Watch This Now: Thanks for talking to us. What’s your background?

Daniel Loyd: I'm a freelance producer, director, and editor for the film biz. I've been in LA about 10 years, and have chucked around a variety of productions from studio promo work to dvd documentaries, commercials, etc. Most recently I worked at G4 Television as co-lead editor for ‘Attack of the Show,’ which is where I met the writers of the LOTR ‘swede’ and most of the actors as well.

WTN: There was definitely that professional touch to it. Tell me how the video came about?

DL: :-) thank you! Yeah, just about everyone in the film works in film or TV, and the writers are seasoned skit writers for G4. The video came about because we'd seen the adverts for the 'Be Kind Rewind’ movie (being film nuts, we love M. Gondry), and we heard that they were encouraging people to make their own 'swedes'. We'd even heard about competitions being put together about it. All of us love doing the comedy, and we felt this could be a fun way to do something outside of our everyday grinds. And, yes, since we do work in the industry, it if came out well, it would (hopefully) act as a calling card for some of us. Since the adverts were talking about doing it short and cheap, we decided to set limits on ourselves for the production: we'd only shoot DV for that 'look', and use common objects that we'd owned or could make for props and costumes. That way we could still 'use' our experience, but in a way that achieves the homemade style. I was adamant about this because I believe that whenever you deliberate.

DL: Deliberately try to look 'bad', it ends up BEING 'bad'. Just set limits and work within that.

WTN: So why Lord of the Rings? What other movies were you guys considering?

DL: LOTR, Texas Chainsaw, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. We thought if we stayed close to a new line film, they wouldn't get pissy if we used their music (‘Be Kind’ being a New Line film). Also, we're all big geeks and LOTR was pretty close to our hearts. (I'm one of 'those' guys concerning LOTR. I told my future wife she had to read it if we we're going to continue dating, and I was the guy after the movies who would give 20min too verbose answers to anyone with questions. Hey, I actually READ the Silmarillion!). Actually, while the YouTube response has been amazing, one of my personal smiles have been the good responses we've gotten from theonering.net and the LOTR community. THOSE guys are hard to please! :-)

WTN: What has the response been? And how did you guys feel about ending up on the actual bekindrewind/youtube.html web site next to jack black's “Swedes?”

DL: The response has been amazing. We're all very happy and humbled.
DL: Wait aminute
DL: We're on the bekindmovie site?

WTN: http://www.bekindmovie.com/youtube.html
WTN: bottom right

DL: ..
DL: HOLY #@%!
DL: :-)
DL: :-)
DL: :-)
DL: :-)

WTN: haha

DL: Oh wow. That's awesome!

WTN: Thanks, I was going to say the smileys would be difficult to translate in a news article.

DL: Ha yes. The joys of emoting through text.
DL: ;-)
DL: I need to get them a DVD, the compression could be better!

DL: As I was saying, we're happy and humbled. The numbers on YouTube have been pretty good. The best thing has been the comments and the ratings. I think we're 4 1/2 stars across the board and a lot of people have been clamoring for us to do the other two films.
DL: So the response has been great. You're talking to us, the film got name dropped in the guardian.co.uk, and I've gotten e-mails from people in the UK and Philippines about the work.

WTN: Is there anything you can tell me about the filming process?

DL: In the writing stage, we obsessed over getting the script small enough! Our original draft was over 15 pages long and had a lot of scenes we wanted to do, but cut for time and feasibility (we lost Galadriel and the mirror, sad). Originally the cave troll and Balrog were two separate scenes, but we combined them into one creature for time and actually liked the ridiculous result better. At one point the horse riding with Aragorn, Frodo and a Nazgul was cut for time, but the writers argued it back in and I'm so glad they did. The pre-production was about 3 weeks long. Writing, props, locations, etc - all done outside of our day jobs. I scouted Bronson Canyon in LA (which is where the bat cave from the 60s tv show was, yep 'Moria' is the back of the bat cave), and my friend’s house in the valley for the rest.
DL: (I'm going to give you a play by play) ;-)
DL: Spent time in Halloween stores for makeup and props, and the roommate of Leffler (writer/Samwise/Saruman) was acting as art dept. He did the final work on costumes, swords and such. Went downtown to the fashion district for fabric to cover the walls and got everything together the Friday before shooting. We shot the entire thing in two 10 hours days - something as a director/producer I'm EXTREMELY proud of. And shooting had its share of adversity...
DL: (You're gonna love this). We show up at Bronson canyon, Saturday 7 a.m. to shoot, and there's ANOTHER film crew already there! They're from the New York film academy (school here in town), they're...shooting....a ....take off....on....Lord of the Rings...featuring a Gollum character....in the caves..
DL: Completely not associated with the “Be Kind” thing. It's a senior thesis for the director.
DL: They have a makeup crew, and are putting prosthetics on this poor guy to be Gollum, while we're all pulling air conditioning ducts and 30$ washing machines out of our cars...
WTN: That's hilarious!

DL: The best/worst part was that they had a permit. We did not. So, being nice, they said we had until 9 a.m. to shoot everything before the official monitor comes....
DL: So we run up to the mines, shoot inside, shoot the exterior with the watcher/washing machine, and as Gimli is hitting the tentacle with an ax, the monitor comes waltzing through the cave and shuts us down. (You can hear him yelling at us in the original cam/audio).

WTN: Hah, very nice.

DL: We're very nice and apologetic and get everything out of there. Only now, our location is shot! So the writers remember another canyon they shot at once in the palisades. We company move there in an hour and setup by this off road track. I run out and check each clearing with my Assistant Director and basically quickly redo the shots and locations. "This would work for here...this would work for here.., etc", and we shot the rest of our exteriors in that canyon and fast as we could. For Moria, since we we're interrupted, the final edit has scenes from one location, shots from another, and the shot of the mine opening itself is from my canon digital camera - taken when I scouted it a week prior!

DL: The people at the new location were a lot nicer. We had mountain bikers waving at us as we waved our swords at each other...
DL: Sunday was all in my friend’s house and it went very smoothly. I credit my Assistant Director for keeping everything running smoothly, as they would have each shot setup while I was talking with the actors or going over shots. There ended up being a lot of improv both in dialogue and in camera, but I'm glad it worked out in the end. As an editor, I breathed a huge sigh of relief when we finished the first cut and it all cut together! (I didn't shoot a lot of coverage).

WTN: Quick questions: what is Gandalf spinning on? How many takes did it take to get the “fly you fools” just right? Whose laundry machine? How much did it cost and how many people total involved?

DL: Gandalf is spinning on a standard furniture dolly that we found in the garage. Brad and Derek 'spun' him right as we said 'action' (think you can see Brad's arm in it). 4 takes, got it right. Oh, it's the same dolly that Saruman 'surfs' on in the preceding shots. “Fly you fools” was....I think just 2 or three. Mainly for the camera movement (I was doing a walking dolly). Gandalf was pretty much 'on' the entire time, so his performance was easy. Another reason why we did LOTR, we all knew it! We also said that more than 3 takes would be wrong for the tone/time we had. The laundry machine we got off of Craigslist for 30$. It works, or so he told me. I have no idea what he did with it afterwards.... The total cost, I'm not quite sure of it. It was not crazy expensive, but definitely more than a couple hundred bucks. Total people..11, including me.
DL: (I edited and did audio, but didn't credit)

WTN: So stepping back a bit, what compelled 11 of you guys to give up your free time for all this? (There's that G4 connection, so why did you guys focus on something for online only, when you could've, I'm assuming, pitched it to G4?)

DL: Fun. And yes, career wise too, but mainly for fun. G4 would've wanted it 60 seconds long, and would rightfully never had let us use the original music (and trust me, that music goes a LONG way in helping the flow). Working outside let us do what we wanted, which after you work in TV for a while, you REALLY want the chance to do something creative OUTSIDE of a committee. I'd been an editor for 10 years and I wanted to step into directing/producing, and this seemed like a great way to do it. A few friends and I are trying to put a company together to go after viral videos, commercial directing, marketing vids and music videos. This film is a good example of what we could do for a paying customer who wants a 'viral video' online. Hopefully I can call everyone back who donated their time to this project and actually hire them in the future!
DL: It's already gotten us some 'wow, i didn't know you guys could do that.' type things. So, fingers crossed!

WTN: I've talked to a “sweding” contest organizer, and he tells me the draw is anticipating a huge scene in a movie, and wondering how the low-budget re-creators are going to pull it off. What was that like for your crew? Was there any debate about the Gandalf/Sarumon fight? The Balrog scene?

DL: Oh yes! That was the fun challenge in many ways "How the heck are we going to do that?!" and then finding a way to do it. If we all cracked up, then we knew we had it. For example, the original idea for the Balrog was to use an action figure of an actual Balrog and set it on fire, then use action figures of Gandalf/Balrog falling. That was nixed because we couldn't find a Balrog cheaply ($200 for that thing!) and production time (we really had only 1 weekend to do it. Families, etc). Action figures were also going to be used for the 'helicopter' shots from the real LOTR where the party is moving through various locations. Crystal cat litter for snow, etc. I actually have two figures I need to take back to target for the refund! The arrows killing Boromir were PVC tubing, spray-painted black, strung on fishing line. One side attached to a stick, the other to safety pins on the inner shirt of Boromir. We all stood outside of frame and threw the arrows down the lines one after the other (multiple takes there.) It was hilarious to see some of them bounce.
DL: The Gandalf/Boromir fight scene was actually figured out on set there.

DL: When we found the dolly, we knew we could spin'em. ;-)

WTN: What do you think about this new term 'sweding' and the YouTube culture?

DL: Lol. 'Sweding' is wholly invented by the movie. The real test will be if the film, and the term, survives its initial run and becomes THE term for fan remakes of films. If 'Be Kind' becomes a cult film, then I can see it continuing - which would be really neat. If it doesn't? Well, we'll all have had our time in the sun.
DL: As for YouTube, I was pretty new to it from the contributor side, having 'joined' because of this film (of course I'd watched countless YT vids before...just not a 'registered user'). Since then, I think it's really neat. I've gotten a lot of subscribers to my channel, and between that and the response, I'm pretty fired up to find something else to do and post to the site. In THAT way, I see YT as a great new paradigm. Anyone can post a vid, and the community encourages you to do so. It's like one big happy support group that wants you to keep creating and see what you did. Of course you get instant feedback, and that helps you too. I think it's great that people can express themselves, and/or learn filmmaking by trial and error through the site. Coming at it as a 30+ person, I'm a little old I guess to be 'addicted' as some kids are, but I see the joy, and I can't wait to put something new up there.
DL: It’s SOO much better than it was back when I was in film school, where anything you did was cursed to the back drawer of your desk, only brought out at parties. Now, you make, and by tomorrow, the whole world can see.

WTN: So, to clarify, she success of the term 'swede' depends on the success of the movie?

DL: I think a large part of it, sure. If the movie comes out and everyone thinks it's stupid, then no one would want to be associated with it. But I think, from what I've seen, that it will be good, and that the kind of people who make ‘swedes’ will enjoy it. (Come on! All of us played 'Ghostbusters' in the backyard when we were kids. They get to do it for real!!! That's fantasy wish fulfillment if I ever saw it.). If that happens, then people will be proud to be associated with it, and 'swede' will take a place next to 'spoof, satire, and parody'. Hopefully with the same legal protections!!

WTN: And what about the act that 'sweding' attempts to label?

DL: Yeah. I guess 'swede', as it's used is ...ahem… "The act of satirizing or parodying a commercial media production", though on the ‘Be Kind” site, I think M. Gondry says it's 'remaking something you love (anything, not just films), and adding in parts of yourself. Resulting with a wholly new object that reflects the original inspiration and your own interpretation' or something like that... It's like a cover song on the radio. You take the original song, yet you make it your own. This is the same thing. We're covering movies.

WTN: and what's great about a cover song?

DL: Well, the original song is something that connected with you. Something you grew up with, or provided a soundtrack for important times of your life. In many ways, the music we listen to, the media we see, it all helps shape us as we grow. By covering it, you're giving back to that feeling. Saying 'you were there when I was young, and now this is my thank you note'. It also helps express to others why the original is so important, while updating it for now and showing yourself through it.