Once upon a time a group of online friends bantered about making Lord of the Rings - with themselves as the characters.
Matt, as Admin of the Forum, was to be a cruel despotic Saruman
Manu was Arwen
Carlo wanted to be Gimli the Dwarf
so did James, so they both did screen tests
James then decided to be Sean Bean 'Boromir/ Sharpe' crossover character.
Sharon wanted to be the Elf Queen Galadriel, so I mixed her face with Liv Tyler's.
Angel wanted to be shelob the spider or a scary Ringwraith in a gothic corset
Fab was Elrond, Arwen's brother
I was to be Gandalf
and maybe a warrior too, as it was my movie.
Anders was to be Aragorn
Jo was to be Frodo
Young Alex was a cave troll
BD was to be a cave troll too.
Sian was Eomer
Nigel was to be Gollum
Kim was a random elf, as was Einar
Mario was to be a nattily dressed Rohann warrior
And with this, various experiments making costumes and animating dragons and stuff.
As I say, it never quite got made, but it was fun and quite a good way to unwind for a couple of weeks
Another time we talked about making a Star Wars Movie with the characters from the Carry On Films, which also didn't get made, but discussing it was fun too.
A few of the people pictured here still post on Schola Forum, though most have moved on to wherever.
I enjoyed playing, and I learned a lot about photoshop and animation programs.
I took mugshots of people at sword events to use with the computer graphics, and enjoyed surprising people with what I then came up with.
It was also a pleasant leisure activity, in between the more important joys and challenges of life and love and relationships in real life.
I was glad at the time of my occasional 'social life in a box', that I could take off the shelf at odd moments. Now of course that time has long passed, as such things do.
