It has emerged that a Lord of the Rings fan has spent all her life savings to film a prequel to the blockbuster trilogy. Kate Madison, 31, filmed, produced and starred in her hour-long film, Born of Hope, which took six years to make with a volunteer cast and crew of more than 400.
She spent 8,000 pounds on the project and raised 17,000 pounds by posting a trailer on YouTube. The final cut has been viewed by more than half a million people since it was launched online in December, and now Madison is hoping to pitch it to Hollywood distributors.
The film was shot in Epping Forest, Essex, and West Stow, Suffolk, and the cast and crew camped in tents on set to keeps costs down. The amateur actress, from Cambridge, who plays the forest ranger Elgarain, described the project as a labour of love.
She said that she was inspired by two paragraphs written by J.R.R. Tolkien in the appendices of the original The Lord of the Rings book. “I invested my own money after the Lord of the Rings films blew my mind. I was desperate to have a go at making an epic myself,” Times Online quoted her as saying.
“As we went along, the project snowballed and there were moments when I wondered what the hell I was doing. But now it’s all done it’s an amazing feeling.
{{/usCountry}}“As we went along, the project snowballed and there were moments when I wondered what the hell I was doing. But now it’s all done it’s an amazing feeling.
{{/usCountry}}“We have created a film on a tiny budget which comes complete with battle scenes, orcs and even a giant hill troll,” she added.