This is a very full and exciting Newsletter. It's been a busy month…

"If you go down to the woods today..."

Ok well not today, last weekend because we were filming down in Epping Forest. Below are some exclusive (ungraded or colour corrected) screenshots from the shoot.

Another shoot is done and dusted! How did it come around so fast?

We had a great four days staying down at Debden House and confusing horse riders and dog walkers while shooting in the forest. We had a lot to film (about 6 pages of script introducing most of the main characters plus a large orc fight) in limited hours as the nights were drawing in plus on Sunday the weather turned on us, giving us torrential rain. We carried on regardless and despite most people being wet, muddy and a bit cold all day we got some fantastic footage (plus some bloopers) for the film.

We hope to be back down in Epping shooting on the 9th and from the 14th-16th November so if you're out walking your dog watch out for orcs...

New Trailer!!

It's finally here, sorry for the long wait but we wanted it to be right. A new 2008 teaser trailer is now on the website so take a look. The original music is by Toby & Cody McClure. This doesn't include the Epping shoot so it's mostly focusing on the love story from the footage taken in July. Now that we have some fantastic action from the Epping shoot I'm very tempted to make a new action trailer, but you may have to wait a little while for that. Well we need to keep you wanting more ;)

Born of Hope on IMDB

We are now on the Internet Movie Database (IMDB)! I had tried to get us on there for a long time and just when I basically gave up...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1301303/

Not all the info has been put up yet but this all adds to the professionalism of the project.

Ring*Con 2008!

Ring*Con 2008 was even better than last year! It was so nice to take Chris, Beth and Danny with me as official guests. We did two panels, chatted to fans at our display table and even found ourselves signing autographs! By the end of the weekend we had attracted the attention of some of the other guests and were chatting to and getting praise and support from the likes of Lee Arenberg (Pintel from Pirates of the Caribbean), Paul Norell (King of the Dead), Matt and Emily from Weta and Brad Dourif (Grima Wormtongue) to name a few! You will soon be able to read more details about Ring*Con on the Diary page but you'll have to bear with me as it's hard to keep it regularly up to date while arranging the filming too.

We could do with some more photos (this is pretty much it) so if you attended Ring*Con and took any photos of the Born of Hope team please email them to bornofhope@yahoo.co.uk and we might even pick some to put on the website. Thank you.

Elven longbows

We have received two wonderful unique elven longbows which have been made by Ned Millar of Crowshead Outfitters in the USA. These will be used by Elladan and Elrohir in the film. I am a little worried because they are proper powerful wooden bows that are likely to break if we try to dry fire them repeatedly Legolas style. Oh well I'll worry about that one later...

Norton Armouries

Another fantastic sponsor to join the team is Jon Peck the owner of Norton Armouries. I contacted Norton on the 1st October on a 'well you never know' type basis and Jon emailed me back saying he might well be interested. I went all the way to Gloucester on 14th October (almost 6 hour round trip) to meet Jon and see the workshop and all the wonderful things the team creates and he said he would see what he could do. It wasn't until about midnight on Friday 24th in the middle of the shoot the night before the orc fights were meant to happen when he turned up with a car load of stuff that we really knew what we had to play with. It was like Christmas, they loaned us five full Moria orc sets (made since my visit) and various other chest plates and helmets. It made such a difference!

Elven Harps

The joy of this project is that I get to show off the talents of so many people in a way that benefits us both. One such example is that I was contacted on the 10th Oct by Norbert Maier a professional harpmaker from Austria. Norbert is now making us a harp for Born of Hope which you should end up seeing in Rivendell…oops Spoiler….did I say Rivendell? ;D

www.elvenkings-harp.at

The joy of British customs

We have four orc swords which have been stuck in customs for over a month now! It's so annoying. We really need them for the shoot at the end of November so if anyone works in British Customs please tell them to get a move on, they are props, I don't plan to hack someone's head off with them.

Ok I'd better stop there or I'll never get the next shoot organised. As I say I will update the Diary page as soon as I can.

Best wishes everyone.

Kate Madison

Actor/Director/Producer