Today is Hobbit Day. Once again, we commemorate the birthday of our favorite hobbits, Bilbo and Frodo. Well, ok, some of our favorite hobbits, since we kinda love them all. Anyway, for this year's audio project, I have decided to go beyond narration of one of Tolkien's pieces of poetry from the world of Middle-earth, and instead dramatize a scene from the books.
In order to pull it off at least somewhat well, I had to select a scene that was not too complex and didn't have many characters. I also wanted it to be a passage that had some of my favorite lines, and since it was for Hobbit Day, it needed to have a hobbit in it! And I didn't want it to be too spoilery for anyone who has not read the books yet. As I am currently re-reading The Fellowship of the Ring, I decided on an early scene between Gandalf and Frodo from Chapter 2, The Shadow of the Past.
Now, I have not mastered any British accents, but I did my best to give voice to these two characters. And for those familiar with the films, I did not attempt to do an impression of the actors who portrayed them for that version. I simply approached the characters the way I would any other role as a voice actor: by doing my own interpretation of them based on what we know from the text.
So here is a dramatized excerpt from Book 1 of The Lord of the Rings:
I hope you enjoyed this project. I love this scene as Gandalf is sort of explaining the situation to Frodo, while at the same time, providing context for the reader. There are some really great lines in this passage. Tolkien drops in some beautiful foreshadowing here, and I love the thread about "pity" that runs through the whole section. But I think my favorite line in this whole chapter is when Gandalf says, "Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement." Such great writing by this master wordsmith.
You can find my other Tolkien audio projects by clicking here.
Credits:
"The Shadow of the Past," an excerpt from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien, was adapted, performed, and produced by J.D. Sutter. Jonathan Cooke performed the Ring Verse.
Cover art image created by "erik_stein" and is used under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Music:
"Lifting the Veil" by ELVGames & PEGGU-SENSEI, courtesy Fanatical
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| I was playing with Google Meet filters several months back and came across this one. I thought it was funny since one of my podcast clients calls me the "Gandalf of sound design." It seemed appropriate to share it in this post! |
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| My copy of The Fellowship of the Ring |
Random Stats:
Script adaptation - 2 hours
Recording the characters and credits - .5 hours
Audio editing, sound design, and mixing - 9.75 hours
Coverart design - .5 hours
Writing this blog post - .75 hours
Total time to produce this project - 13.5 hours
Thanks for listening and reading this post! Please share it, comment your thoughts below, and drop me a buck or two if you enjoyed it!
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