I Need Your Help For the #HobbitChallenge!!

"The beacons are lit. Beth calls for aid."

I need your help. You saw the previous post where I told you about the #HobbitChallenge, and now the fan voting period has arrived and you can help me and my friends win it!!! It will only take a minute, and you have no idea how much it would mean to me. Like, literally. You'd completely make my day.

The short version: click on this link here and click the "vote" box below our video. Yes, that's literally all you have to do! No signup or anything required. :D It should come up with a "Thanks for voting!" screen -- if it doesn't, try searching for AnElvenPrincess and voting from that video. :) You can vote every day for the next five days, so if you really want to be amazing you can bookmark the page and vote every day!!

Now, the long version. ;)

The video at the bottom of this post is my and a few of my friends' recreation of the "Good Morning" scene from An Unexpected Journey for the contest that The Hobbit is hosting, the Hobbit Challenge.

The gist of the Hobbit Challenge: fans had the opportunity to make a video recreating one of 3 scenes from AUJ, DOS, and BOTFA (we chose this one because of how fun it is -- and I wasn't really up for taming a dragon or dealing with ringwraiths), and then upload it to Youtube with the hashtag #HobbitChallenge and submit it on the Hobbit website. Then the videos will go through a long judging process: the first round is fan voted, which will determine the top 30 videos in each eligible country. In the 2nd round, judges will select the top 10 of those videos. The 3rd round will narrow it down to 20 finalists, one from each country. And then, of course, one winner will be chosen from those 20. And the prizes??? Ooooohhhh boy. Each of the 20 finalists will win $1,500 worth of various Hobbit memorabilia, and the grand prize winner gets a 5 day trip to New Zealand. (I can't believe I can say "been there, done that" xD) So, yeah. Pretty amazingly awesome.
Of course, our odds of winning are pretty slim. But you better believe I'm not going to give up hope until we're eliminated from the contest! I love the Holman Christian Standard translation of Colossians 3:23 - "Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically, as something done for the Lord and not for men..." Ya'll, that's what I'm doing, or at least trying to do. God's going to get whatever glory I/we gain from this, whether that's just from people seeing our video on Youtube, or winning first place.

Whatever happens, I'm so glad we made this little vid because we had the absolute best time with it, and I hope you like the finished product. Now, go to this link and vote for us in the challenge and DON'T FORGET let me know that you did in the comments below so I can personally thank you!!! :D

A few last minute troubleshooting tips:

When you click "vote" a screen should come up saying "Thanks for voting!" If it doesn't, try searching for AnElvenPrincess and voting on the video that comes up there.

Also, I believe only U.S. residents will be able to vote on our video, so if the link doesn't work and searching AnElvenPrincess in the search box doesn't bring it up either, I'm thinking that would be the reason. :)

#HobbitChallenge Beginnings

This past weekend, a few friends and I got together to film a video. What kind of video? A very nerdy video. A video entry for the #HobbitChallenge!!! :D

In case you didn't know, The Hobbit is hosting a contest where the contestants have to film a recreation of one of three scenes: "Good Morning," from An Unexpected Journey, "Hide and Seek with Smaug" from The Desolation of Smaug, or "I Am Not Alone" from The Battle of the Five Armies.

About two weeks ago, when the scenes to choose from were released, Karis (who I've mentioned several times before on here, and who blogs over at The Horse Nextdoor) and I decided we should attempt the "Good Morning" scene, between Gandalf and Bilbo. We knew it would be so much fun, no matter how it turned out or how well we did in the competition.

And so we began the preproduction process for our little video. :D

First was brainstorming, along with casting. This part was easy -- Karis is short, so she gets to play Bilbo. I'm tall, so I'm Gandalf. End of story. ;)

With this in mind, we decided to really play up the "feminine" flip on the characters. For instance, Bilbo sips tea instead of smoking a pipe, and Gandalf doesn't have a beard and wears a skirt. Oh wait -- he already does that... "No! It's a tunic!" ;D

The brainstorming continued for our set location, props, film angles, etc., and we began putting together our costumes. No, neither of us made any part of the costumes (except some alterations I made to Gandalf's hat) since we had a deadline to meet (February 1st), but the costumes still turned out much better than I was expecting them too, which I was so happy about... considering costumes are one of my favorite things about movie making. :D

Next began the actual production, which took place on a cloudy Sunday after church. Karis and I recruited our friends Amber and Emily to be our "film crew," and so we all congregated at Karis' house for a 2 hour shoot. Before we could do any filming, however, Emily and I combined our efforts to curl Karis' very straight hair, set up our location for the scene, and prepped the cameras.

Which was actually rather amusing -- we had four cameras during the shoot. We used mine for filming, Amber's for production stills, Karis' DSLR for character shots and her little point-and-shoot for a behind-the-scenes vlog. (We didn't use the DSLR for the cinematography because it didn't have as good video settings as mine.) This multiple-camera setup was great, and totally made us feel all professional. Like, literally, the whole production of our video has been exactly like professional movie making -- just without moolah involved and on a super small scale. ;)

So, the shoot went quite well, and took about two or three hours. It was seriously cold, and windy, but thankfully the rain held off until we had wrapped, and then it started pouring (which was totally a God thing). Poor Karis was getting hypothermia, though, since she was wearing hobbit clothes fit for a warm, spring day. (I lucked out with all my costume layers!) Just goes to show how dedicated we were. Hah!

As for the scene itself... we got alot of great footage. We also got alot of not-so-great footage, like when Gandalf forgot what kind of morning it was, or when Karis' ponies came over to crash our party. (We're going to have a very long blooper reel.)

I hope you're getting the impression of how much fun we had with making this thing. ;)

Anyway, after filming, our little movie crew went through all the footage and pictures, which was just great. Lots of hilarity and some surprisingly good footage as well.

Now it is Wednesday, and we're in the final stages of postproduction as Karis edits the 2 minute clip. It'll be up on Youtube by tomorrow, and once it's there I'll be posting the link on my Facebook and Twitter pages. (Yes, those are both fairly new developments, and I hope you'll go and like/follow me! I love talking and interacting with you guys, and FB and twitter make that a bit easier. :))

Buuuut... in the meantime, enjoy this little "behind the scenes commentary" from Karis and I. :D

P.S. I promised you guys some more pictures from my battle Tauriel photo shoot, aaaand they *are* coming!! I've just got so many things I want to blog about, and no time. Hopefully within the week there will be a post featuring them -- it's in my drafts folder currently, just waiting for edited pictures. ;)

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

Well, the Battle of the Five Armies premiere was last night, and now the final Middle-earth chapter is complete.

It started with joy and ended in tears (and maybe a little laughter over Kili and Tauriel).

We set off from home, after a little hobbit feast that featured lembas bread, Smaug's gold, elven arrow fruit skewers, and BotFA-themed sugar cookies, homemade by my older sister Crystal and I that afternoon -- she was the baker and assistant-designer, and I was the designer and decorator. ;)

Sting, hobbit door, the Lonely Mountain, the One Ring, the eye of Sauron, and (my favorite) Smaug [the adorable]. ;D

One picture before we head off, in all our costumed glory. A ranger, elf of Rivendel, Arwen, battle Tauriel, a hobbit girl, movie Tauriel, and Gandalf the grey/white. ;)

We decided to stop by Walmart to get pics, be stared at, and kill some time. xD

Elves are very picky about their yogurt.

Gandalf wanders the aisles of wally world...

I explain, Amber dances, Crystal laughs...

"Cuties." (See what we did there? ;))

Gandalf and the elves show off their 3D-glasses swag.

But we elves can be very serious, too. ;)

Me and my 2 older sisters. ;) Funny thing as well: it features the costumes that I made for the 3 Hobbit films. Alissa, with much coaxing, donned my first Tauriel costume, Crystal wears Arwen's blood red dress, and, of course, I'm wearing my "battle Tauriel" design. ;)

And after a bit more goofing off, we were able to go get our seats in the theater, sit through 30 minutes of trailers (*eye roll*), and then watch the final Middle-earth movie of our time.

I'll just be honest -- I *sobbed* through the last 45 minutes; and you know a movie is good if it can make you cry that hard.

SPOILERS ahead, so if you haven't seen the movie yet, you'll want to skip the next 2 paragraphs...

While the beginning and middle and the "big battle" were wonderful and exciting and straight up awesome, the end is what really stands out. It was so beautiful and heartbreaking and everything it should have been. Peter Jackson did this final chapter of Middle-earth justice.

I felt Thorin and Kili's pain as they watched their brother and nephew brutally murdered before their very eyes. I cried with Tauriel as Kili lay dead in her arms. My heart hurt with Bilbo as Thorin spoke with him for the final time. I wept as Bilbo said farewell to the dwarves at the doors of Erebor. And when he journeyed back home to Bag-end, and as he began to "pick up the threads of an old life," I could feel the heaviness the adventure had laid on our dear Bilbo's heart.

And then "The Last Goodbye" played, and that was when I realized: it's over. We went "there and back again" with so many wonderful characters, and now it is time to bid Middle-earth a very fond farewell -- but really, it will always live on.

~          ~          ~

"To these memories I will hold.

With your blessing I will go,

To turn at last to paths that lead home.

And though where the road then takes me,

I cannot tell.

We came all this way,

But now comes the day

To bid you farewell."

My Trailer for The Battle of the Five Armies

So, last year I made a trailer for The Hobbit: the Desolation of Smaug about a month after the teaser trailer for that released (which ended up going on to get over 10,000 views on YouTube!!)

And because I absolutely adore doing things like that (making movies, digital editing, and such) I decided to do it again this year. But for The Hobbit: the Battle of the Five Armies. :D
While I absolutely adore the official trailer, I had several ideas of my own for a trailer for BOFTA... which I then made a reality over the course of about a week. The process included finding, downloading, and editing video clips, finding just the right music, and then, of course, editing it all together.

The music I used is called "An Unfinished Life" by Audiomachine, from their album "Tree of Life," and I edited the trailer using Windows Movie Maker (very high tech, I know. ;D)

(Microsoft recently updated Windows Movie Maker, and it works 900% better after the update. I couldn't used it last year for the DOS trailer I made, as it had a ton of glitches that kept ruining the video as I worked on it, but I decided to give it another try, and it worked like a dream! Super simple, but gets the job done quite well.)

With all that said, here's my trailer for The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. Hope you like it. I really liked making it. (:

Where My Cosplaying All Began - Arwen

Ok, it's about time I write this cosplay up. I've been meaning to do it ever since I started this blog almost a year ago. So, here it is.

My first ever cosplay project: an elven dress to be worn to the premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

It was the year 2012, and I had just gotten into The Lord of the Rings. About 6 months before An Unexpected Journey was to be released in theaters, I caught wind of the fact that Peter Jackson was turning The Hobbit into a movie -- 3 movies, in fact.

Playing Lord of the Rings music of course. ;)

At first, I was very skeptical. I wasn't sure whether this was a good idea, or if I would even want to see the movies. I hadn't even read The Hobbit yet, having heard from my older sister, Alissa, that it was just a prequel to LOTR and wasn't that great anyway. (Since then I have learned not to fully trust her judgement completely when it comes to movies and books -- we have very different tastes, needless to say. ;D)

And besides, I'd never been to a movie theater for a movie I was really looking forward to seeing -- and I could count the times I'd even been to a theater on one hand. It just wasn't something my family or friends were in to, so I just kinda went along with that.

However, after seeing the trailers and promotional material, and then finally reading the book and absolutely loving it (EXCEPT FOR THE ENDING), I became very excited to see An Unexpected Journey. VERY excited. ;D

And then eventually I came up with the idea of sewing a medieval dress, based on Arwen's "blood red" dress (from The Two Towers), and going to the midnight premiere of AUJ dressed up as an elf -- complete with the ears, of course. :D

Looking back, and even at the time, it was a rather hair-brained idea, really. I'd barely sewn anything in my entire life, let alone a medieval dress, complete with a corset back and pretty intense sleeves. However, I'm pretty crafty, and knew that if I really put my mind to it, I could do it. My older sister Alissa also offered her help if I got stuck (though she wasn't much more experienced than myself ;D).

I documented the "making of" the costume on notebook paper, drawing designs, jotting down measurements -- writing down all the developments pertaining to the cosplay's making, basically. :) And I'm so glad I did, 'cause now I have something more {than just the dress and pictures} to look back on -- especially since it was my first cosplay! ;)

So, after months of "work," I and several friends went to see An Unexpected Journey -- though not the midnight premiere. xD Due to scheduling, we ended up going to a matinee the day after it came out (Saturday) -- but we still dressed up! xD Yes, we got more than a few odd looks, as I recall. ;) We even walked through the mall in costume afterwards. It was so great. ;D

Oh, and of course, we all loved the movie. ^_^

The same peeps I went to see Desolation of Smaug with. :D (minus one) Yes, I know. The guy's wigs are hilarious xD

Then in February, for my 14th birthday, I had a LOTR themed party, and had all le friends dress up and do a little photoshoot, which is where I got most of the pictures you see here from. :)

So yes. My first cosplay was so much fun, and a great learning experience to be sure. Yes, there's alot of things I would change about the costume looking back now, but for my first cosplay it wasn't too terrible, right? ;)

And voila! That was the adventure of my first ever cosplay project, Arwen.

I feel so much better now that I finally got it posted... ;)

The Desolation of Smaug Midnight Premiere

THE NIGHT OF DECEMBER 12TH, 2013.

IT HAPPENED.

THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG.

In Walmart. xD

These are some pictures from the night at the theater, WHICH WAS SO MUCH FUN. :D :D :D There were quite a few other people dressed up, and the feeling of comradery was just great.

And the movie... STINKING AMAZING!!!!! SMAUG BEORN THRANDUIL TAURIEL LEGOLAS BARD LAKETOWN EREBOR MIRKWOOD DWARVES IN BARRELS EPIC FIGHTING TAURIEL/KILI/LOL AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH just everything pretty much. ^_^ So epic and awesome and AMAZING. :D :D :D I actually got to see it again yesterday!! EVEN BETTER the second time around!!! Ahhhhh just...wow. AND I CAN'T BELIEVE WE HAVE TO WAIT A YEAR NOW FOR THE FINAL MOVIE OMG!!!! O_O

SOOOOOOO peeps...what about you guys? Have you seen it yet??? Midnight premiere? Dressed up? Thoughts on the movie? Tell me in le comments! :)

30 Day Middle-earth Challenge

Suilad, friends and followers! :)

The sweet girls over at The Splendor Falls on Castle Walls and Lianne Taimenlore are hosting a blog challenge - entitled "30 Day Middle-earth Challenge." I've been wanting to do one of these for a while, and I figure now is the perfect time to do it!

The challenge begins November 1st - yes, tomorrow! I'm planning on doing it over on Pinterest, on this board: 30 Day Middle-earth Challenge. So make sure you follow it, and watch for a new pin every day until December!

Also, anyone and everyone is welcome to join in the fun! So check out this post for all the details on how you can do it too!

I'm so excited about this! See ya'll on Pinterest... ;)

UPDATE: How silly of me - I didn't even post the questions. xD Here they are!

FINAL UPDATE: I have officially completed the challenge, and didn't miss even one day! I had SO much fun doing it. If you're reading this now, you can still do the challenge! Just choose a month, and have at it! :)

 Follow Beth P.'s board 30 Day Middle-earth Challenge on Pinterest.

Tauriel of the Mirkwood Guard Sketch

Sooooo now that I'm done with the bodice, and I still need to find fabric for the dress, production on my Tauriel Cosplay has gone on hold.

(In relation to fabric, however, I did buy 3 yards of almost perfect fabric at a thrift store - for only 3 bucks! - BUT I keep staring at it, and the color is just off. It's more teal than I want. So, the search continues. :P)

But anyway, long story short, I got bored, and decided to attempt to draw Tauriel. ;) It's modeled mostly after Weta Workshop's mini-statue of her, with just a couple changes. I made it over the course of a couple days, drawing the majority of it one night, then adding to it the next few days.

So anyway, here she is. Hope you like it! ;)

A Lovely Hobbit Day

Hullo, friends!

As I'm sure many of you all know, Hobbit Day was yesterday, the 22nd of September. This is the birthday of Bilbo and Frodo Baggins - so I had to celebrate, right? Of course! :D

My Hobbit Day was simple - but still quite fun and very hobbit-y! ;) The celebrations centered around "good food, a warm hearth, and all the comforts of home."

So here's a little run-down of my Hobbit Day:

I read "The Hobbit" while listening to the soundtrack from the first Hobbit movie; wore my elf ears and my hobbit-hole door necklace; posted a "No admittance except on party business" sign on my door; and finished the day off by watching An Unexpected Journey with a friend!

All in all, it was a very happy Hobbit Day! What about you guys? Did anyone of you celebrate Hobbit Day? :)

PS - Some cool stuff concerning my Tauriel Cosplay has been happening around here recently... a new blog post all about it will be coming soon! :D

My Trailer for The Desolation of Smaug

Perhaps some of you guys are curious about what I was up to for the last weeks of my vacation. Well, I can show you! :D Actually, though, I didn't work on this the whole time. I made it over about three days. But regardless... ;)

So, basically, what you're watching is a fan-edited version (by yours truly! ;D) of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" trailer. The background music is the official DoS trailer music that Audio Machine composed, and the clips used are selections from the "Desolation of Smaug" trailer, the first and second "An Unexpected Journey" trailers, and from the movie, "An Unexpected Journey."

Alright, enough talking, right? Here's my version of the Desolation of Smaug trailer! I hope ya'll enjoy it!! :D