The theme for the third round of Shabu Showdown 2023 was “Spectacular Settings,” where editors were given one week to edit a video focusing on the scenery or setting of a source, rather than the plot or characters.
I immediately decided to use the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies, because of all the huge sweeping establishing shots in the films. The song was a lot harder to come up with, and I reached out for suggestions, and ended up getting the excellent song I ended up using from a link provided by VioletSkies.
I was also dealing with several real life things outside the event at the time, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish the whole song, so I edited a short version of the video that ended with the end of the first movie, just to have something to submit in case I ran out of time. I also decided once I started the second segment to focus just on Sam and Frodo’s path through the films for narrative simplicity, though that did mean giving up the initial inspiration shot for the video (the epic long helicopter shot of Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli running across the landscape in pursuit of the Orc army).
In the end, it came together much better than I initially thought it would, and was given the “Epic Fantasy” coordinator’s award at the end of the event.
Video – Lord of the Rings movie trilogy
Audio – Tommee Profitt x MILCK – BEYOND
Completed November 2023