focus on one eye. The depth of field may be so small, that the other will be likely be out of focus.

I remember going to a Canon 5D MkII workshop at a major International Film Festival. The room was packed as the young enthusiastic speaker demonstrated the camera and then showed us a short film he had made.  He had been hand holding the camera moving around the actress, as she performed her dramatic emotional confrontation in a foreboding ruined castle with the other actor.

The audience seemed duly impressed. But I was in the front row and could see that for 80% of the film,  it was out of focus as the actress was also swaying back and forward. Her shoulder was in focus, then her ear, occasionally an eye, but with no consistency.  I pointed this out, asking why he hadn’t used either a focus puller or a narrower F stop to enable a consistent focus.

“Oh,” he said,  “I didn’t need a focus puller. I had low powered  lighting, so I had to use maximum aperture.  The depth of field is amazing isn’t it!”       Hmm..

So how do we go about  keeping focus? Firstly a follow focus rig is a great help. ..and ideally an experienced follow focus operator with an external monitor to work by.

But this isn’t always possible and if you are working quickly it can be a real fiddle to mount a follow focus, so here is where the focus lever may be of use, or you have a zoom lens you could use the lever on the zoom and the follow focus ring on the focus.

I remember that I had zoom rods on my Bolex cameras.  Anyway I noticed these incredibly cheap strap on focus/zoom rods from the States.

They’re at www.lensstraps.com  and are about $10 or about £8 including postage to the UK (£10 for two)

Apparently their new design which has been just released March 2012 is releasable and reusable.

So I’ve ordered a couple and I’ll let you know how I get on with them