I discovered the Lord of The Rings Trilogy audiobook by Phil Dragash when I was looking to brush up on my rather tardy lack of literacy. I completed the full 48 hour production thinking that it was an official production from either Wingnut Films or Park Road Post and was an official licensed product from The Tolkien Estate, Harper Collins or New Line Cinema. I was amazed when I found out that this was a labour of lab created by just one amazing artist:
Phil had spent three years completing The Lord of The Rings Audiobook by himself. He calls his audiobooks, ‘Full Production Audiobooks’ because they are indeed, incredibly full productions, including: The Full score from Howard Shore, incredible sound design and sound effects that Phil had created himself, character performances drawing on those established by the actors in Peter Jackson's Lord the rings, but again, all performed and sound engineered by Phil himself — the acoustic environments and foley that Phil created and continues to create in his new Jungle Book production (coming soon), are the best that I have ever come across, in any audio storytelling medium.
Here's one of my favorite chapters as a taster:
I managed to get in touch with Phil by writing my praises to him on Twitter and offered to help him in any way I could suggesting that we write to the license holders of the trilogy and try and get this audiobook licensed for sale to support The Tolkien Estate, The Franchise whose work is used, this new art-form and Phil! We created a company, Roote and Twigg Ltd, and made a pitch booklet for Mark Ordesky, one of the executive producers of the New Line Cinema, Lord of The Rings films.
After some months where we heard nothing back from any of the routes to Mr. Ordesky, Wingnut any of the other people involved in the production of the films we reached out to, so we decided that we would let Phils work be a showcase of what is possible and instead focus on producing inspiring stories that are in the public domain.
We chose to do the Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling which was written well over 100 years ago and is therefore in the public domain. Phil has spent the last couple of years working on the short stories that for both the first and second Jungle Book and those will be available for sale soon!
In the meantime the SoundCloud channel that I created for Phil so that people could stream the Lord of the rings full production audiobook is getting over 30,000 lessons a month. We are very much looking forward to the release of Phil's first of the stories from the jungle books and hope they connect audiences to the wonder of nature and fellowship with her values in the same way as Tolkien with his master works.
The Weekend will begin with a screening of Riverwoods (click the poster to see the trailer) in The Vicar's Hall at Chichester Cathedral with a presentation from the film maker Peter Cairns from Scotland Big Picture all about their incredibly inspiring ecosystem restoration projects in Scotand. Proceeds are being donated to the project's charity which is currently raising funds to reforest The Dark Isle in Invernessshire. The film details how their restoration projects have a massive positive effect on the environment and local communities in scotland and how these inspiring restoration models can be applied anywhere...
We will then head back to Green Camp Ellanore to our eco-domes, cosy around the fire by the sea to spend the rest of the weekend wrapping on about these solutions with a program of Yin Yoga, meditation, healthy vegan food, music and other nature based activities led by the amazing Alex Rogers and the rest of The Green Team. Our focus is on being inspired and supported by positive and working nature based solutions and their people and restoring our own mental and physical health.
This feature length Documentary has been a labour of love by Otto and Ludo Brockway for the last 8 or so years. Narrated by our Kate Winslet, the film explores the most important, effective and accessible solutions of our time. We look forwards to exploring this with you, the producer of E2E Mark Galvin and some of the E2E team! We are also grouping the leading functional medical and nutritional scientists on the island, some of our absollute favorite artists, herbalists, nature protectors and healers. To book for just the screening and not the whole Yin Yoga retreat click here.
Tawai is a word the nomadic hunter gatherers of Borneo use to describe the connection they feel to their forest home. In this dreamy, philosophical and sociological look at life: Bruce Parry (of the BBC's Tribe, Amazon & Arctic) embarks on an immersive odyssey to explore the different ways that humans relate to nature and how this influences the way we create our societies. From the forests of the Amazon and Borneo to the River Ganges and Isle of Skye, Tawai is a quest for reconnection, providing a powerful voice from the heart of the forest itself. Bruce will be present for a Q&A after the film and will be at Green Camp Ellanore all weekend for the forest gardening, meditation, music and other options that weekend. See create.green/screen for more info.
GREEN TEAM
The Green Campus Journal chronicles the latest journal entries from all green team members. Look out for the monthly Green News Show for an in-depth update about what's been going on!
For more articles see the full jounal page
Here I tell the story of the people and processes that won the final debate of the 200th aniversary of The Oxford Union on the motion: This House Would Go Vegan. The effort was intended to shine a light on the arguments of Dr. Sailesh Rao and Gerard Wedderburn-Bisshop that insist we must include the Carbon opportunity Cost of deforestation, the carbon that can not be sequestered by forests that are cut down, in the IPCC and therefore national carbon accounting conventions. Including COC in Carbon accounting conventions shows that livestock is responsible for 87% of Global Temperature Change Potential and focusing on fossil fuels is actually speeding up climate change. The event allowed us to meet researchers at Oxford who argue for and against the position and yet we continue our work to find written arguments against the position which was won on the day. We are very Grateful to The Oxford Union for supporting this event and allowing us to use it to shine a light into this all important place. The story follows:
For more articles see the full journal page
Provide for your needs and comforts in ways that are of benefit to you and every other being: or at least do their best to cause as little harm as possible.